If you added up the budgets of all the Children's Services in America, it would come to larger than the United States defense budget. The child abuse war is headed by the biggest, most out of control bureaucracy in the United States, each day conducting thousands of kangaroo courts in which all parents are equally guilty until proven innocent. It is so out of control that everyone is now demanding that the system be changed.
     The Lance Helms case, in which a Los Angeles child was returned to the biological father in whose home the child was beaten to death, and the O.J. Simpson case, in which children were returned to a father who apparently killed their mother, are simply the most notorious examples of a children’s legal system way out of wack. They illuminate the current hypocrisy demanding fathers take responsibility for their children while simultaneously making it as difficult as possible for them to do so.
     It's a system the public knows little about. The press is not allowed in juvenile court, ostensibly to protect the anonymity of the innocent children, but equally protecting the system itself from exposure.
     Things were different in my case. In my case, the press attended each and every hearing. I am a professional journalist. In my case, I was the press and they not only let me in, they demanded my presence. I got a first hand look at how it really works. No wonder they don't want anyone to know. The juvenile court system works the exact opposite of the criminal justice system. The word justice is left out entirely. Everyone is guilty until proven innocent.
     All child abuse cases begin with a complaint. The Mondale act of 1976 gives total immunity to those who make reports of child abuse, no matter how specious. Thanks to overzealous medical personnel who are forced to disclose even the slightest, most benign signs of abuse, coupled with untrained social workers who also have legal immunity, the child abuse war routinely turns molehills into mountains. Like the war against drugs, the war against abuse is doing infinitely more damage than it is preventing. To kids, parents are omnipotent. When they are taken away from their home, they get separation anxiety. But removal from the home is not the last recourse in a case of potential abuse, it’s the very first knee-jerk reaction. A study conducted by the Little Hoover Commission came to the conclusion that 30-70% of the children currently held in group homes in California don't belong there, and never should have been taken from their parents in the first place.
     According to 1991 Orange County statistics, 80% of all accusations of child abuse turn out to be unfounded. Of 34,259 hotline calls, 7,916 were dismissed immediately as inappropriate (23%), 26,343 were actually investigated (77%), and 4,700 were determined to need further investigation (13% of total). Of that 13%, 141 (3%) involved medical problems, 376 (8%) involved potential sexual abuse, and the remaining 80% involved general neglect based on ignorance and poverty.
     When the problem is ignorance and poverty, the answer is education and money, not legalized kidnapping. Unfortunately, most social workers are entry level investigators with little expertise. Their mission is to protect children, and they often do, but in the process, they destroy whatever stability a household may have. Due to burnout, L.A. has a 150% turnover rate of social workers. Most of the new ones simply go by the book. They are neither prepared nor educated for the job. Most aren't parents so they have no idea what the job of parenting actually entails. Less than 20% of social workers have a college degree, and no criminal history check is done on applicants. Our children's safety has been entrusted to thousands of incompetent bureaucrats with far-reaching authority.
     Let's say the DCS (Department of Children's Services) makes a mistake, goes to the wrong address, or that none of the allegations they make are true. So what. They've got the kid. They never have to prove their case, and they never back down. The bureaucracy is so thick that, innocent or guilty, it takes a minimum of six to nine months for parents to get their children back.
     Though the legal immunity of social workers has been whittled away by some states, it hasn’t stopped them from becoming the most powerful bureaucrats in the country. When the police bust down the wrong door, they can be sued for false arrest, but if a social worker takes the wrong baby, there's not much anyone can do. To sue in California, you have to prove malice, and social workers are simply following the mandate of their job. Just as meter maids are judged by how many parking tickets they give out, social workers are judged by how many babies they take away. Since social workers don't have to pay for their mistakes, and since they err on the side of caution, they inevitably end up abusing more children than they help.
     When the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems look like nails. The only tool social workers currently have at their disposal is removal of the child, so all situations look like abuse. If a circumstance looks potentially dangerous, as though there might be a problem, it means nothing for them to simply take the kid away just to be on the safe side. They don’t want to be caught with their pants down if something goes wrong after the investigation. So they take the kid away. They have no alternative courses of action.
     Once a child has been taken away, the parent is allowed no contact with them whatsoever until the hearing. They aren't even told where the child is. The hearing is three days away, and there is absolutely nothing they can do until then.
 If the parent is poor and receiving AFDC for their child, they stop getting their $500 a month, which may have been their only means of support. The group home that now houses their child starts receiving up to $5,000 a month to care for the child. Since the vast majority (80%) of children are taken away due to poverty, if parents were to receive only 25% of what group homes are given for the exact same service, the child would never have to be taken away in the first place.
