[HN Gopher] Police Need Warrants to Search Homes. Child Welfare ...
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Police Need Warrants to Search Homes. Child Welfare Agents Almost
Never Get One
Author : sudobash1
Score : 34 points
Date : 2022-10-24 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.propublica.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.propublica.org)
| lbwtaylor wrote:
| >> Only about 5% of these kids are ultimately found to have been
| physically or sexually abused.
|
| That statement tells you a lot about the "article". Only someone
| with a very strong agenda would view 5% child abuse as "only".
| "Mission Accomplished" I guess.
|
| The opinion pieces sites one example of overreach by officials.
| Where are the stories about children saved from abuse? I guess
| that isn't relevant to the discussion.
|
| One month of her children being taken away is a serious result.
| But there's a lot at risk here.
| jjk166 wrote:
| A 95% false positive rate is extremely high, and the cost, both
| in terms of the emotional health of those involved, as well as
| the strain on resources for a chronically underfunded public
| service, is far from zero.
|
| Estimates are that around 16% of children are abused, so if
| you're only finding 5% it means you're substantially worse at
| choosing households to investigate than if you were picking at
| random. Of course that's a national average and some places may
| be better or worse, but really all that indicates is that
| resources are being diverted to the wrong areas. Every hour of
| time and every dollar spent investigating households without
| good reason is stolen from a victim who truly needed it.
|
| Obviously not every investigation needs to find abuse to be
| justified, the whole point of the investigation is we don't
| know if something is wrong or not. But just because there is an
| occasional success does not mean that the current system is
| working, nonetheless optimal.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> Estimates are that around 16% of children are abused, so
| if you 're only finding 5% it means you're substantially
| worse at choosing households to investigate than if you were
| picking at random._
|
| Sampling iid would be unconstitutional and also obviously
| politically infeasible. So, the only people who are
| investigated are people for whom there is probable cause or
| at least an accusation.
|
| Once you're sampling from a population for whom you have
| either probable cause or at least an accusation, the group
| under suspicion probably not an iid sample of the overall
| population and may even be skewed in the wrong direction. Eg,
| a physical abuser is more likely to conceal a bruise than the
| parent of a particularly careless child.
|
| Additionally, suppose for sake of argument that abusers are
| in fact over-represented in the accused group. The behavior
| of both abusers and the abused confounds the statistical
| analysis. Consider alcoholism as an analogy (but also _very
| correlated_ underlying pathology). Just like with alocholism,
| there are "high functioning" abusers who are able to avert
| suspicion and, in case of suspicion, manipulate the people
| who they are abusing.
|
| So we are sampling from a constrained population in which
| abusers may in fact be under-represented, and then again
| within that group there are confounding issues.
|
| None of this is to say that we should abandon constitutional
| rights, of course. But in a country with strong protections
| for the accused we might actually expect certain types of
| crimes to be _more_ difficult to investigate and prosecute
| than a "just iid sample" approach.
|
| (It's also possible that the estimates are wrong, and in both
| directions. It's additionally possible that the 16% statistic
| refers to a different definition of abuse than the 5% number.
| Etc. etc.)
| lbwtaylor wrote:
| Your suggestion seems to be that requiring warrants is going
| to make the investigations more efficient (as poorly
| evidenced cases will not result in a search).
|
| I would love to see evidence there, I think that's wishful
| thinking. Requiring warrants will simply mean fewer searches.
| I understand those who think that's a fair balance for
| individual rights. But I don't see it uncovering more abuse.
| I see it uncovering less, resources being kept equal.
| thwayunion wrote:
| A naive interpretation of the statistical analysis,
| ironically, in fact suggests that we could do better at
| investigating this crime by simply sampling iid for CPS
| checks :-\
| jstarfish wrote:
| > Where are the stories about children saved from abuse?
|
| You won't find them. Taking kids out of dubiously-neglectful
| households and putting them in foster care does not yield
| success stories.
|
| CPS does not stop abuse. It just displaces it.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > That statement tells you a lot about the "article". Only
| someone with a very strong agenda would view 5% child abuse as
| "only".
|
| It also entirely ignores findings of neglect. An agent who
| inspects a home and discovers that the children are sleeping on
| the living room floor and have no clean clothing, for example,
| hasn't found evidence that children have been "physically or
| sexually abused", but has made a finding of neglect which is
| probably sufficient for intervention.
|
| This isn't to say that there aren't problems here. The article
| goes on to discuss a number of real problems in home
| inspections from child services -- but this statistic alone
| isn't representative of the real situation.
| PortiaBerries wrote:
| So if 5% of extra-legal searches result in dirt, then extra-
| legal searches are worth it?
