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http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-yard-cps-t http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-... > One afternoon this

http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-yard-cps-t http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-... > One afternoon this past April, a Florida mom and dad I'll call Cindy and Fred could not get home in time to let their 11-year-old son into the house. The boy didn't have a key, so he played basketball in the yard. He was alone for 90 minutes. A neighbor called the cops, and when the parents arrived—having been delayed by traffic and rain—they were arrested for negligence. > "My older one was the so-called 'victim,'" she said during a phone interview. But since she and her husband were charged with felony neglect, the younger boy had to be removed from the home, too. If you are not liked by your neighbors, it seems like a very real risk.

harryh 10y ago
You know how if you talk to an overprotective parent about how it's really ok to let their kids wander around outside on their own a little they're always at the ready with a link to a news story about something horrible happening? And you know how that news story is always anecdote and not data? That's pretty much what you just did.
- mcherm 10y ago
  Sort of. There are two claims someone might make. "X is common, and it poses a meaningful risk", or "X exists, and it poses a non-zero risk". Anecdotes do not help much with the first claim, but they do help with the second. So perhaps we can agree that child abductions CAN happen, and that CPS overreach DOES occur. Then we can review the real risks of both. I've seen data on the real risk of child abductions. I have never seen data on the real risks of CPS overreach. (And it would be difficult to define "overreach".) Does anyone know of any such data? (Because also, in the complete absence of actual data, anecdotes are better than nothing.)
  - harryh 10y ago
    And in the absence of meaningful data BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY! said the overprotective parent that wouldn't let their 12 year old kid bike 5 blocks to school. Seriously, once you see the parallels between how parents afraid of criminals and parents afraid of CPS talk about the risks you can't un-see them.
    - JamesBarney 10y ago
      Number of kids abducted by strangers per year 115. Number of kids investigated by the CPS 3.2 million. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196467.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196467.pdf
      - harryh 10y ago
        Your second data point is not a relevant comparison. The number you need is the number of people incorrectly taken from their parents by CPS.
        laughinghan 10y ago
        Of course it's relevant. I am certain that I am far from alone in expecting CPS to incorrectly take children more than 115/3.2 million = 0.0036% of the time, which means that even without knowing the exact percentage of the time that CPS is mistaken, I was convinced by those numbers that a random kid has a higher chance of being mistakenly taken by CPS than abducted by a stranger. Are you telling me that even though you, like me, don't know the exact percentage of the time that CPS is mistaken, you expect it to be less that 0.0036%?
        harryh 10y ago
        Yes, I do think it's less than 0.0036%. First we see from the data that CPS declared 2.5 million of those 3.2 as "non-victims" so we can eliminate type 1 errors from almost 80% of the population right there. Of the remaining 700k it's not inconceivable at all that in a big percentage of cases there were actually significant parental problems. Frankly I bet that type 2 errors are much more common that type 1 for this population.
        fweespeech 10y ago
        http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > 2.5 million of those kids were declared 'non-victims.' Another 686,000 were 'abused' or 'neglected.' And an estimated 1,640 kids died as a result. Their error rate on non-victims is a helluva alot higher than that. I don't have faith their error rate for victims is much better given we don't have data for that.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  > A couple of very slightly uncomfortable conversations seems like a small price to pay for raising your kids in the manner you deem appropriate. That is what I responded to. > You know how if you talk to an overprotective parent about how it's really ok to let their kids wander around outside on their own a little they're always at the ready with a link to a news story about something horrible happening? And you know how that news story is always anecdote and not data? You implied the extent of the risk was a couple uncomfortable conversations based on an anecdote. Hypocrisy much? Based on personal experience, I don't have much faith in the quality of CPS investigations. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > One statistic that stood out in the report: since 2008, the number of referrals to child protective service agencies (hereafter CPS) has increased by 8.3 percent, even as overall rates of actual child victimization declined by 3.3 percent during the same period. There is no system that can totally avoid putting parents who don't deserve it through investigations, despite the fact that even the best moms and dads would regard the ordeal as nightmarish. Over time, however, the number of undeserving parents so burdened seems to be increasing–and the number is large (note that "screened out" referrals are the ones deemed not even worth investigating): The numbers are clearly moving in the wrong direction for the rate of reporting. > He goes on to explain that while taking kids from parents in this fashion is only permitted in emergencies as a matter of law, the way things play out in practice is very different. "According to statistics published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 100,000 children who were removed in 2001–more than one in three–were later found not to have been maltreated at all," Given CPS investigates gets ~3.4 million complaints a year and there are ~74 million kids, a substantial number of these complaints are screened out because they are basically random/irrelevant. I'm not in the habit of ignoring 1 in 20 odds, especially if I've got a 1 in 5 shot at it being something serious. That is alot higher than the risk of terrorism, for instance, affecting me personally.
  - harryh 10y ago
    Does CPS have problems? Sure. No doubt. And as a society we should work on fixing these problems. But when it comes to your own individual life, you can either live your life in fear of the boogeyman or you can live your life the way you want to live it. Let your kids live their lives the way you think they should. And if CPS shows up one day when they shouldn't, you lawyer up and fight. That's what a grownup does.
borvo 10y ago
The problem here is the police, not the neighbors. Why were they arrested? Did they really break the law? If not, then how were these police trained? If they did break the law, then who is making these nonsense laws?
tedunangst 10y ago
But, but, but... http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Missing-Child-King-of-Prussia-Mall-Montgomery-County--374202791.html http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Missing-Child-King... > The suspect then held the boy as the mom took a phone call, according to investigators. The suspect then walked out of the mall cradling the boy in her arms, police said. If you ever answer your phone, it seems like a very real risk somebody will snatch up your baby.

