Re: closing the valve on the openly running faucet of children pouring into pizzagate as "missing" foster "care" children.
The history of LE losing their potential funding to protect a sizable portion of their publics dates back to 1974 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Abuse_Prevention_and_Treatment_Act)), and possibly earlier. Some LE agencies have taken back some of the funding, as have six agencies of Florida, for example: http://www.centerforchildwelfare.org/kb/LegislativeMandatedRpts/AnnualSheriffPerfRptFY15-16.pdf
However, such reports as linked above may be flawed in showing a "greater expense" when they "experimentally" "give authority" (i.e., funding) to LE agencies to do LE's job of protecting its citizenry. Just as one example for starters, they do not seem to consider the initial crime identification factor cost in that DCF, by its own statistics, absorbs a high number of identified false positives, and innocent children suffer the consequences of such socially biased investigations, if not suffering the lifetime harm of being destructively torn from families based on flawed "investigations" by those poorly trained at identifying and documenting evidence.
Of course, the very impressively presented evaluations of LEAs taking back this protective societal function (as linked above) are "conducted jointly" with SOs... and, powerfully, directly invested DCF. LEs are generally not as trained as administrative-level social workers in compiling compelling research (i.e., academically using statistics to show alleged facts, followed up with producing supporting narratives).
Here are a couple of examples of such arrangements where LEAs (SOs) have been able to successfully take back a portion of their funding—but they are under the radar to lose this funding if it can be successfully shown that they allegedly "cost the taxpayer more money": http://www.hcso.tampa.fl.us/Departments/Department-of-Investigative-Services/Child-Protective-Investigations-Division.aspx & http://www.pcsoweb.com/child-protection-investigations
I am sure better and more complete sources exist than linked as follows here, but there is A LOT of increasing money on the table: http://www.flgov.com/2015/10/27/gov-scott-proposes-an-additional-22-9-million-in-funding-for-the-safety-of-florida-children
Just to possibly open the conversation, are there any LEs here interested in taking back their ability (i.e., funding) to protect children in their communities? I have talked with local officers, and they agree, of course(!) that children are in need of protection from all harms.
view the rest of the comments →
SturdyGal ago
You would also have to have safe foster homes and halfway houses, otherwise you would be taking children from one bad situation and placing them into another. I think this situation requires a lot of citizen oversight, not just complete trust in Law Enforcement.
QuietJustice ago
Yes, I appreciate this idea in followup. However, we could start at the source, again: the allocations of protection funding, to reduce... possibly almost eliminate... the traumatizing of children and their closest, strongest, most natural family and community supports.
I believe the problem of cutting off this downpour of children into the drain starts at the beginning. LE officers are highly trained to recognize suspects while identifying and documenting crime. On the other hand, I have seen unverified pedo-type "investigators" of the current most-commonly funded sources make children extremely uncomfortable, not to mention the damage the children suffer to their reputations (i.e., yes, the child's reputation and how everyone treats him or her, fully and directly due to their own subjected family's investigation), their relationships with actual ongoing professional service providers, their surrounding family, etc. etc.
Quite frankly, as much as I want to believe citizen oversight involves more than strong but very temporary feelings of "isn't that cute," our culture has been found to be extremely critical of parents (i.e., especially then critical of mothers, of course) based on perceptions that have nothing to do with fact: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/16/were-really-bad-at-judging-risk-to-kids-were-really-good-at-judging-parents
Again, this is where the trained LE officer or even the PD-employed police social worker is going to do wonders for determining if and when children are in danger. Nothing is more annoying that witnessing when a police social worker has accurately categorized a situation in a quick, much-less-traumatizing way and then has to give authority over to some silly, nonsense-based, goofy social worker to finish up the child's life based on... a ""more specialized"" ""investigation"" (double quotes for such stark real meanings of professional words are all intended).
SturdyGal ago
Just to be clear, not saying amateurs jumping in and having direct contact with children. Saying citizens have input into the process and take complaints about the system, and help identify what resources are needed. You are so right that this is an area that only the most skilled professionals should interface with the children and parents.