The Role of the Government
Several highly-placed DCF sources have told me that they are
aware that DCF often frightens citizens unnecessarily, and does
not do a very good job in child welfare. However, DCF maintains,
at least privately, that it has no choice. It will point to
various federal child welfare acts, starting with social
security in the 30’s, which put a premium on removing kids and
placing them in foster care, or putting them up for adoption.
And, of course, this almost always mean “poor kids.” The
well-off can hire better lawyers and usually work around it.
The history of federal laws which encourage child removal is a
perfect example of why the Founding Fathers intended a limited
central government. It is a perfect example of why disregarding
the Constitution has led to problems.
I gladly acknowledge the research in the fine article “A Brief
Legislative History of the Child Welfare System”, by Murray and
Gesiriech, in preparing parts of this section. However, any errors in
this section are my own.
THE OLD DAYS
In ancient Rome, parents had life-and-death power over their
children. Children were property, and it was no one else’s
business what parents did with them.
Things gradually improved. One result of books like Oliver Twist
was to create public awareness of the plight of children. And
yet measures to reduce child labor and other forms of child
abuse were once regarded as wildly radical.
In the 18th Century, the practice developed of hiring out
orphans and other children in poverty to work for families. Some
of these families were kind; others were abusive. The famous
poem “Little Orphant Annie”, by James Whitcomb Riley,
romanticizes the life of indentured orphans. Even today, it has
inspired a comic strip and a notable Broadway musical.
By the 19th Century, this practice largely gave way to
orphanages, run by charitable and religious organizations. While
out of favor today, it must be remembered that orphanages were
intended as a kindly benefit for innocent children. However,
progressive persons realized that orphanages, at best, were not
pleasant places to grow up. The idea of foster care began to
develop in the mid-19th Century.
Of course, there were few if any controls on foster care or
other child welfare matters.
THE SPCA TO THE RESCUE
There were social workers in America in the early 20th Century,
although they were not quite what they are today. In New York
City, a social worker discovered an unbalanced woman in the
slums who was abusing her daughter horribly, even by the
standards of the day. She was beating the kid regularly and
stabbing her with scissors. The social worker was appalled, but
could do nothing, as the woman had broken no laws. The child was
her property.
The social worker was creative. Earlier activists had passed
laws against animal cruelty, resulting in the development of the
SPCA. The worker used animal cruelty laws to rescue the child,
and to push for laws against cruelty to children.
The federal government also got involved, but its role was very
small at the time.
States began to recognize that kids in criminal trouble should
be treated more kindly than were adult criminals. The first
Juvenile Court began in Illinois in 1899. Connecticut began
juvenile court in 1921. These were juvenile delinquency courts,
intended to help and reform kids. Juvenile jails were thus known
as “reform schools.” Court proceedings were private, and the
kids were not publicly identified.
THE NEW DEAL
The most famous legislation of the New Deal is, of course, the
Social Security Act. The Act was intended to protect the small
number of Americans who lived too long to work, in the days of
no pensions and little savings. Of course, social security
expanded to include disability insurance, and later Medicare and
Medicaid. It is hard to believe that Americans once lived
without social security laws.
A little-known provision of social security, in 1935, offered
federal grants to states for child welfare services. As might be
imagined, these grants caused the states to increase their own
child welfare programs. Still, child welfare was considered a
State-based matter.
In 1937, a group of judges dedicated to improving the juvenile
delinquency courts, and the plight of children in trouble or
from broken families, formed the NCJFCJ – National Council of
Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
THE KENNEDY YEARS
Federal child welfare expanded in the 1960’s. Assistance was
provided to needy families with dependent children. However,
there was a problem. Many needy children were born out of
wedlock, and their homes were deemed unsuitable by the mores of
the day. In one famous incident, the State of Louisiana expelled
23,000 children from the welfare roles, simply because they had
been born illegitimate. People quickly realized that
illegitimacy was not the child’s fault, but what could be done
if the kids were in unsuitable homes? Orphanages were out of
style.
The answer was to push the little-used concept of foster care.
The government developed two ideas which are accepted today: try
to provide appropriate services to parents, to make their homes
suitable; and move the kids to suitable placements in the
interim.
However, as with all federal programs, no one knew where to
stop. The feds conditioned grants to states with the requirement
that states aggressively report to the courts all kids who were
candidates for removal. As might be expected, the states went
where the money was, and more and more children were removed
from their homes.
