Child Services: Going too far?

[Mithrandir]

These were two posts from a different forum. I'm reposting them here because I think they serve as an interesting fuel for discussion.

A friend of mine wasn't so lucky... (I will call him John)(Not his real name)

John used to let a neighborhood kid come over all the time to play on the computers at our house. We had about 6-8 PCs hooked up in a Quake Network, and also ran Ultima Online and Everquest.

The kid was a 15 year old boy, and he had a brother who was a 18.

Well, the kid got caught at school with some weed. Which he had gotten from his brother. But his brother was already on probation for possession, and no longer a minor. So his older brother told him to lie about where he got it and he would pay the younger brother $100.

So the younger boy says he got it from my friend, John.

But... the school counselor interviewing this young boy starts running the gamut of questions at this kid. Like... Have you ever seen John do drugs. (Kid answers yes). Has John ever shown you pornography? Has John ever made sexual advances at you? etc, etc...

The angry parent goes to school to pick up his 15 year old son who got busted with a joint... and finds 2 policemen and a Childrens Services worker there, filling out forms to charge my friend John with Attributing to the Delinquency of a Minor, and Child Molestation.

Well, the parent knows it's all a lie. He even has his older son go tell Children Services that he gave the joint to the younger brother. But if you have ever been involved with Children Services you know how well they listen....

Short end of the story is that after spending $25,000.00 on lawyer fees, the court put the charges on "hold" two years later for lack of developments. They didn't drop the charges as Childrens Services will not let them. And Children Services now has a complaint in Johns file for life that he is a suspected Child Molestor.

Children Services is the only agency in America where you are Guilty even if proven Innocent. The entry and complaint stays in your file for life, and if you are found guilty they watch you even closer as their mentality is that you "got away with it". Any dealings with Childrens Services is a nightmare.

And...

Yeah if you get labelled as a sex offender it's very rough.

My brother was going to college in Boulder, when one night at a trashcan party he has sex with a girl. Shes 22. All his friends have slept with her on other nights and he's the last one to get a piece of the pie.

Anyways, she has a boyfriend. And that boyfriend walks into the bedroom as my brother is having anal sex with her. =X. So she says he's raping her. Great...

My brother is afraid to tell my folks. So he goes downtown to face the police alone, with no attorney. Don't ever do that. He gives a signed statement that he had more than one beer that night. Law in Boulder says that if you've had a beer and had sex afterward it is rape (even if your married). So he admits to rape, since he had a beer. At least in his words 'Yeah I was trashed, we were all trashed'.

So this is bad. Girls parents are on a wild vengeance, and they are rich. The don't get a private attorney though, they use the prosecutor.
Basically my brother is facing 16-32 years and the prosecutor has a very high conviction rate. Conviction rate on accused rapists is over 80% in boulder county. Things look bad, bad, bad. We don't know what to do. Don't want to see my brother spend 30 years in prison for having sex with someone who was confused about her relationship with her boyfriend.

So she drops the charges. Says it was wrong of her and he didn't rape her.
Prosecutor doesn't care, they are going to force her to testify and they won't drop the charges.

So we hire an attorney. He charges $2k an hour. Well it's going to hurt, but it's worth it you know.

So anyways this is a ruthless attorney. He would approach the cops who questioned my brother in public and be the bigges asshole you ever met. Then in the courtroom he'd be as sweet a man as you could be, but use similar words to get a rise out of the cop. Make the cop look like hes a dickhead getting all pissed off at this very nice attorney. Let out some dirt on the prosecutor to the newspapers and such.

So for the hearing our attorney walks into the courtroom and its *packed* with other attorneys. Who stand up for him as he walks in. The Prosecutor about broke her neck doing a double take, haha.
Anyways so he got a plea bargain. 4 years probation and a not-guilty sentance if he stayed out of trouble for that time. Judge was so furious she imposed 90 days, which our attorney got reduced to 42 since he knew some guys at the jail.

Well to make a long story short, it cost a hell of a lot to defend him from a confused girl who dropped the charges and the prosecutor wouldn't. Facing 32 years for that.