harryh 10y ago

You know how if you talk to an overprotective parent about how it's really ok to let their kids wander around outside on their own a little they're always at the ready with a link to a news story about something horrible happening? And you know how that news story is always anecdote and not data? That's pretty much what you just did.

mcherm 10y ago
Sort of. There are two claims someone might make. "X is common, and it poses a meaningful risk", or "X exists, and it poses a non-zero risk". Anecdotes do not help much with the first claim, but they do help with the second. So perhaps we can agree that child abductions CAN happen, and that CPS overreach DOES occur. Then we can review the real risks of both. I've seen data on the real risk of child abductions. I have never seen data on the real risks of CPS overreach. (And it would be difficult to define "overreach".) Does anyone know of any such data? (Because also, in the complete absence of actual data, anecdotes are better than nothing.)
- harryh 10y ago
  And in the absence of meaningful data BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY! said the overprotective parent that wouldn't let their 12 year old kid bike 5 blocks to school. Seriously, once you see the parallels between how parents afraid of criminals and parents afraid of CPS talk about the risks you can't un-see them.
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    Number of kids abducted by strangers per year 115. Number of kids investigated by the CPS 3.2 million. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196467.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196467.pdf
    - harryh 10y ago
      Your second data point is not a relevant comparison. The number you need is the number of people incorrectly taken from their parents by CPS.
      - laughinghan 10y ago
        Of course it's relevant. I am certain that I am far from alone in expecting CPS to incorrectly take children more than 115/3.2 million = 0.0036% of the time, which means that even without knowing the exact percentage of the time that CPS is mistaken, I was convinced by those numbers that a random kid has a higher chance of being mistakenly taken by CPS than abducted by a stranger. Are you telling me that even though you, like me, don't know the exact percentage of the time that CPS is mistaken, you expect it to be less that 0.0036%?
        harryh 10y ago
        Yes, I do think it's less than 0.0036%. First we see from the data that CPS declared 2.5 million of those 3.2 as "non-victims" so we can eliminate type 1 errors from almost 80% of the population right there. Of the remaining 700k it's not inconceivable at all that in a big percentage of cases there were actually significant parental problems. Frankly I bet that type 2 errors are much more common that type 1 for this population.
        fweespeech 10y ago
        http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > 2.5 million of those kids were declared 'non-victims.' Another 686,000 were 'abused' or 'neglected.' And an estimated 1,640 kids died as a result. Their error rate on non-victims is a helluva alot higher than that. I don't have faith their error rate for victims is much better given we don't have data for that.
fweespeech 10y ago
> A couple of very slightly uncomfortable conversations seems like a small price to pay for raising your kids in the manner you deem appropriate. That is what I responded to. > You know how if you talk to an overprotective parent about how it's really ok to let their kids wander around outside on their own a little they're always at the ready with a link to a news story about something horrible happening? And you know how that news story is always anecdote and not data? You implied the extent of the risk was a couple uncomfortable conversations based on an anecdote. Hypocrisy much? Based on personal experience, I don't have much faith in the quality of CPS investigations. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > One statistic that stood out in the report: since 2008, the number of referrals to child protective service agencies (hereafter CPS) has increased by 8.3 percent, even as overall rates of actual child victimization declined by 3.3 percent during the same period. There is no system that can totally avoid putting parents who don't deserve it through investigations, despite the fact that even the best moms and dads would regard the ordeal as nightmarish. Over time, however, the number of undeserving parents so burdened seems to be increasing–and the number is large (note that "screened out" referrals are the ones deemed not even worth investigating): The numbers are clearly moving in the wrong direction for the rate of reporting. > He goes on to explain that while taking kids from parents in this fashion is only permitted in emergencies as a matter of law, the way things play out in practice is very different. "According to statistics published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 100,000 children who were removed in 2001–more than one in three–were later found not to have been maltreated at all," Given CPS investigates gets ~3.4 million complaints a year and there are ~74 million kids, a substantial number of these complaints are screened out because they are basically random/irrelevant. I'm not in the habit of ignoring 1 in 20 odds, especially if I've got a 1 in 5 shot at it being something serious. That is alot higher than the risk of terrorism, for instance, affecting me personally.
- harryh 10y ago
  Does CPS have problems? Sure. No doubt. And as a society we should work on fixing these problems. But when it comes to your own individual life, you can either live your life in fear of the boogeyman or you can live your life the way you want to live it. Let your kids live their lives the way you think they should. And if CPS shows up one day when they shouldn't, you lawyer up and fight. That's what a grownup does.

borvo 10y ago

The problem here is the police, not the neighbors. Why were they arrested? Did they really break the law? If not, then how were these police trained? If they did break the law, then who is making these nonsense laws?

tedunangst 10y ago

But, but, but... http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Missing-Child-King-of-Prussia-Mall-Montgomery-County--374202791.html http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Missing-Child-King... > The suspect then held the boy as the mom took a phone call, according to investigators. The suspect then walked out of the mall cradling the boy in her arms, police said. If you ever answer your phone, it seems like a very real risk somebody will snatch up your baby.