Family Structure and the Role of Parents
We do know that rates of abuse for children are lowest in intact
married families. We know that abuse is highest when mother
cohabits with a boyfriend who is not the father of the children.
This family arrangement is very frequent among the poor, thanks in
no small part to the role of the federal government.
Federal welfare payment structures and Earned Income Tax Credit
(EITC) regulations massively penalize marriage, and in so doing the
federal government has an active role in fostering the family
structures that feed child abuse the most.
If the federal government wants to see a decrease in the rates
of child abuse, logically, it must commit itself to restoring
marriage particularly amongst the poor: restoring commitment,
loyalty and security. Both abused women and children will
benefit.
United Nations and Parental
Rights
For decades now among some child advocates there has been a
growing hostility towards parents and a dismissal of the rights of
parents. This runs from local cases such as described above to the
infamous 1980 Washington State Supreme Court judgement against the
parents of Sheila Marie Sumey, when the child was removed from her
parents at her own request, acknowledged to be without cause on the
parents side of the issue. Though history, and the now grown
teenage girl both clearly state the courts were wrong, the
precedent still stands in Washington State and the court has not
renounced its error.
At the United Nations the rights of parents to raise their
children according to their moral and religious beliefs is
constantly under attack from the U.N. Secretariat.2 For instance the committee tasked to
bring nations into compliance with the Convention on the Rights of
the Child (which the US has not ratified) rebuked Great Britain for
permitting parents to withdraw children from sex-education classes
that ran counter to their moral beliefs, even though the rights of
parents to direct the moral formation of children is enunciated in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the two treaties
which implement the Declaration. The U.N. Secretariat has never
countermanded the committee rebuke.
In 1998 at the U.N. Lisbon conference of Ministers of Youth the
rights of parents to form their adolescent children was repeatedly
fought off and deliberately not included in the final concluding
document.
Furthermore the U.N. committees are urging
states to give minor children:
-
The right to privacy, even in the
household;
-
The right to professional counseling
without parental consent or guidance;
-
The full right to abortion and
contraceptives, even when that would violate the parents' ethics
and desires;
-
The right to full freedom of
expression at home and in school;
-
The legal mechanisms to challenge in
court their parent's authority in the home.
For example, the U.N. Committee on the Rights
of the Child recommends to the Japanese government that it
"guarantee the child's right to privacy, especially in the family."
Such a measure would establish legal and structural wedges between
parents and their children in the home. Normally, when children
rebel against their parents, society frowns. Yet the U.N. is
attempting to put in place, in policy and law, structures that
foster this type of rebellion.3
These are not distant threats
to the rights of parents, they are as close as the Convention on
the Rights of the Child already signed by President Clinton, though
not ratified by the Senate.
There are dangerous attitudes of hostility towards the roles and
rights of parents, attitudes growing among many in the applied
fields of children's policy and in the policy community of
children's advocates at the national and international level.
Because Congress funds so much of the programs that interface the
rights of children and the rights of parents it behooves it to
protect the constitutional rights of due process of parents.
National Incidence Survey (NIS -
4)
One of the first things that the federal government can do is
direct HHS to do the fourth round of the National Incidence Survey,
(NIS-4) and this time require that data be gathered on two critical
background factors in abuse: details on the marital living
arrangement of resident parent(s), (there are at least eight such
arrangements that are critical in child abuse) and the frequency of
religious worship by the resident adults. There is a need to get a
true and accurate picture of the structures of abuse in this
country. The prior three Surveys did not gather these data and to
that extent the country is flying blind and misinformed on the need
to cultivate those institutions that are most protective of the
safety of children, women and even men.
Anonymous tips
The highest substantiation
rates of reports of abuse come from professionals who report their
concerns, while the lowest level of substantiation of abuse comes
from anonymous reports.
A huge proportion (70 percent on average, and up to 90 percent
in some districts) of the investigations of child abuse triggered
by anonymous reports turn out to be without foundation and these
investigations eat up a massive amount of the resources needed to
deal with real child abuse and neglect.
