aregjan (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} aregjan) wrote,@ 2008-04-25 10:45:00 |
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For very long time I used to think that horror stories about CPA (Child Protection Agencies) abuse of power
are, if not exaggerated, then at least statistically insignificant -- more of an exception rather than the rule.
However, a recent discussion on a friend journal inclined me to think that this is not really the case.
Not because I consider a single person's opinion to be any more statistically significant, but that
I know the author personally as a rational, educated and otherwise a reasonable individual. Because if
she thinks like this, then a questions arises: how about the rest who work at CPA, that are NOT reasonable,
educated and rational like her. These are people who make the decisions on breaking families apart, and
their opinions sometimes are treated like the holly gospel in court. People, who dismiss the trauma and the horror of a
mistaken child-parent separation as some trifle, an example of selfish bourgeois sentimentality.
The irony is that the post was written to debunk myths about CPA being some sort of a Stalinist organization which
controls people's lives and wrenches their children from them. However, its
callous attitude towards the possibility of one of us having our children being taken away from us,
and statements along the lines of "all is done with your good in mind" and "onlypeople's enemies
child abusers should be worried by CPA" created the impression of a precisely Stalinist
system. Put in the fact that a CPA representative's opinion in court can easily outweigh
even scientific evidence (see reports below), and the fact that the parents are almost by default guilty
until proven innocent -- and the analogy with a Stalinist judicial system is complete. All that's
missing is a judge-jury-CPA in one person.
One thing should be clear. Aliska's opinions is strongly shaped by her interaction with abused kids. In a way it's more than understandable. There are two things that shock me, however. The fact that she interprets
our fears of an abusive CPA action against our families as a selfishnes and dismisses it as some sort of a triviality, to quote:
"it's going to happen within the framework [...] that really doesn't care about you or your privileged spawn shivering with terror of being separated". To me such an callous attitude is revolting. However what I find outright
terrifying, is that opinions of people with such a biased perception(due to interaction with abused children) of things are allowed to play a role in judicial decision making. I mean, it's like imposing a sentence on a rapist not based
on the opinion of an impartial and objective jury, but on the opinion of the rape victim and his/her relatives (torture,
dismemberment, and public hanging, right?). This is what I personally find crazy.
To extend this, I also find very strange the judicial procedures in cases of child abuse and subsequent
child adoptions. To illustrate, imagine that someone is accused of having raped and killed his/her neighbor.
The prosecution carries all the burden of the proof: as long as it has not proven beyond reasonable doubt
the guilt of the person, the defendant is assumed to be innocent. However, if that same person is accused of
having abused (and this may mean anything, from screaming to spanking) his/her child, then it's enough for
CPA's semi-educated psychologist to have a "gut feeling" that the defendant is guilty for him/her to be treated as
such. At that point it's up to the defendant to prove that he/she is innocent. And even if he/she does that (through
DNA testing, as in the example below), CPA in many cases reserves itself the right to dismiss it with some demagogic arguments.
Furthermore, my impression of reading such cases is that the defendant's attorney doesn't even get the chance
to cross-examine the CPA's representative. This to me is a clear contradiction with the concept of competitive
due process, where both sides argue their points and an impartial entity takes a decision.
Furthermore, this contradicts the age-old notion that it's always better to let a criminal walk free
rather than to lock up an innocent.
Here I want to stop and warn people against throwing straw man arguments at me, like "are you saying
that CPA should be disbanded?? They ARE, after all, helping some abused kids!" It's a bit like saying that our opposition
to police brutality means that we want police to be disbanded. An organization like CPA is needed, however
the one that we currently have has a too high of a rate of false positives and false negatives (a report below quotes
2/3 as the number of unsubstantiated accusations).
I am also going to bring a few headlines-making stories on the subject...
A child is taken away from a father because a CPA therapist is convinced that he raped her.
Evidence to the contrary: the child gives a detailed description of the offender, which doesn't match the
father; subsequent DNA tests indicate that the rapist was not a biological father, and was sterile.
CPA's responce -- so what, the kid is covering for the father, and there is no proof that the father is
biological...plus he may have reversed a vasectomy. (point: it's up to the father to prove that CPA's
ludicrous accusations are not true, not the other way around. Meanwhile, CPA is always right). It took
4 years and LOTS of public pressure before the child was finally returned with the parents.
This story, unfortunately, was never reported in American press. It has been limited to British
news media (The Guardian, and BBC). This is a BBC story of NY's social work authorities using
AIDS infected children in their custody for testing of highly toxic AIDS drugs, with some terrible
results.
A 17 year old autistic Nate is taken away from his parents because the authorities disagree with
the way he is treated. Not because he was abused, mind you, but because they thought that
their pump-them-up-with-chemicals approach was better than the one chosen by the parents.
