Banita Jacks, a high-school dropout with four children by at least three different men (not including a fourth man she incorrectly accused in a paternity suit), was found living with the corpses of those four children (whom she is accused of murdering) in Southeast Washington DC. The city has responded by announcing that it will fire several workers who, it is said with 20/20 hindsight, failed to adequately respond to warnings that the children were in danger. [WaPo]
And, several months from now, if there is an incident where parents are having their children unjustly taken from them at the drop of a hat, it is because city officials now know that their jobs are more at risk for possibly under-reacting than they ever would be if they over-react.
Update, January 16: A surprising number of commenters are taking the side of the scapegoaters, where one seizes a single particular warning, and says “You should have known”—a frequent tactic of the trial lawyer seeking deep-pocket blame. Richard Wexler has a good summary:
But when a police officer arrives, he finds four children “well and healthy.” Mom claims she’s home-schooling the children. The officer sees the books mom says she is using.
What do you do?
The police officer saw no evidence of abuse or neglect. Yes, mom wouldn’t let him in without a warrant, but in America, that is her right. The school social worker suspects mental illness — but she’s also the one who said the daughter was being held hostage, something apparently contradicted by the police.
If you happen to be psychic, know that the mother is Banita Jacks and know what will be discovered more than eight months later, presumably you drop everything and find a way to get into that home.
But if you are simply a typical D.C. caseworker — juggling many other cases — then you move on to all those situations that, on the surface, look far worse than a home-schooler with “well and healthy” children. …
Because there’s nothing like yelling “Off with their heads!” to fuel a foster-care panic.
Every CFSA worker is now terrified of having the next Banita Jacks on his or her caseload. So agency personnel will rush to tear large numbers of children from their parents. Those children will suffer the trauma of needless separation from everyone loving and familiar, and they’ll be placed at risk of abuse in foster care itself — several studies suggest that one in three children are abused while in foster care. Worst of all, a deeply troubled child-welfare system will be further overwhelmed, making it even more likely that some child in real danger will be overlooked.
14 Comments
The NYT had a big Sunday story on this blaming homeschooling for the murders. Yet from what I can see, the only evidence that Banita Jacks was “homeschooling” was her verbal say-so to a social worker who stopped by. Given all the other things going on, including her mental illness, that seems a weak foundation to build the case against homeschooling on. Yet with this “investigative journalism” by the Times, thousands of families who homeschool are set up for yet more intrusive government regulation.
I think you may be a little unfair here. This is not a case in which the child welfare people had to make a difficult decision and with the benefit of hindsight got it wrong. Rather, this is a case in which a school social worker, reporting that she had been denied access to the home and that the children were being held hostage there, had to call twice to get any action at all, and where all the action that resulted was two visits to the home at times when no one answered. When a reliable source like a school social worker makes the kind of report that she did, surely nothing short of entry into the home and contact with the children is an acceptable response, and surely this could have been accomplished.
Have to agree with Bill. If abusive parents can effectively avoid the child welfare folks by simply not answering the door, then why have a child welfare department at all? Once there is a credible allegation of kids being held hostage in a home, you’ve got to do more than knock on the door. What sane mother completely forbids a 16 year old from leaving the house?
“Banita Jacks, a high-school dropout with four children by at least three different men (not including a fourth man she incorrectly accused in a paternity suit)…”
Respectfully, what does this have to do with the case at hand?
Yet I think what Ted is saying is that if more aggressive action were taken by D.C. welfare folks, the litigation about THAT would fly fast and furious:
* You violated my civil rights by taking my children
* You committed a tort by breaking in
* Etc.
In defending Major U.S. City, I saw cases like this as often as I saw ones charging that “neglect” by welfare officials caused death and injury. The welfare agency was, as are so many others, damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. Speaking of insanity. The blame for this tragedy doesn’t lie with government, it lies with Banita Jacks, and/or her, ah, now-deceased “spouse.”
As Bill Poser points out, this is not a close case. Child and Family Services had been told that at least one child (and probably others) was being held “as a hostage in the home” but then closed the case without ever even seeing the child, let alone ever coming close to considering removing any children from the home.
I’m not sure what the reference to “hindsight” is supposed to convey. All employee performance evaluations are retrospective. Essentially, Ted seems to be suggesting that he considers it improper to fire an employee for poor performance.
It is certainly possible that more insistence upon employee performance will lead to complaints that they are excessively aggressive. As long as an agency has some standard of performance, then there exists the possibility that it will be called upon to defend its conduct in light of that standard. And if there is no standard of conduct, then any action the agency takes could be attacked as arbitrary. The only solution is, as DLM suggests, to have no agency at all. Perhaps that is what Ted is suggesting to be appropriate, but it’s not clear from this post.
I don’t know DC law, but surely in every jurisdiction in circumstances such as these there is a mechanism for lawfully entering the home and checking on the children, in which case any lawsuit is not going to get far. The possibility of nuisance suits is no more reason not to act in a case like this than it is for the police not to execute search warrants.
Sounds like they’re firing from the wrong end of the totem pole to me. Start cutting at the head.
Most allegations of child neglect and abuse are false or exaggerated, and removing a child from any but the worst home is traumatic – and also the available foster homes often aren’t that safe, either. So social workers need to be careful in how they follow up such allegations not to cause more problems. However, this particular case sure sounds like it wouldn’t have been a close call if someone had just bothered to do their job.
OTOH, I don’t know if the school social worker who made the report had a history of crying wolf. I don’t know the child protective caseworkers’ workloads. And I don’t know if they’d repeatedly asked for the police escort they were obviously going to need to get into that house with no response. (The DC police do have a history of failing to respond to violent crimes in progress in a timely manner, if at all.)
These firings may be justified, but I find it hard to believe in less than a week the District has done a thorough job of investigating who was responsible for doing what, what other factors were in play, and what could keep it from happening again.
Firings get a lot of ink and make the public think “something” is being done. It’s great for those who wring their hands and say “someone should do something” but that’s all.
It’s another knee-jerk reaction.
Those upset by the deaths of the children should consider donations to Planned Parenthood. Four children would challenge any family, and in this case there may have been mental illness.
The daughter of friend lost custody of her child to goofy theories of child protection. It was very sad. Ted Frank’s concern about unintended consequences of the firing of the social workers is absolutely correct.
I second the latter part of William’s post – I also know some vicitms of Child “Protective” [SIC] Services.
And then, the foster care system they go into is also AWFUL – I know several couples who have been burned by that: the incentives are ALL WRONG in the foster care system (most agencies have a strong financial interest in keeping the children in their care from being adopted).
Mac, arguably there are “at least 3 different men” who are at least partially responsible (through negligence, at best) for the deaths of these kids.
I read with great interest the comments posted. I am a social worker and the case loads are extremely high for us. That does not excuse the fact the the children were never seen by the workers in DC. In the State (NC) where I worked the case is not initiated until you have seen all the children and if the case is not initiated within 24 or 72 hours depending upon the safety factor, our agency will pull that record to find out what has happened. If the parent(s) are not cooperative, the next step for us is to seek assistance from the juvenile courts charging the parents with interference in an investigation. To respond to the idea that foster homes are bad, I say on the contrary. It is required for us to locate relatives and/or friends of that family willing to serve as placement resources for the children BEFORE placing them in a foster home. The fathers of the children are notified that there is a case open and diligent efforts are made to locate those absent parents.