With the increasing strength of public employee unions, social
workers saw it as their duty to remove kids whenever possible.
Reunification was a remote possibility. And the parents, who
were overwhelmingly poor, had little or no legal assistance.
THE GREAT SOCIETY
In 1967, Congress made foster care mandatory for all states. In
1969, Connecticut created the Department of Children and Youth
Services (DCYS), from an amalgam of existing agencies. In 1993,
the name was changed to Department of Children and Families, or
DCF. Even today, many people still refer to it as “DCYS”.
DCF’s mission included identifying abused and neglected
children. But these kids were not juvenile delinquents, and the
parents were not necessarily in adult criminal court or in
family court. Since we already had Juvenile Courts for
delinquents, it seemed natural to expand these courts to cover
DCF abuse and neglect cases. And thus the idea was born that DCF
abuse and neglect cases are conducted in secret, in the Juvenile
Courts.
In 1968, the NCJFCJ moved its headquarters to the University of
Nevada, in Reno. Of course, NCJFCJ quickly expanded to include
child abuse/neglect cases as well as delinquency cases.
Social workers were reasonably quick to see that NCJFCJ, with
its prestigious-sounding title of an organization of judges,
would be a perfect lobbying organization for the social work
industry. Nominally a judge-based organization,
NCJFCJ benefits from a great deal of work from the social worker
industry, including journal articles, books, seminars,
conferences, and the like.
As of December, 2010, there were 8 NCJFCJ members in
Connecticut. This firm is the only one of the 8 that exclusively represents
private-paying adults in DCF matters.
In 1974, Congress expanded its role in providing federal funding
to combat child abuse and neglect. In exchange, states were
required to establish child abuse reporting systems, and to
implement mandatory reporting laws. While that is in general
a good thing, it became obvious that the existence of the social
worker industry depended on federal money; which meant that
establishing good statistics was more important than success in
individual cases. A major bureaucracy was well underway.
As always, the federal government ebbs and flows. Congress got
wind of the fact that too many kids were being removed, and that
not enough services were being given to natural parents.
Therefore, Congress passed legislation in 1980 that was intended
to rectify the problem and provide a balance between child
protection and family stability. The practical result was the
development of what are called “treatment plans.” Again, those
are good things, but at least in Connecticut they are largely
duplicative of existing state juvenile court efforts. However,
being a federal requirement, it must be followed; which is
another place that money disappears into.
The rectification lasted about a decade, until Congress decided
that not enough kids were being removed. Additional funding was
provided for foster care, and state courts were encouraged to
test new approaches. As we shall see, that had unintended
consequences.
Along the way were various miscellaneous acts. People were
concerned that too many Native American (Indian) children were
being removed, so special laws were passed to make it harder to
remove Indian children from their parents. (This may seem hard
to believe in equal-opportunity America, but it is true. It was
partially a fallout from Wounded Knee, which also resulted in
Indian casino gambling). Then some people were upset that white
children might be placed with black families, while others were
upset that black children might be placed with white families,
and still others were upset that children might not be
interracially placed. And Congress, as usual, caught in the
political storm, did its best; trying to please everybody, and
usually pleasing those with the best lobbies.
In 1980, in order to reward the teachers’ unions for support,
President Carter got cabinet status for the Department of
Education. This had the effect, of course, of adding layers of
education lawyers, and turning education administrators into
paper-pushers. It had the unintended effect, along with mandated
reporter laws, of making the schools into DCF partners for the
purpose of getting child abuse/neglect referrals.
For every good school referral, my experience suggests that
there are at least a dozen unnecessary ones. The effect is to
keep DCF busy.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARENTS’ RIGHTS
As a result of the Great Society, the social work industry was flexing its muscle and removing more children. But what about the rights of parents? Isn’t there something in the Constitution about family integrity?
Actually, there is not. The Founders simply assumed that it existed. Thus, parents were caught flat-footed when they discovered that their children could be removed without probable cause, and that they were almost powerless to stop it. The reasons were: child removal had never before been a part of government activity; the social work industry, aided by public employee unions, moved quickly; and the courts and legislatures were caught unaware. The Constitution, in effect, had made no provision for DCF; because no one in 1787 was aware of such a thing.
