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Blanca Ramirez

Professor Briones

ENGL 1302-228

11 April 2024

Child Protective Services: A Corrupt System

Child Protective Services (CPS) is an agency that carries out investigations of families

whom they believe are putting children at risk of harm within their homes. Their job is to

respond to cases where neglect such as abuse, food restrictions, dirty repetitive clothing, etc.

have been reported and start an investigation to immediately remove the child from the custody

of their guardian. Child Protective Services is a phenomenal organization that has protected the

lives of many innocent children, but this organization has also had blood on their own hands of

the many children they have failed to remove from harm which resulted in death. Many people

vote in favor of the organization being shut down for good; however, there are ways that the

organization should improve to be able to be a better asset in this cruel world.

CPS gets millions of reports of child abuse a year, making it nearly impossible to be able

to get through every case leaving many children to suffer in agony. With all the cases that CPS

receives, the organization should seek ways to be able to get through every case such as hiring

more employees, raising the cost of money given to foster families to support the foster children,

spreading awareness to encourage more people to foster, etc. Research has indicated that in

2010, 3.3 million cases of alleged child neglect were reported to CPS and only 2 million were

deemed appropriate by CPS for investigation (Camasso and Jagannathan 1636). The media has

revealed many horrific cases of maltreatment under CPS supervision because the case was not

deemed as important as other cases. There have been many reports of public agencies’ failure to
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provide a safety net for these children who are suffering from abuse in their homes (Camasso and

Jagannathan 1637).

The Child Protective Services system is implemented to protect victims of abuse and

protect them from abuse ever happening again. Although CPS does its best efforts to keep abuse

from reoccurring there are many cases where CPS is no longer involved, and the parents start to

implement maltreatment once again resulting in rereporting to CPS (Bae, Solomon, et al 34). It is

sad to know that even with the removal of a child from the home of neglect, it does not

encourage the guardian to receive help and want to change for the sake of their child. Authors

Bae, Solomon, Gelles, and White conducted a study that followed 67,243 families who had been

rereported to CPS for over 5.4 years. They found that 14,218 out of the 67,243 had one or more

child abuse reports. During the research they evaluate certain factors that may be the result of the

reoccurring abuse, the main one being exposure to CPS. They found that rereporting cases are

often due to the history of abuse (Bae, Solomon, et al 35). To reduce the amount of rereported

cases, CPS should have a program that the guardian needs to attend and be mentally and

physically cleared to be able to be reunited with their child. Additionally, rereported cases could

be reduced depending on the parents' behavior and how they choose to act. Child Protective

Services could help the amount of rereported cases by keeping the parents in check and

reminding them of the consequences of putting a child back in foster care.

Rereported cases of abuse often result in the child being taken away from the home again

and placed back into foster care. The statistics show that 1 in every 5 foster children is placed

back into foster care within 5 years of being reunited with their family. Authors Font, Sattler, and

Gershoff created a study to examine how substance abuse and mental health issues can result in

the reentry of foster care. The study showed that foster care children who were taken back to
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their families within 12 months of entering were more likely to reenter. Once a child is in foster

care for 15 to 22 months the state files for termination of parental rights despite their best efforts

(Font, Sattler, et al 1334). To be able to make sure a child is not put back into foster care, CPS

should take better action and control before placing a child back home where he/she once

experienced trauma. There are so many ways that CPS could do better to finalize decisions made

regarding the health and safety of a child.

When investigating, CPS's common focus is the safety of the home, so they may question

an individual with such concerns as: Are the children happy? Is the fridge and pantry filled with

food? Does the home have AC? Do the children have a selection of clothing? Do the children

have beds to sleep on and blankets to cover themselves with? etc. Some families cannot afford to

have AC, cable for TV, or multiple clothes because they can barely afford to maintain the home

and provide food for their children. However, just because a family has a low income and is

living penny by penny does not mean that they are neglecting or abusing their children. Authors

Hirsch, Yang, Font, and Slack began a study that presented low-income families and their

housing conditions and their association with child maltreatment. The study showed that

hazardous physical housing conditions did play a factor in the reports of CPS involvement.

Along with families who cannot afford to live in nice neighborhoods with well-furnished homes

which increases the risk of CPS involvement (Hirsch, Yang, et al 96).

