> Some among the medical staff and social workers involved in the case thought that Jenn reacted strangely to the discovery of her children’s injuries. She didn’t show emotion or seem bothered. Her affect was “flat,” according to the D.S.S. report. The hospital’s abuse specialist concluded that the baby girl’s fractures were “diagnostic of physical abuse” and that the bruises were “inflicted.” D.S.S. concluded the boy’s injuries were also the result of abuse. A factor in this determination was that Robbie and Jenn did not have “a plausible explanation” for the injuries. “We had no idea,” Robbie told me later.
What’s perverse is that the state can take your kids away without a trial and on the basis of evidence this flimsy, and the expectation is that you are guilty unless you can provide an explanation they’re happy with. To add insult to this obvious injury, you will be held to account for your affect when dealing with the state apparatus charged with taking your children away and subjected to weird psychologizing by people without any particular psychological expertise (as if there is a correct way to respond to these questions in the first place). A tired and overworked social worker who just came from collecting six kids from a drug den can operationalize a gut feeling that your responses were “flat” and you’ll go to bed that night not knowing where your children are or when (if ever) you’ll get them back.
The idea that this only ever happens to bad people who deserve it is naïve in the extreme, and the annals of CPS are full of cases of outrageous mishandling and overreach.
> But we’re talking about kids, so people turn off their brains and assent to ann extra-legal task force that can swoop in and break up a family on a hunch.
I think the reality is that making an error in either direction can lead to tragic consequences.
Sorry, I deleted that part right after posting it, because I thought it was a little bit uncharitable. But I stand by the general sentiment, and I would just say that in our system of law and government, we have decided to solve this problem in one direction, which is to say that you are innocent until proven guilty. Taking an innocent person’s children away from them is an outrageous harm, and nobody should be subjected to it on the basis that extreme caution may save some other kids someday.
People should not feel guilty about saying plainly, no, you cannot take my children out of their home, just because an abundance of caution might help you prevent some real cases of abuse elsewhere.
What’s perverse is that the state can take your kids away without a trial and on the basis of evidence this flimsy, and the expectation is that you are guilty unless you can provide an explanation they’re happy with. To add insult to this obvious injury, you will be held to account for your affect when dealing with the state apparatus charged with taking your children away and subjected to weird psychologizing by people without any particular psychological expertise (as if there is a correct way to respond to these questions in the first place). A tired and overworked social worker who just came from collecting six kids from a drug den can operationalize a gut feeling that your responses were “flat” and you’ll go to bed that night not knowing where your children are or when (if ever) you’ll get them back.
The idea that this only ever happens to bad people who deserve it is naïve in the extreme, and the annals of CPS are full of cases of outrageous mishandling and overreach.