While in state custody, Nate health worsened tremendously. His parents were not allowed any
say in his medical treatment.
are, if not exaggerated, then at least statistically insignificant -- more of an exception rather than the rule.
However, a recent discussion on a friend journal inclined me to think that this is not really the case.
Not because I consider a single person's opinion to be any more statistically significant, but that
I know the author personally as a rational, educated and otherwise a reasonable individual. Because if
she thinks like this, then a questions arises: how about the rest who work at CPA, that are NOT reasonable,
educated and rational like her. These are people who make the decisions on breaking families apart, and
their opinions sometimes are treated like the holly gospel in court. People, who dismiss the trauma and the horror of a
mistaken child-parent separation as some trifle, an example of selfish bourgeois sentimentality.
The irony is that the post was written to debunk myths about CPA being some sort of a Stalinist organization which
controls people's lives and wrenches their children from them. However, its
callous attitude towards the possibility of one of us having our children being taken away from us,
and statements along the lines of "all is done with your good in mind" and "only
child abusers should be worried by CPA" created the impression of a precisely Stalinist
system. Put in the fact that a CPA representative's opinion in court can easily outweigh
even scientific evidence (see reports below), and the fact that the parents are almost by default guilty
until proven innocent -- and the analogy with a Stalinist judicial system is complete. All that's
missing is a judge-jury-CPA in one person.
One thing should be clear. Aliska's opinions is strongly shaped by her interaction with abused kids. In a way it's more than understandable. There are two things that shock me, however. The fact that she interprets
our fears of an abusive CPA action against our families as a selfishnes and dismisses it as some sort of a triviality, to quote:
"it's going to happen within the framework [...] that really doesn't care about you or your privileged spawn shivering with terror of being separated". To me such an callous attitude is revolting. However what I find outright
terrifying, is that opinions of people with such a biased perception(due to interaction with abused children) of things are allowed to play a role in judicial decision making. I mean, it's like imposing a sentence on a rapist not based
on the opinion of an impartial and objective jury, but on the opinion of the rape victim and his/her relatives (torture,
dismemberment, and public hanging, right?). This is what I personally find crazy.
To extend this, I also find very strange the judicial procedures in cases of child abuse and subsequent
child adoptions. To illustrate, imagine that someone is accused of having raped and killed his/her neighbor.
The prosecution carries all the burden of the proof: as long as it has not proven beyond reasonable doubt
the guilt of the person, the defendant is assumed to be innocent. However, if that same person is accused of
having abused (and this may mean anything, from screaming to spanking) his/her child, then it's enough for
CPA's semi-educated psychologist to have a "gut feeling" that the defendant is guilty for him/her to be treated as
such. At that point it's up to the defendant to prove that he/she is innocent. And even if he/she does that (through
DNA testing, as in the example below), CPA in many cases reserves itself the right to dismiss it with some demagogic arguments.
Furthermore, my impression of reading such cases is that the defendant's attorney doesn't even get the chance
to cross-examine the CPA's representative. This to me is a clear contradiction with the concept of competitive
due process, where both sides argue their points and an impartial entity takes a decision.
Furthermore, this contradicts the age-old notion that it's always better to let a criminal walk free
rather than to lock up an innocent.
Here I want to stop and warn people against throwing straw man arguments at me, like "are you saying
that CPA should be disbanded?? They ARE, after all, helping some abused kids!" It's a bit like saying that our opposition
to police brutality means that we want police to be disbanded. An organization like CPA is needed, however
the one that we currently have has a too high of a rate of false positives and false negatives (a report below quotes
2/3 as the number of unsubstantiated accusations).
I am also going to bring a few headlines-making stories on the subject...
A child is taken away from a father because a CPA therapist is convinced that he raped her.
Evidence to the contrary: the child gives a detailed description of the offender, which doesn't match the
father; subsequent DNA tests indicate that the rapist was not a biological father, and was sterile.
CPA's responce -- so what, the kid is covering for the father, and there is no proof that the father is
biological...plus he may have reversed a vasectomy. (point: it's up to the father to prove that CPA's
ludicrous accusations are not true, not the other way around. Meanwhile, CPA is always right). It took
4 years and LOTS of public pressure before the child was finally returned with the parents.
This story, unfortunately, was never reported in American press. It has been limited to British
news media (The Guardian, and BBC). This is a BBC story of NY's social work authorities using
AIDS infected children in their custody for testing of highly toxic AIDS drugs, with some terrible
results.
A 17 year old autistic Nate is taken away from his parents because the authorities disagree with
the way he is treated. Not because he was abused, mind you, but because they thought that
their pump-them-up-with-chemicals approach was better than the one chosen by the parents.
While in state custody, Nate health worsened tremendously. His parents were not allowed any
say in his medical treatment.