Because CPS seeks poor housing concerns, it puts low-income mothers at risk of having

their children taken away from them. This major factor raises concerns for poor mothers who are

vulnerable to CPS since they are at a major disadvantage (Fong 1785). Many mothers who were

confident in their parenting were still fearful of interacting with mandated systems such as

healthcare, education, etc. because of how they presented themselves. CPS can be called for
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numerous reasons even when there is no abuse for instance, when a child shows up to school in

dirty clothes that seems that it has not been washed in days it flags a red flag that something is

going on at home. Poor families often wear hand-me-downs because for them it is better to spend

the money on food than on clothes, which is understandable. However, when people witness how

people dress, they automatically assume the child is being neglected which results in an

investigation. Poor mothers barely have the money to provide a roof over their heads and provide

food for their children, but one thing about them is they will do anything for their children.

Unfortunately, they still must live with the fear that their children may be removed from the

household because of CPS reports of neglect (Fong 1786). In this world, it is hard to live on low

wages, but it is possible. CPS should take into consideration the hard work and time put in by

these low-income mothers to make sure their children have everything they need. All these

factors should be considered before making judgmental calls.

Foster care is a temporary system for children who have been taken away from their

families for abuse or other factors. In most cases, CPS does its best to reunite children with their

families which gets them out of the system, but in other cases, children stay in the system until

they age out which is between the ages of 18 and 21. Fostered children who are teenagers are

less likely to be adopted, due to them already being older than others in the system. CPS could

help these older children by providing them with programs to be able to get jobs and reach

financial stability because at the end of the day, it is not their fault that they ended up in the

system and they should not have to suffer their whole life for it. Authors Farmer, Heyman, Kelly,

and Leaman conducted a study to examine the possible factors of homelessness. The study

showed that youths placed in foster care were at higher risk of becoming homeless by age 19

than those who ran away, were in a group care setting, endured physical abuse, in delinquent
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behavior, and whom who did not have a secure connection with biological parents. These factors

were confirmed by Dworsky and colleagues in 2013 (Farmer, Heyman, et al 5). These innocent

children would be better off alone than stuck in the system where CPS does nothing for them. If

CPS would improve the way they treat these innocent children once placed in the system, then

maybe they would be adopted at their age.

In conclusion, Child Protective Services is a good agency in the sense that millions of

children are being saved from maltreatment. However, the agency could do a better job at taking

in every CPS-reported case instead of only the ones that are deemed appropriate. The system has

failed many children who have suffered death and horrific abuse because CPS deemed them not

appropriate enough to investigate. Although there are many benefits to having CPS, they are also

in a way harming many children. Many factors are associated with maltreatment within a home

and how the children are the ones more affected than the parents. Moreover, children who have

been reported to CPS and are placed in safety care are more likely to do self-harm due to them

being taken away from their families. There are many ways to improve the system, but it all

starts and finishes with Child Protective Services.

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Works Cited

Bae, Hwa-ok, et al. "Effect of Child Protective Services System Factors on Child Maltreatment

Rereporting." Child welfare 89.3 (2010): 33-55. ProQuest. Web. 30 Jan. 2024.

Camasso, Michael J., and Radha Jagannathan. “Decision Making in Child Protective Services: A

Risky Business?” Risk analysis 33.9 (2013): 1636–1649. Web.

Farmer, G. L., et al. "Prevalence of Risk and Protective Factors for Homelessness among Youth

in Foster Care." Child welfare 99.1 (2021): 1-23. ProQuest. Web. 30 Jan. 2024.

Fong, Kelley. “Concealment and Constraint: Child Protective Services Fears and Poor Mothers’

Institutional Engagement.” Social Forces, vol. 97, no. 4, 2019, pp. 1785–810. JSTOR,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26732919. Accessed 31 Jan. 2024.

Font, Sarah A., Kierra M. P. Sattler, and Elizabeth Gershoff. "When Home is Still Unsafe: From

Family Reunification to Foster Care Reentry." Journal of Marriage and Family 80.5

(2018): 1333-43. ProQuest. Web. 30 Jan. 2024.

Hirsch, Bomi Kim, et al. "Physically Hazardous Housing and Risk for Child Protective Services

Involvement." Child welfare 94.1 (2015): 87-104. ProQuest. Web. 30 Jan. 2024.