In one case, some children were removed from their mother, admittedly with good cause. The father of the children, who was not living with the mother, then sought custody. The authorities denied this, on the sole ground that the couple had not been married, and that an unwed father was clearly unfit to be a parent.
This outrageous decision occurred, not in Russia or China, or in some American backwater in the 18th century, but in Illinois in the early 1970’s. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided (Stanley v. Illinois, 1972) that family integrity was a basic constitutional right, and could not be defeated by the mere assertion that a parent was unwed.
It is hard to believe that such a case could have arisen in
the United States just about 40 years ago.
We had come a long way: from Roman times, when parents had
life-and-death power over their children; to the Great Society, when
bureaucrats had life-and-death power over family integrity. But fortunately, Stanley came along to remind bureaucrats that there still was a
Constitution.
Even then, however, the public was not generally aware of DCF activities. In fact, when I attended law school (1984-1988), Stanley was not part of the Constitutional Law curriculum.
Then came the next great U.S. Supreme Court case for family integrity, Santosky v. Kramer (1982).
When the State was attempting to terminate parents’ rights, it had been held to a standard of “preponderance of the evidence.” This is the normal standard for a civil lawsuit, such as an automobile accident or a rent dispute: is it more likely than not that the plaintiff is correct? It is far below the criminal standard, which is “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In Santosky, the Court decided that parental rights could not be terminated on so flimsy a reed; the State would have to prove its case by an intermediate standard, called “clear and convincing evidence.” And that is the law today, except in New Hampshire and in Indian Child Welfare cases, which require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We considered trying to increase the standard in Connecticut, but it had no legislative support.
You still do not get a jury trial; only a few states allow that in certain instances. But at least State power was being somewhat curtailed.
The State’s rationale for all this was twofold: we are protecting children; and these are civil matters, not criminal matters. Therefore, due process cannot prevail.
Of course, this is nonsense. Children are still protected, as they can easily be removed from the home by a Judge’s emergency order. (In Connecticut, DCF removes the child under a 96-hour-hold, and during those four days seeks an “Order of Temporary Custody” from a Judge. Other states have similar procedures).
As for criminal matters, suffice it to say that most people would rather spend 60 days in jail than have their kids permanently removed. The distinction between civil and criminal law turns out to be a difficult one, and we do not have time to discuss it here. Lawyers are referred to: Paul H. Robinson, The Criminal-Civil Distinction and the Utility of Desert, 76 B.U. L. Rev. 201 (1996). The article is somewhat obscure, to say the least, but leaves one with the impression that juvenile matters are not crimes simply because the legislature chose to not define them as such. Of course, the real reason is that defining it by criminal standards would severely burden the work of DCF and the Assistant Attorneys General who represent them.
Parents originally were not even entitled to lawyers in child removal proceedings if they could not afford one, since these were not criminal proceedings. Fortunately, that changed, in Connecticut; although some other states still do not provide timely legal help to parents in trouble. And even so, the court-appointed lawyers were woefully underpaid, as opposed to DCF and its lawyers who were receiving increasingly generous State pay, benefits, and job security.
More breakthroughs were to come in the 21st Century.
THE DAWN OF A NEW CENTURY
The ebb and flow started to stabilize as the 21st Century
approached. Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act
of 1997, known as ASFA.
As one court put it, “ASFA sets strict time limits for states to
make certain children achieve permanency to prevent them from
lingering in foster care.” This is a laudable goal, but what it
actually means is that finally, what everybody had suspected has
become established law: foster placements and adoptions are
officially encouraged.
The NCJFCJ, in its own training manuals for judges, stated that
the indirect impact of ASFA on the courts would be more TPR
cases, more adoptions, more guardianships, and more hearings on
those cases. The NCJFCJ manual also talks about the need for
judicial oversight of the child protection system. Nowhere, not
in a single place, does it mention the need to curb DCF
excesses. When I attempted to become part of the NCJFCJ Advisory
Group on Abuse/Neglect matters, I was given a very polite “Thank
you; we’ll call you” response.
Needless to say, I was never called.
Foster and pre-adoptive parents were given more rights to be
heard. OTC’s were encouraged. TPR procedures were made virtually
mandatory if a child were in foster care for 15 months (but with
no enforceable requirement that social workers tell this to the
parents). Adoption across state lines was facilitated. Health
insurance coverage was facilitated.