When an innocent family is confronted with police and social
workers in a basless case they are frequently frightened
needlessly. Furthermore when they are treated with the presumption
to be felons (when they are innocent) each such treatment erodes
citizens confidence in the child protective service and even in law
enforcement. This sense of distrust has been growing for a number
of years among traditional church-going families and particularly
among homeschooling families (who as a group are the superior
performers on raising their children), a distrust that should be of
concern to all lawmakers and law enforcement officers and court
officers.
At the heart of this particular type of overuse is the
widespread, well nigh universal practice of permitting anonymous
callers to lodge complaints. This practice permits a miscarriage of
justice: a call can be made accusing a parent of awful abuse of
their children. Case workers, sometimes accompanied by police then
have to investigate the complaint, and as mentioned, over 70
percent of them are baseless. Many such initial reporting are
malicious in nature.
There is a simple remedy: anonymous calls to the case worker or
police should not be acted upon. One might still protect the
anonymity of the caller from the accused but at least the police or
case workers should know who the caller is and how to contact
them.
New Mexico and Arizona have
laws on the books against the use of malicious calls but because
anonymity of the caller is permitted, malicious calls generally
cannot be prosecuted or even investigated.
It is time to require callers who accuse or report abuse to
identify themselves to the officials they call.4 Doing so will likely bring the
rate of confirmable reports.
False reports should at least be a class C misdemeanor. (Alabama
has model legislation).5
Due Process Rights
A related abuse of law is that parents are not informed of their
rights when investigators call. For instance recently in Missouri a
parent was anonymously accused of spanking his child 250 times of
chaining the children to chairs and of emotionally abusing them in
other ways. Two social workers, a sheriff and two criminal
investigators showed up at the door and claimed right of entry. The
show of force was overwhelming to the mother who answered the door.
The case was eventually judged to be baseless and malicious but
only after much trauma to the children and family was this finally
the judgement of the police and caseworkers. In other cases when
parents know and exercise their rights and refuse entry they are
sometimes subject to harassment and abuse by the investigators.6
The proper approach would be to remind parents of their rights
(that they do not have to let investigators into the home, and that
they do have the right to counsel before proceeding further).
Thereafter investigators may try to persuade parents to permit them
to investigate and bring the issue to swift close.
These two reforms would massively reduce the unnecessary
investigation caseload and help restore the confidence of parents
in the child protection system.
Furthermore it would restore due constitutional process to
parents, the one group that does not have this fundamental civil
right extended to them.
A warrant must be obtained
before a home can be entered without the informed consent of the
parents, especially in the case of anonymous reports.
To help redress violations of
privacy, victims of such violations should be able to inspect their
records in order to seek recourse and rectification of the
record.
An articulation of parental rights is needed to level the
playing field during child welfare investigations.
The other end of the spectrum of the treatment of parents is
where they have been repeatedly found guilty of serious child
abuse. There the needs of the child demand that parental rights be
terminated and the child placed for adoption much more frequently
than they are. Thus on one end the system is overzealous too
frequently and on the other end it is lacking in courage to do what
it is empowered by law to do and what the needs of the child
demand.
States Rights
There is a conservative tradition of defending the rights of
states in all things that are not the purview of the federal
government. I agree with that tradition and see a critical need to
return to it. However there is no immediate chance that the federal
government funding on child abuse issues will disappear or even be
reduced. Therefore the federal government should use the influence
it has through funding to ensure that the constitutional rights of
parents are protected, both in due process issues and in ensuring
that the wheels of justice turn in as just manner for parents being
investigated as they do for arraigned criminals.
Furthermore many states are failing the best needs, even the
minimal needs, of children by not aggressively pursuing the
severance of parental rights when severe and repeated abuse of
young children has been established. Such states violate the rights
of the most vulnerable who are already under the protection of the
state. This state neglect is cause for federal concern, further
investigation, deliberation and action.
The views that I express in this testimony are my own, and
should not be construed as representing any official position of
the Heritage Foundation. In addition, the Heritage Foundation does
not endorse or oppose any legislation.
Patrick F.
Fagan is William H.G. FitzGerald Research Fellow in Family
and Cultural Studies