Child Protective Services symposium wraps up at Cato Unbound

My second and concluding round is now posted in this month’s Cato Unbound symposium on Child Protective Services and its power to seize children from homes. Excerpt:

As I mentioned in my earlier comment, there are agencies willing, as policy, to snatch children from parents over marijuana use in the home, over letting Junior sit in the back seat while Mom picks up the dry cleaning, over playing alone in the park at age 8, and over a host of other infractions within past or present normal range. Ten years from now, maybe the triggers will be cigarette smoking in kids’ presence, moderate drinking during pregnancy, or a snack-food-based diet. Being popped into the care of paid strangers through multiple and shifting placements may involve getting yanked into a different school system, losing touch with your old friends, and crying yourself to sleep each night from missing your real family – but never mind, agencies record a low rate of formal abuse findings in situations like yours. Above all when shifting policy and value judgments get framed in the language of claims to expertise, families fear CPS, and they are right to fear CPS.

The discussion is led by attorney Diane Redleaf, author of the just-published book They Took The Kids Last Night, with Prof. James Dwyer of William and Mary Law School as the third participant.

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