Another thing that parents and lawyers were not told is that
ASFA provides additional Federal grants to States, based upon
the State’s adoption rate. Naturally, the formula is complicated
and subject to change.
In the 1997 ASFA, if the number of adoptions in a fiscal year
exceeded the “base number” (an average of the number of foster
children adopted in previous years), then the State got
$4,000.00 per adoption. For some inexplicable reason,
special-needs-child adoptions got only $2,000.00 per adoption
over the base number.
The formula was made more generous in a 2003 revision. The
$4,000.00 regular figure remained, but special-needs-child
adoptions over the base number increased to $6,000.00 per
adoption. For older children (age 9 and above), who
traditionally are harder to place, the figure was a whopping
$8,000.00 per child over the base number (Eight thousand; it is
not a typo).
In an amendment signed into law on October 7, 2008, states may
receive an additional $1,000.00 per adoption, if the state’s
adoption rate exceeds its highest recorded foster child adoption
rate since 2002. The $4,000.00 and $8,000.00 over-base-number
figures remained unchanged.
It is true that in fiscal year 2007, Connecticut DCF received
none of this additional money, as it did not exceed its own base
numbers. But obviously, the incentive is present to exceed the
base number. As any DCF defense lawyer will attest, DCF is
thinking foster placement and adoption whenever possible.
One good thing about facts is that you are free to interpret
them in any way that you like. The obvious social worker
response is that the money helps to get kids adopted. Nowhere is
there any consideration, or any audit, of DCF overreaching, or
of whether the adoption was justified in the first place.
Another federal act is CAPTA (Child Abuse Prevention and
Training Act). When you look at ASFA and CAPTA and the
regulations, you find:
• Interminable data gathering, to keep bureaucrats busy forever;
• Grants to social workers and prosecutors, to facilitate more child removals;
• Nothing for defense lawyers to represent adults.
THE NEW NEW DEAL
The NCJFCJ has lost no time in lecturing President Obama. In a
press release dated November 20, 2008, it noted, among other
things:
A commitment by our new President to make [additional funding
and new programs] a reality has likely never been more
important. Even in the face of substantial social and economic
challenges, it is essential to continue and expand support for
juvenile and family court improvement efforts. Doing so will
help ensure more positive outcomes for all system-involved
children, youth, and families….Please take a few minutes to
contact President-Elect Obama and members of your own
Congressional delegation to let them know it is critical to make
these recommendations a priority in the coming four years.
The term “system-involved children” is a code phrase for social
worker interventions.
And what exactly are the “positive outcomes” that NCJFCJ wants
to push? Do they encompass meaningful child welfare?
Hardly. NCJFCJ lists five programs, which I quote verbatim:
1. Support reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act;
2. Continue and expand support for prevention programs through
the child protective division of the officer of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention;
3. Continue and expand support for judicial and
interdisciplinary training, technical assistance, and research;
4. Continue and develop new funding for improving case
processing practice in both dependency and delinquency cases
through NCJFCJ’s model courts initiatives; and
5. Develop a national program for reforming juvenile delinquency
practice at the state level.
To translate:
1. Items 1, 2, and 5 refer to juvenile delinquency.
2. Item 3 says “give us more money for studies and research
projects.” No goals are even hinted at. The “research” likely
includes more NCJFCJ training manuals, which help judges to help
DCF.
3. Item 4 refers to “dependency cases”, which is code for child
abuse/neglect cases. “Case processing practice” means “helping
DCF to move these cases through court.” Again, not even a hint,
not a mention of meaningful child welfare measures. In all fairness, while the vast majority of social
workers would agree with the need for child welfare,
implementation of measures other than child removal would do
nothing to help the DCF budget.
No one is quite certain what President Obama will do, what
Congress will allow, or what the economy will tolerate. However,
we already know that President Obama has selected moderate
establishment public figures in the areas of foreign policy,
homeland security, and financial reorganization. As several
columnists have hinted, he has little experience and no interest
in these areas, and wants them stabilized by establishment
figures so that he can concentrate on his real interest:
economic policy. Or, as some as termed it, the implementation of
the new New Deal.