     When the parent makes their first appearance in dependency court, they discover that they have not been charged with a crime. People charged with crimes are in criminal court where they have civil rights. Parents entering dependency court check their civil rights at the door. From the moment the parent enters the system, they never meet one single person who presumes they are innocent. Their court appointed attorney is there more for comfort than to fight in their behalf.
     Like criminal court, dependency court works on the advocacy system. The judge hears the case argued by attorneys with opposing viewpoints. Nobody who is on trial is allowed to personally address the judge unless requested to do so, so each case automatically begins with the defendant's inability to speak for themselves. Parents are not allowed to say one single word in their defense, and are actually encouraged not to defend themselves.
     Everyone who appears in criminal or dependency court must bring their own representative, or if they cannot afford it, one will be supplied for them. Since parents in dependency court are predominantly poor, virtually all the attorneys are court appointed. These attorneys always recommend that the parent simply plead guilty and get it over with. They don't want to actually defend you. Everybody maintains the position that they have been hired to maintain, so every case looks exactly the same. The safest thing for anyone working in the system is to preserve the status quo, so the bureaucracy grinds on, making everything take forever.
     O.J. Simpson's attorneys do a good job defending him because they actually work for him. He is the one they get their paychecks from. But attorneys in juvenile court don't do a good job because they don't actually work for the party they are representing. The parent's court appointed attorney gets their check from the same place as the state's attorney and the children's attorney and the judge. Like every other employee on earth, they work for the party that gives them their paycheck. Their job is to keep their job. Nobody has anything to lose as long as the child is kept away from the "potentially" abusive parent, except for the child and the parent, who are both equal victims. Nobody in the bureaucracy does anything to rock the boat. No one wants to be held responsible if something goes wrong.
     And things do go wrong. Unfortunately, cases like Lance Helms and O.J. Simpson focus the public on only one side of the issue. The knee-jerk reaction is to back the social workers and aid them in making it more difficult for murderous parents to get their kids back, forgetting that social workers make just as many mistakes in the other direction. Children often end up being abused, neglected, or damaged by the very system that the State has set up to protect them. Children with no serious problems are routinely placed in psychiatric institutions or group homes for seriously troubled children, and children with serious emotional problems are routinely placed in foster or group homes for children without problems. For every Lance Helms who is incorrectly returned to a bad situation, there are hundreds of other children who are incorrectly not being returned to perfectly normal situations. Any solution has got to deal with both aspects of the problem.
     One easy solution is to make juvenile court work the same way as criminal court. Simply following the same rules of evidence and allowing jury trials would clear up a lot of the injustice. Or simply abolish juvenile court altogether. If social workers have got a case, let them present it in criminal court.
     In criminal court, defendants are generally released on bail, and they are presumed innocent until the state proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Either the judge, or every member of a jury, must be absolutely convinced of guilt. If one single jury member is not convinced, there is no conviction. The idea seems to be that it is better to let eleven potentially guilty people go rather than send one single innocent person to jail. If and only if the defendant is proven guilty is sentence pronounced.
     But in dependency court, the first thing that happens is the sentence. The social worker has removed someone's child from their home. It is a fait accompli before a single hearing has taken place. Based solely upon the recommendation of a social worker, the child has already been separated from the parent. This action is traumatic under any circumstances, but particularly when the parent/child relationship was strong and healthy to begin with. Dependency court is full of parents who may or may not have done anything wrong, but have already been found guilty by an all-mighty social worker. It's a building full of nothing but parents who are trying to get their kids back.
     Once in court, all the social worker has to do is stand by their original charges, but the parent must now prove themselves innocent before the judge will release their child to them. The idea seems to be that it is better to take eleven children from healthy homes than let one single child actually get abused. If and only if the defendant is proven innocent is their child returned to them. This system might be somewhat fair if innocence were not infinitely more difficult to prove than guilt.
     In criminal court, if it turns out the police made a mistake - that their actions were indefensible - the case is dismissed, and the defendant may subsequently sue the police department for false arrest. This keeps the police on their toes. They try to make sure they have evidence or witnesses to back their version of what happened.
     But in dependency court, if it turns out that the social worker made a mistake - that their actions were indefensible, the case is not dismissed, and the parent may not subsequently sue them. Social workers are not kept on their toes since they are immune from retribution. They proceed with their case, full speed ahead, whether or not they have evidence or witnesses to back their version of what happened.
     Unlike criminal court, hearsay is actually admissible in juvenile court. Social workers routinely take the stand and present a case that consists solely of allegations made by someone who isn't there. Parents don't get to confront their accusers. No other testimony is presented, and no evidence is introduced. The parent's court appointed attorney routinely says "We deny these allegations," and the judge routinely allows the parent monitored visits with their child, ordering them into counseling and parenting classes and drug testing. The judge then orders the parent back in three months, promising that if the parent is good, obeying all the court's orders, they will be allowed unmonitored visits. The devastated parent is led from the room. The whole thing takes less than five minutes.
