Its not uncommon: if parents are charged (not even convicted) with fraud, or other criminal offenses, the social services automatically start to become involved

Its not uncommon: if parents are charged (not even convicted) with fraud, or other criminal offenses, the social services automatically start to become involved - and often will default to "doing something" to "protect" the child from its "criminal parents". Its a problem of incentives and metrics for the social service caseworkers - if they do not act, and "something happens", they get the book thrown at them. If they do act, and there was no risk, well it was better to be "safe" than "sorry" right? Basically there's zero negative outcome for the case worker or social service system when they break up a family or take a child into care. There are negative outcomes if they fail to do so.