Translated, this means more government spending, in terms of
projects and employment; and hope that someone else, or Divine
Providence, will fix the deficit. One rather obvious spending
need is child welfare. But the social worker industry has
already started to co-opt that to mean child removal and social
worker benefits; just as the education industry co-opted the
idea of solid education into multiple choice tests for the
benefit of professional administrators.
Yes, it is all debatable. What is not debatable is that DCF, and
its counterparts in other states, will grow.
We can only hope and pray that a Federal Department of Child
Protection Services does not rise to Cabinet status, as a payoff
to the social worker industry. I have no predictions. It would
not surprise me if it happens, regardless of whether I live to
see it.
Philosophically, DCF may be seen as a residual institution, in
the sense that Jacques Brazun, former Dean of Faculties of
Columbia University, dubbed schooling.
Dean Barzun said that the schools were “residual institutions”,
in the sense that society expected schools to do whatever it
could not do itself. Thus, schools today teach driver education,
consumer education, self-esteem, and workplace training. These
are all good things for society, but society for one reason or
another cannot accomplish them privately; therefore, the schools
are nominated.
Similarly, DCF is expected to do all things for children that
society cannot do itself. This includes running kiddie prisons,
running kiddie hospitals, chastising less-than-perfect parents,
and the like. The latest one that I read is for DCF to report
instances of animal abuse in families. Again, these are all good
things for society, but for one reason or another society cannot
get them accomplished; therefore, DCF is nominated.
As may be expected, DCF’s role of child protection will suffer,
as its focus is expanded to include nearly everything. Its
possible role in child welfare virtually ceases
to exist. See:
Meaningful
Child Welfare Article. And a Federal Department of Child Protection Services
will only institutionalize this situation.
THE ROLE OF CHILD PROTECTION LAWYERS
Connecticut had a Chief Child Protection Attorney (CCPA), who
oversaw the State-paid lawyers. Those
lawyers represent both children and parents in Juvenile Court
cases.
The overwhelming emphasis of State-paid lawyer training regards
children, not adults. It appears that the State will not reverse
the trend of federal action to benefit the social worker
industry.
In August of 2008, all Connecticut Juvenile Court state-paid
lawyers were sent by the CCPA to a conference in Savannah, GA. A
sympathetic friend, at the risk of his livelihood, gave me the
instructional CD from that conference.
The instruction was a prodigy of social worker psycho talk. Some
examples:
"Children’s stories, like those of women ethnic minorities and
other marginalized groups, have been hidden in plain sight
between the lines of histories written by and about the
powerful.
"Viewing children in developmental and ecological context
[includes the fact that] Piaget’s observations of children
yielded stage theory of child development that captures the
child as an evolving organism.
"Exosystems (workplace, healthcare, labor markets, fiscal
policies, courts, political systems) surround and affect
micro systems.
"Macrosystem is the surrounding “culture of ideas and power
(values, politics, prejudice, etc)” in which we find ourselves.
"Human rights are “ozone layer” of Macrosystem.
"Childhood is a contested and contingent notion [to be seen
through] anthropological lens [and] historical lens."
Yes, I have the printed materials. And no, they were not taken
“out of context.” I will observe that after reading the above, I
feel that there is no longer any need for parody in our society.
Real life is its own parody.
The Savannah instruction goes on to explain that America’s
“cultural macrosystem” is bad for children. One reason is that
“individual responsibility is the dominant value”. [I am not
making this up]. For more traditional statists, we are also told
that the “cultural macrosystem” is bad because it “erodes [the]
culture of solidarity [due to] classism, sexism, racism,
sectarianism.”
Another part of “The Future of [Children’s] Rights” explains
that we need a “Children’s Summit gathering”, and quotes from a
2002 UN summit. Guess where that is going.
Obviously, any overgrown flower child has the right to believe
what he or she wants to believe. However, why are Connecticut
taxpayers subsidizing plane fares, hotel rooms, meals, and
incidental expenses, so that state-paid lawyers can get this
“education”?
There is even a printed handout on how to get children talking,
to get the goods on their parents. Suggested questions:
1. How does your house get clean? Tell me about everyone’s
chores.
2. What do you usually have for breakfast?
3. How do you get to school?
4. Tell me about what you do when you get home from school
5. What happened the last time you were sick?
I wonder if President Obama is aware of this particular agenda.