     Like a parole board, they do not want to hear that you're innocent. They want to hear that you will never do it again - a particularly difficult thing to do when you have been charged with nothing more than normal behavior. Children's Services will never, ever, under any circumstances, admit that they made a mistake, so there’s no making a deal for your kid. The Los Angeles Department of Children's Services had children "suitably placed" in Guyana with Jim Jones, and they still haven't apologized to anyone.
     Imagine for the moment that you are the judge in one of these cases. The father’s court appointed attorney, who may or may not have consulted with the father, says "We request the child be returned to the father," and nothing more. The mother’s court appointed attorney, who may or may not have consulted with the mother says "We request the child be returned to the mother," and nothing more. The state's attorney says "Both parents are unsuitable, the child should stay where it is," and the child's court appointed attorney, who certainly has never met the child, reads from a report that "The child seems to be developing normally where he is." And that is all the information you have to go on in virtually every case, 30-40 cases a day, five days a week.
     In the case of the death of 2-year-old Lance Helms, the social worker recommended against the release of the child to the father. Why didn't the judge heed the social worker's warnings? Because the judge hears the exact same warnings in absolutely every case. If judges heeded the warnings of every social worker in each case, no children would ever be returned to their parents, no matter how unfounded the charges. Thank god there are judges who take social worker's recommendations with a grain of salt. They realize that social workers are not infallible. In many cases, the only effect that the social worker has on the family is the emotional damage they inflict by the needless separation. In these cases, the social worker is the abuser, not the parent. Immunity gives them a free license to abuse.
     Social workers routinely make boilerplate accusations, using the same phrases against everybody. "Children are suitably placed" in a group or foster home. "Parents home is inappropriate." The child is at "substantial risk" with the parents.
 Like the boy who cried wolf, social workers cannot be taken seriously because they always make the same trumped up charges. By using identical wording in each report, they make each case look equally dangerous. By pursuing each action with equal vigor, they never acknowledge that there are such things as levels of incompetence or abuse. There's a big difference between a parent who smokes crack every day and a parent who has an occasional puff of pot, but social workers call them both drug addicts and take their children away. There's a big difference between a professional pornographer and a parent who takes naked baby pictures, or between a parent who routinely beats their child and a parent who gives them an occasional smack on the butt, but social workers call them all child abusers and take their children away. And they do it with little research, with less training, and with total impunity.
     Which is why the Lance Helms and O.J. Simpson cases are so troublesome. The system is already incredibly prejudiced against fathers, and both of these cases are being used as an excuse to make it even harder for fathers to get their children back.
     Just look at a letter The L.A. Times printed from Janlee Wong, the Executive Director of the California Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. In it, she inadvertently admits why social workers are as much the problem as they are the solution. She states "The challenges to the social worker's recommendations are often procedural and deny the most important aspect of the case, the social worker's assessment of risk to the child."
     It’s impossible to imagine a more outrageously megalomaniacal statement. In any case of potential child abuse, the social worker is not a disinterested party, they are the prosecution. Can you imagine Marcia Clark stating that the most important aspect of the O.J. Simpson murder trial was the prosecution's assessment of the case? What about the two dead bodies? Obviously the most important aspect of a murder trial is the defendant's relationship with the deceased. Similarly, the most important aspect of an abuse case is the parent's relationship with the child. That's what it is all about. Social workers should focus all efforts upon repairing that relationship, if indeed there is anything wrong with it in the first place. But as Ms. Wong admits, social workers think that the case is about them.
     Further in her letter, concerning the death of Lance Helms, she states that "A professional social worker's recommendations did not prevail in a situation in which there appeared to be great risk to a small child." But all the warnings were about the father, who is innocent. It is his girl friend who currently sits in jail for killing the child. Why wasn't anyone warned about her? She's obviously the one who was dangerous, not the father, but she was not investigated. The social worker's recommendation may have turned out to be valid, the child was at risk, but for entirely the wrong reason. As usual, the social worker's report was trumped up, misguided, and inaccurate.
     Social workers are already allowed to take away children on a whim, using nothing but hearsay and circumstantial evidence. The last thing on earth they need is encouragement to err further on the side of caution. Social workers need to be encouraged not to err at all. This will never happen as long as they don't have to prove their case or pay for their errors in any way.

      Thomas Jefferson said that "No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity." He never met a social worker.
 
 

 

The L.A. Times Story on how I got my son back.

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