READ STARASIA'S NIGHTMAREBack in the bad old days, not so long ago, Nicholas Scopetta, Rudolf Giuliani's child welfare honcho, declared : "I would like the caseworkers to err on the side of protecting the children,'' meaning, as spoken by many a child welfare supervisor, "when in doubt yank'em out."
A panic wave of child removals (baby snatching) ensued, as Scopetta "got tough" under the lash of tabloid hysteria.
One good thing I can say about Michael Bloomberg is that during his first term this hysterical baby snatching has abated, as his new commissioner of child welfare, John Mattingly, has taken up the tasks of fixing the foster care system, rallying family members to care for children in need of protection and reducing the overall number of child removals.
One aspect of the old Giuliani policy is not under the purview of the present child welfare commissioner, the hangover from the "broken windows" policing theory propounded by Giuliani (for the little people, of course). It's possible that Mike Bloomberg doesn't even know this, but unlike the police in our neighboring suburban counties, New York City police lock up and run through the system virtually any parent accused of putting a mark or bruise on a child, or endangering a child in virtually any way.
Imagine being a parent who has just been called by your child's guidance counselor for the tenth time this month because he cuts class, fights with other students, and tells the teachers to do things anatomically impossible to do. Your child comes home at ten that night and refuses to tell you where he's been, or to acknowledge that he got in trouble in school yet again. When this kid tells you what you can do with yourself you lose your temper, and like your father would have and like his father would have before him, you take off your belt and lash this kid's back.
Now, don't get me wrong. As a child protective worker I support the law that prohibits this method of discipline. I fail to see however how locking this parent up overnight and putting him or her through the system is going to help the child (or other kids in the family) or steer him to the help he needs. Yet, unlike a similar parent were he to reside in Westchester or Nassau Counties, this parent is going to jail, just as if he were a habitual vicious child abuser.
The very same guidance counselor who has been calling the parents about this child's behavior will call the State's child maltreatment register and make a report against the parent. Worse, the police will be notified and a virtually automatic arrest will ensue. As a child protective worker I have seen little children watch their fathers, mothers or caring relatives taken away in handcuffs for doing what almost every one of us over the age of twenty five knows first hand is and has been for centuries a commonplace and culturally ingrained, religiously encouraged practice of child discipline.
I'm not here to say that society must condone these practices, even though religion does. We don't put adulterers and practitioners of oral sex (sodomy) in the middle of our town squares and pelt them with stones. We don't execute people for not honoring their parents either. I am here to say that reason, logic, mercy and good sense must prevail. Enough with locking up good parents. Enough with broken windows! This broken window nonsense breaks up families!
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1 comments:
You've got a great blog. I don't always agree with you, but its entertaining. I didn't mean to offend you with my take of the projects, its just that I've had too many negative experiences in them. You're right, people do wait years to get a spot in them. I have encountered both the best and the worst that the projects have to offer. I can tell you however, my description of the Martin Luther King Houses and Taft houses is dead on balls accurate,its not an allegation! Anyway, what are your thoughts on Scoppetta? He seems to be a horible leader, but instead a good administrator. The UFA gave him a vote of no confidence recently. I'd like to know what ACS workeres thought of him.
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