| Volundr wrote:
| Pretty much my thinking as well. Exactly what % hit rate do
| we need before we give up on the 4th amendment? 5% seems
| shockingly low to me.
|
| I'm all for protecting children, but if you have evidence one
| is being abused... get a warrant! Policing was never supposed
| to be easy.
| anm89 wrote:
| Constitutional rights are not supposed to be conditional on
| some parties perceived utility to society of violating them
|
| I understand you are potentially agreeing with me but
| framing this this way at all is problematic.
| googlryas wrote:
| It's 5% of the children in houses they search, not 5% of
| children. And they're searching the houses specifically because
| there has been an allegation of abuse or neglect.
| 988747 wrote:
| Allegations of abuse or neglect are common tactics during
| custody battle in divorce. I guess that's why only 5% turn
| out to be true.
| jstarfish wrote:
| Mandatory reporting also inflates the numbers. Teachers
| have to report anything they hear, even if it's kids
| exaggerating obvious nonsense.
| sudobash1 wrote:
| I appreciate the Miranda-style warning suggestion. I wonder why
| there haven't been more cases brought up to require Miranda
| warnings for more situations than just arrests. It is important
| information for people to know, and good for the authorities to
| remind themselves of other people's rights.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Good reporting. Growing up, the conventional wisdom was that
| child services would punish families that made them get a warrant
| with even more unreasonable inspection and a slanted write up. I
| suspect not much has changed, but this New York law is so
| oppressive that it's probably worth the community involving
| warrants more often to force these inspections to become more
| cursory due to limited resources.
| xupybd wrote:
| This boils my blood. The state should tread very carefully when
| breaking up families. Yes some children need protection but when
| the state starts to take over the role of parents they gain a
| scary amount of influence of the next generation. I know the
| intent is very different but this is what the Hitler youth was
| all about.
|
| My father worked in this field for years. It was a mess. Once
| public case would occur with a child dying at the hands of an
| abusive parent. So policy would change. Then there would be a
| high profile case where they got it wrong and took a child off of
| a good family. So policy would change again. Every time the blame
| would fall on the social workers. It nearly broke my dad when he
| was managing a district branch.
|
| I have no solutions as I want children to be safe at home but it
| sucks from every angle.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> I know the intent is very different but this is what the
| Hitler youth was all about._
|
| This is wildly inaccurate. The Hitler youth was a fully
| voluntary group -- in fact, at times exclusionary _even among
| favored in-groups_. It was more like what would happen if you
| combined elite prep schooling, the youth wing ( "Young _s") of
| a fringe political party, and scouting into a single
| organization. This didn't change until 1936, and even then, the
| upper ranks of the group were dominated by the description
| above.
| xupybd wrote:
| My point wasn't the the mechanism is identical it's that the
| utility or the possible utility is manifested in the Hitler
| youth. I'm not saying the Hitler youth was compulsory or that
| state influence need to be compulsory to arouse my concern.
|
| Having an arm of the state that focuses on installing values
| in children can allow bad things to happen. Families can
| install bad values in children but the distributed nature of
| families mean the system is a little more stable, as you're
| less likely to see the same bad values installed en masse.
| However, this does happen as problem cultures arise in
| populations. We see this particularly in urban gangs. But
| even in this instance the concentration of power is reduced.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> Having an arm of the state that focuses on installing
| values in children can allow bad things to happen... But
| even in this instance the concentration of power is
| reduced. _
|
| The Hitler Youth makes, if anything, the exact opposite
| point. What the Hitler youth demonstrates is that a
| movement that focuses on installing their values in
| children can use radicalized youth as a powerful component
| in their push toward fascist revolution. This is why the
| German response to the Hitler Youth was to criminalize the
| organization, not to dismantle child welfare laws.
|
| The entire discussion is a red herring because "installing
| values in children" is not the goal of child welfare
| agencies.
| xupybd wrote:
| Correct the goal of child welfare agencies is not to
| install values in children. However, when the state has
| to step into raise children, the state has no choice but
| to install values in those children.
|
| In my original comment I said "when the state starts to
| take over the role of parents they gain a scary amount of
| influence of the next generation". This is one of the
| many downsides of state welfare having to go in. I'm not
| denying the need. It's just one of the many problems
| involved.
|
| > What the Hitler youth demonstrates is that a movement
| that focuses on installing their values in children can
| use radicalized youth as a powerful component in their
| push toward fascist revolution
|
| This is exactly my point.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> > What the Hitler youth demonstrates is that a
| movement that focuses on installing their values in
| children can use radicalized youth as a powerful
| component in their push toward fascist revolution_
|
| _> This is exactly my point._
|
| Child protection agencies are not a movement.
| xupybd wrote:
| >Child protection agencies are not a movement.
|
| I agree.
| [deleted]
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