The rash of negative reporting that has, finally and rightfully, been dogging the American "Child Protective" "Services" (CPS) industry in various parts of the country is having an impact. Not only has social media been effective in getting information about CPS abuses to the general public; but the agencies, apparently, are starting to feel the heat. When they react, they will, invariably over-react. That is how you can tell that they are under pressure... when the over-reactions become commonplace and/or the "new normal."
As this recent article by a prominent anti-corruption activist points out, CPS is always on the lookout for ways to "avoid the heat," and that process often involves the "system" morphing slightly to skirt the rules that they are increasingly being forced (by the few good and honest courts) to actually follow.
The latest gimmick is the so-called "safety plans" that are being used in more than thirty states, and counting, at present. Consider the following excerpt from the link above:
"But CPS systems have improvised clever tactics to avoid ever presenting a legal case to a judge when they remove a child. There is a long history in many states of using so-called voluntary placement agreements that explicitly aim to avoid the requirement of court orders. In more than thirty states, policies and practices authorize even more informal separations, which are agreements in name only. Innocuously called 'safety plans,' these devices are utilized to circumvent the duty to afford due process to the families from whom children are taken. Safety plans are usually oral directives, issued to parents following a CPS Hotline call, that require parents to give their children over to relatives under threat of forced removal and placement with strangers. These separations are labelled as 'voluntary' even when parents are led to believe that entrusting their children to a relative is the only way they can see their kids at all. This informal separation system, operating under the unfettered authority of CPS caseworkers to fashion onerous demands and restrictions upon parents and other family members, creates what I call a 'shadow foster care system'.”
All one need do is read the above paragraph to understand the new depths to which most elements of the American CPS milieu have fallen. How do these types of coerced "agreements" even stand a chance in a nation that used to pride itself on "the rule of law?" Sadly and typically, there is nothing in these "agreements" that can be evenly remotely justified. If these children were truly in imminent danger, they should easily have been able to secure a proper court order; and, if there is no imminent danger--given CPS's broad history of over-reach and "butt covering"--there is no need for these bogus "safety plans."
It sure seems to me that these plans should immediately be declared null and void by The Supreme Court...Hello Rutherford Institute, hello Jay Sekulow and the ACLJ?? Surely, this newish scheme is onerous enough for some intrepid group of legal beagles to get a nationwide class action lawsuit underway--supported by every parent's rights group. It certainly could (and ought) to be common fare for the evening news, nationwide.
"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
Let's make "safety plans" increasingly necessary for these corrupt CPS caseworkers, administrators, and their enablers in the courts and the LEO community. This type of widespread open corruption should never be tolerated in the name of supposed "safety."
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." --Benjamin Franklin