The allegations against L.B., made by an anonymous caller at 4:45 a.m. that day, were false. These included that she was a stripper (she worked at a home for people with disabilities); that she used drugs (none were found, and a drug test was negative for all substances); and that an abusive man lived with her and that she owned “machine guns” (after an exhaustive search and interrogation, both claims were deemed baseless).
In fact, L.B. has never been found to have committed any type of child maltreatment, ACS and court records show.
Yet the anonymous caller, whom L.B. believes to be a former acquaintance with a grudge, has continued to dial in to New York’s state child welfare hotline. Each time, this person or possibly people make outlandish, often already-disproven claims about her, seeming to know that doing so will automatically trigger a government intrusion into her domestic life.
And ACS obliges: Over the past three years, the agency either has inspected her home or examined and questioned her son at school more than two dozen times. Caseworkers have sought a warrant for only three of these searches, most recently in August. All of those requests have been rejected by judges, according to court records.
It’s offensive to exaggerate like this, even just implied. Clearly they need to have some policy against harassment like this.
But when you’re considering this, acknowledge that it’s important for case workers to do things like inspecting the kids’ back and thighs for bruises. It’s important for case workers to be able to follow up on cases where they haven’t initially proven abuse.
The article says, “The agency finds a safety situation requiring removal of a child from a home in only 4% of these cases.” Only?!? You do realize how reluctant they are to remove kids. If they’re actually removing kids in 4% of cases, there’s gotta be significant abuse in at least 12% of cases, likely more.
CPS does an incredibly rough, difficult, and important job. The hate they get for it is insane. Rarely are things black and white. Just like you shouldn’t hate them blindly (or at all), you also shouldn’t support them unconditionally.
They have issues that need fixed, apparently in New York at least. We don’t need excessive hate and hyperbole to get that done.
Do you have data to back this?
I’d go the other way on that one. “Contempt of caseworker” is a leading cause of removal action. I’d guess legitimate cases of significant abuse and neglect are probably closer to 1%.