There was a small part at the Savannah conference actually
devoted to representing parents. It consisted of a hopelessly
inadequate blurb published by the American Bar Association
(ABA). The material was first-grade stuff, and would have
embarrassed even my secretary. I wrote to the ABA person, twice, and
offered my assistance in upgrading the material. No response was
received. Her name is Mimi Laver, and her boss oversees a
"children's rights" project and counts the NCJFCJ as one of his
allies. The conflict of interest is too obvious for comment.
The Chief Child Protection Attorney wrote to me on August 5,
2009, politely explaining that the Savannah conference was no
problem, since the costs were paid by federal funding. And how
do you think the feds got those funds? Again, taxpayer money
wasted on the social work industry; to say nothing of lawyers’
time.
Juvenile court-appointed lawyers are now subject to the State Public Defender Services Commission. As of August, 2011, hourly fees have been lowered, and expense reimbursement made even more difficult. One friend complained to me of "slave labor for attorneys struggling with case overloads."
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF
PARENTS’ RIGHTS
Despite pressure by DCF and its lobbyists, NCCFCJ, and the social work industry, parents continued to make gains in court.
I would be very surprised if any of these gains are discussed in law school classes on Children’s Rights or on Constitutional Law.
Judges started to give less deference to DCF. Social workers often had to defend their status reports and social studies in court and be cross-examined on them. This was new for an industry that had previously thought that any hearsay ordered by its management would be accepted as Holy Writ.
Judges who had once been reluctant to interfere in DCF’s visitation decisions suddenly began to hold hearings, and would often order increased visits for parents whose children had been removed.
Pressure from our office caused court-appointed
psychologists to no longer be hired, paid by, reviewed by, and subject to
removal by, DCF; but instead, this responsibility was transferred to the
Judicial Department. Judicial responded admirably,
by changing the standard psychological evaluation court form, to ensure that
parents would have a fair shake.
Judges started questioning more OTC motions and were less likely to automatically remove children; sometimes ordering a hearing first, sometimes denying the motion altogether.
While most termination of parental rights (TPR) petitions continued to be granted, judges began to have second thoughts. One courageous judge actually stated with approval that “termination of parental rights has been called the civil equivalent of the death penalty.” It is actually worse, since death penalties take decades to implement, and can be overturned on habeas petitions or Executive clemency; neither of which is the case today for TPR. However, in 2010, the New York State Assembly considered a bill that might restore terminated parental rights under some conditions. That remains a new frontier.
It is reasonable to suppose that the enormous volume of
complaints that Judges and the State Legislature had received from ordinary
citizens, concerning DCF, had something to do with the new attitude. There are, in fact, several judges and
legislators who have seen enough, and are openly suspicious of any DCF filing;
while others realize that most such filings have to be scrutinized closely. There is no longer any doubt that DCF, while
it does some good, is primarily in business to provide State employment.
And no one at all believes that DCF is actually a child
welfare agency. However, no state as yet
has such an agency, which is a pity.
Fortunately, however, children are getting better
representation in court than they used to.
And then, in 2006, came Christina M. [In re Christina M., 280 Conn. 474, 908 A. 2d 1073 (2006)]
In Christina M., a TPR trial was held. The parents asserted that the children’s lawyer had not adequately represented the interests of the children, and had failed to assert effectively that the children in fact wanted to return to the parents. [Lest you think that the children could simply have testified, that is generally not allowed in TPR trials, ostensibly to protect the children].
DCF objected, stating that the parents had no right (“standing”, as lawyers call it) to even raise that issue. The children were separate parties from the parents, and the parents had no say in how the children’s lawyers handled the children’s case.
The Connecticut Supreme Court disagreed, stating that the children had a federally-protected right to effective assistance of counsel, and that their parents had a right to assert that right for them. The Court made it abundantly clear that Connecticut recognized that parents had a federally-protected right in family integrity, which could not be taken away lightly. Part of the decision reads as follows, with internal case citations omitted:
Indeed,
it is beyond dispute that, "the interest of parents in the care, custody,
and control of their children . . . is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental
liberty interests recognized by [the
Christina M. settled, once and hopefully for all, the idea that even though DCF petitions are civil actions, parents have protections akin to those provided in criminal actions. We have come a long way since Stanley.
Obtaining rights is something that most Americans take for granted. It is actually a never-ending process, sometimes won in court, sometimes in the legislature, and sometimes granted by the agency itself. But rights are never lightly granted, and bureaucrats are jealous of their prerogatives.
