CPS- A Frankenstein's Monster

October 25, 2:35 PMFamily Rights ExaminerLeonard Henderson

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Mood Music?

Frankenstein's monster (or Frankenstein's creature, often incorrectly referred to as Frankenstein) is a character that first appeared in Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. In the novel, the creature has no name—a symbol of his parentlessness and lack of human sense of self and identity. He does call himself, when speaking to his creator, Victor Frankenstein, the "Adam of your labours". He is also variously referred to as a "creature," "fiend," "the dæmon," "wretch," "devil," "thing," "being," and "ogre" in the novel.

...Immediately upon bringing the creature to life, Frankenstein flees from it in horror and disavows his experiment-  Wikipedia

"Two decades ago hysterical liberals created a monster ---- an unaccountable Gestapo known today as Child Protective Services. Crazed therapists testified before Congress that 75 percent of parents were child abusers and that a new national bureaucracy was necessary to protect children. Congress obliged the therapists' request and unleashed a Frankenstein." Paul Craig Roberts 1999

"On January 31st, 1974, President Nixon signed Public Law 93-247, The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). This act ostensibly addressed a growing awareness of the problem of child abuse (ranked by some polls as one of the three most pressing national problems in the early '70s). It resulted in effects more far-reaching and consequences more devastating than the designers could have imagined.

Congress unsuccessfully proposed multiple child protection bills during the period from 1964 to 1973, but it was Walter Mondale's adoption of this potent issue in his movement toward presidential candidacy that resulted in CAPTA's ultimate success. He championed this relatively non controversial issue, using the well remembered phrase "Not even Richard Nixon is in favor of child abuse!"

Social legislation was not widely popular at that time, but child abuse was a potent archetypal issue that everyone understood emotionally, and therefore acted as a powerful bond tying national "pulse points" to candidate recognition. The success of this unidimensional argument remains remarkably effective - Janet Reno's popularity soared when she claimed child abuse intervention as the purpose for the Waco Texas raid that incinerated 87 children and adults.

It is of interest to consider some of the key testimony before CAPTA during the sub-committee hearings of 1973. Under Walter Mondale's probing, Brandeis professor David Gil linked an increase in factors adverse to family life among the poor to a concomitant increase in abuse found among that social class. Class character distinction then, as now, was politically incorrect, and discussion which should have moved investigation in that direction was actively thwarted. More than once, skillful questioning by Mondale deflected problems of neglect and focused on abuse. This deflection stood in stark contrast to the vastly greater scope of the problem of neglect, which has its roots firmly linked to poverty.

The Director of the Washington DC office of the Child Welfare League of America, William Lunsford, articulated the resultant dichotomy in terms of the medical view versus the state's view. Medical professionals define abuse as an individual problem to which individual treatment must be applied. Child welfare services, however, view the government as a provider with equal or greater responsibility in bringing up a child. As in most bureaucracies, global programs and universal maxims are easier to apply than individual treatment. The committee's neglect of fundamental problems in favor of a simple "stop beating the child" approach, ultimately supported punitive social agency response instead of facilitating family health and stability.

An even more important minimization occurred in debate around the proper role of the state in the upbringing of children. To retain the powerful single issue quality (necessary for voter support) of the proposed legislation, child abuse had to be separated from the parent's right to discipline the child. This was accomplished with the help of the gripping testimony of Jolly K., former child abuser and founder of Parents Anonymous. She spoke of how her children were almost killed in incoherent rages, and how powerless she felt to stop the frenzy once it began. Her figurative example of sin (compounded by the complicit lack of public response) and redemption (to be supplied by programs to be funded under the law) skewed the discussion in the direction of physical abuse alone. The subcommittee saw only one 'sin' (physical abuse) and one 'redemption' (governmental intervention).

In its nascent form CAPTA primarily provided minimum funds to study and collect information on the extent and nature of child abuse and neglect. Its final form, however, replaced simple investigative funding with a comprehensive series of restrictions and rewards. Most important of these were the criminal penalties to be levied against professionals who did not report suspected child abuse, and the availability of federal funds to those states which passed laws which conformed to the federal act. As Barbara Nelson states in her seminal book Making an Issue of Child Abuse, "National child abuse legislation was good for its sponsors, good for the professionals who supported it and constructed on the faith of good intentions and the hope that the whole of all categorical social programs will be greater than the sum of their parts. This is rarely so."  From TWENTY YEARS OF CAPTA, The background, limitations and results of federal and state child abuse legislation by Damon Coffman, 1993

"In 1974 Mondale passed the Child Abuse and Prevention Act which began feeding massive amounts of federal funding to states to set up programs to combat child abuse and neglect. From that stemmed Child "Protective" Services, as we know it today. 

After the bill passed, Mondale himself expressed concerns that it may be misused and lead states to create "business". In 1997 President Clinton passed the "Adoption and Safe Families Act". The PR campaign promoted it as a way to help abused and neglected children who languished in foster care for years, often being shuffled in-between dozens of foster homes, never having a real home and family to call their own. In a press release from U.S. Department of Health & Human Services dated November 24th, 1999, it refers to "President Clinton's initiative to double by 2002 the number of children in foster care who are adopted or otherwise permanently placed."

It all sounded so heartwarming. We, the American public, are so easily led. We love to buy stereotypes; we just eat them up, no questions asked." -attributed to Nev Moore, Co-founder of AFRA, founder of Justice for Families.

ASFA '97 was set to expire September 30, 2008.  On Tuesday, October 7, 2008 Lame Duck George W. Bush signed into law the Orwellian-named Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act.   This communist legislation passed by unanimous consent in the House on September 17. The new law represents the most grievous addition to the nation's foster care system since the fascist ASFA of 1997.  As a result of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, millions more children will be kidnapped, denied their Constitutional Rights and be made legal orphans.

"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered; but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." -Lyndon B. Johnson  

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"Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own." --Aesop (c. 550 B.C