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One of my neighbors is a police officer and she is appalled by the behavior and decision making of child protection services. She described multiple occasions w

One of my neighbors is a police officer and she is appalled by the behavior and decision making of child protection services. She described multiple occasions where she was required by law to accompany someone from CPS to take away a child in circumstances that were unwarranted and only happened because the family was too poor to fight a legal battle. The movie Evelyn (based on a true story) illustrates that this is a perennial problem.

belval 6y ago
Yeah, I don't live in the US but our child service is pretty bad as well. My point was more that whoever handles this should not have connections to law enforcement as it could ultimately widen the divide between the police and the communities.
jawns 6y ago
I think there's a lot of room for improvement for both law enforcement and CPS, but I agree with the comment you responded to. This seems more like it should be a social services intervention rather than a quasi-criminal investigation.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>occasions where she was required by law to accompany someone from CPS Transit police, campus police, environmental police, all these law enforcement agencies exist because the parents organizations so routinely need the threat of state violence to back them up in situations where they are doing the wrong thing or it is just not plain warranted that they cannot rely on whatever the existing police are to respond to their calls. (Likewise at the federal level, the ATF and ICE exist because the FBI didn't consider that stuff a serious problem but politicians did.) They need their-own bespoke police force to handle the calls that are so illegitimate that they would get blown off by any PD that has its own reputation and efficient resource allocation to worry about. If you need to go somewhere (like getting your stuff from an ex) where you have good reason to fear physical harm the police will generally go with you. It might take awhile but they usually will, eventually (extreme outliers like Detroit notwithstanding). The fact that CPS needs to pull legislative strings to get the cops to show up tells you a lot about how the cops regard their operations. If the cops felt they were helping remove children from bad situations with any semblance of regularity they would love to field those calls.

belval 6y ago

Yeah, I don't live in the US but our child service is pretty bad as well. My point was more that whoever handles this should not have connections to law enforcement as it could ultimately widen the divide between the police and the communities.

jawns 6y ago

I think there's a lot of room for improvement for both law enforcement and CPS, but I agree with the comment you responded to. This seems more like it should be a social services intervention rather than a quasi-criminal investigation.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>occasions where she was required by law to accompany someone from CPS Transit police, campus police, environmental police, all these law enforcement agencies exist because the parents organizations so routinely need the threat of state violence to back them up in situations where they are doing the wrong thing or it is just not plain warranted that they cannot rely on whatever the existing police are to respond to their calls. (Likewise at the federal level, the ATF and ICE exist because the FBI didn't consider that stuff a serious problem but politicians did.) They need their-own bespoke police force to handle the calls that are so illegitimate that they would get blown off by any PD that has its own reputation and efficient resource allocation to worry about. If you need to go somewhere (like getting your stuff from an ex) where you have good reason to fear physical harm the police will generally go with you. It might take awhile but they usually will, eventually (extreme outliers like Detroit notwithstanding). The fact that CPS needs to pull legislative strings to get the cops to show up tells you a lot about how the cops regard their operations. If the cops felt they were helping remove children from bad situations with any semblance of regularity they would love to field those calls.