Life goes on. This article will never be finished. There is a parent in Oregon who objected to that state’s version of DCF visiting her child in school, secretly, with a uniformed policeman standing right there, and grilling the child without a warrant or probable cause. The matter was scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court. Our office is keeping an eye on this, and on other developments.
The inclusion of DCF in the civil rights umbrella may turn out to be the future of DCF defense in the coming decades.
SUMMARY
The end result of the New Deal was this: Government was formally
established as the employer of last resort. Never before in
American history did anyone even hint that it was Government’s
major role to directly employ people. Now it was.
The end result of the Great Society was this: Budget deficits
are now an integral part of American fiscal policy. Never before
in American history was this accepted, except briefly in
wartime. Democrats and Republicans disagreed on specifics, but
all agreed that budgets should be balanced. No more.
It may be too early to predict the end result of the New New
Deal. However, it is fairly clear that the Regulatory State, to
use the words of George Will, has been fully accepted. The New
New Deal results in the Corporate State, and presages the End of
Individualism as the American way of life.
Waitresses making $12.00 an hour are subsidizing Union auto
workers making several times that amount, and millionaire
corporate executives making dozens of times that amount; not the
other way around. The Corporate State is already here.
Along with the acceptance of Government as the employer of last
resort, the acceptance of budget deficits as a way of life, the
acceptance of entitlements as a political reality, and the
established clout of public employees (including social
workers), the end result of the New New Deal for DCF defense law
is clear enough: challenging government bureaucracy is a
full-time job.
Budget deficits as a way of life can only work if foreigners are
willing to buy up our debt. This can happen if the U.S. remains
a strong, stable, highly-centralized Corporate State.
Individualism will be viewed as a polite fiction.
This is why TV shows such as “House” will remain popular. They
allow people an outlet that they cannot achieve in real life.
Our entertainment producers are fully in tune with the public
mood of despair.
We have not even considered the role of psychologists, and the
ever-expanding list of mental problems in DSM (Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). One result is to
provide full employment for psychologists, psychiatrists, and
associated clinicians and therapists. Another result is to
ensure that, for any DCF involvement, a mental problem
justifying the involvement may always be found. “Excessive
individualistic disorder” is the next step in DSM, and it is
coming, in one form or another.
The Joys of Socialism
A few years ago, a bunch of lawyers were gathered in a Juvenile
Court hallway during a court break. One of the lawyers was Mack,
a very experienced and likable AAG representing DCF.
Mack started telling war stories to pass the time. At one point
he said that he had represented DCF in cases all over the State.
“What area”, he asked, “do you think had the highest incidence
of child abuse?”
Everyone wanted to name one of the big cities, such as Hartford,
New Haven, or Bridgeport. However, we were afraid to do so, lest
we appeared racist. So we did what lawyers do in those
situations – furrowed our brows, frowned, and looked deep in
thought.
After about 15 seconds, Mack broke the silence. “I know what
you’re thinking. Hartford, New Haven, or Bridgeport. But you’re
wrong. The highest incidence of child abuse that I found was in
New Britain. That’s because it’s filled with ethnic Eastern
Europeans, people who were used to living under Communist rule,
or who grew up with adults who did. In Communist countries,
people have no outlet. They are pushed around, made to feel
unimportant, and can’t do anything about it. So when they come
home, they take their feelings out on their families. It’s sort
of a way of life.”
Everyone seemed relieved to hear this. And that is a side effect
of socialism, one that you don’t often hear in the national
debates. People need outlets; and if they are denied them in
work life, they will find them elsewhere. The Russian passion
for alcoholism is but one aspect of this phenomenon.
Socialism does have some benefits, in that it quickly raises the
standard of living of the very lowest members of society. That
happened in Russia after the 1917 revolution, and it happened in
Cuba after Castro took over. But it does so at a high cost:
demoralizing the rest of society, and destroying the will to
succeed on your own.
And socialism depends, for its own survival, on the undermining
of the family. It encourages children to look to the State for
solutions. That is the message of books such as “1984”. It is
interesting that Orwell, once a staple of popular culture, has
been virtually read out of the curriculum.
It comes to this: individualism works, if we can only fight the human tendencies of greed,
laziness, and cowardice.
Please see Landmarks
table.