So he gets home to Michigan and they put him on this public sex-offender list, where anyone can see it. He's going to required therapy and he said it was so #$%&ed up. He had sex with a 22 year old woman at a party.. and he said it was some severe emotionaly disturbed things hed have to say. Some 2yr degree therapist having his ego control telling my brother he was wrong in the head and such... when in reality he was the ONLY one in the group of 8 in his session that was there for having sex with a consenting adult. Some of those guys were there for having sex with children, and i mean children.

They put him on this damnable list. Its not at all constitutional.
He gets through his probation with no offenses so he becomes not-guilty and the charges are wiped from his record, as that was the agreement.

But not Children Services. They don't give a #$%&-who about that. Not guilty my ass - you are *suspected*. And that is enough for them to place you on a public registry that anyone can look up.

Just because you were suspected. And I'll tell you what, it was VERY, VERY hard to get him off that list.

It took A LOT of cash.

I'm not saying that I don't want to know that if some guy is banging 2 yr old boy I DO want to know if he lives near me. But I cannot understand about having people who are not guilty, just being suspected on a public list.
That's communist or something awful. I just don't agree with that.

Anyways make a long story short, we spent more money than most people earn in two years - because he couldn't discriminate and just had to get some.

I think many would agree that the children are perhaps the most precious members of a society (I won't argue yay or nay on that here, but I think we can all accept that at least a lot of people feel this way). Is society perhaps being too harsh and too unforgiving in its pursuit of the protection and well-being of children? Or is this extreme diligence required and the occasional innocent prosecuted individual, while unfortunate, just a needed sacrifice for the "greater good"?

[WarLocke]

Zero Tolerance = Zero Thought.

The rest is so sad, if I responded to it I'd probably cause a rip in the space/time continuum from all the bile I'd be spewing.

I've been accused of that type of crap before, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

- WL

[whyBish]

???

Sounds like whining to me...

A couple years back we had some whining from motor cyclists. The way speed cameras were set up motorcyclists were fined twice... Solution? Don't speed in the first place.

[Mithrandir]

A couple years back we had some whining from motor cyclists. The way speed cameras were set up motorcyclists were fined twice... Solution? Don't speed in the first place.

So what's the solution to the woes of these two individuals? Just not get accused? Don't do absolutely nothing wrong in the first place?

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Mithrandir,

Double-negatives confuse me... don't do nothing, therefore do something wrong? I don't think that's what you meant :P

Anywho, to the actual topic of the thread... well, I have mixed opinions here. Though I feel sorry for those falsly accused, I am also well aware that many who DID do such things get away with them. It is the latter group I wish a slow and painful death upon, and because of this lot that I hope that child protection don't slacken off...

[Guest]

If anyone ever made up a story that bad about me - it would become a very bad day.

[Isolde]

There's a huge chasm separating justice and law. Pretty much anyone can take you to court for any made-up reason and force you to spend time and money defending yourself. Of course you can countersue, but that takes time and money as well. Doesn't at all answer the questions you presented though.

I do think that society *as a whole* isn't being diligent enough in protecting children. But obviously there are individual cases which are excessive. So the question becomes: is there a way to provide for the well being of children without trampling the lives of individuals? Can't think of any easy answers (I'd hazard a guess and say there aren't any easy answers). In large part it seems that that's at least part of why we have judges and juries.

But juries are very easily influenced by the relative charisma of the attorneys (as anyone who watches TV knows :) ).

You know, it's sooo much easier to simply not think about this sort of thing...

:hangs head in shame:

[Logic_X]

...I think a semi-simple answer (while this would still incidentally keep the people on the list) would be:

1. Make the list request only from the local police station (I find that "John TV" or whatever it's called very unconstitutional....and I don't even know anyone on it)

2. Make that list have the person's Name, what crime they commited or were accused of (in the detail present in a police report), and the verdict on the case.

of course, I'm also one of those people who thinks that there will eventually be people in office who aren't bred politicians.....

[[wcip]Angel]

Hail Mithrandir,

Double-negatives confuse me... don't do nothing, therefore do something wrong? I don't think that's what you meant :P

Anywho, to the actual topic of the thread... well, I have mixed opinions here. Though I feel sorry for those falsly accused, I am also well aware that many who DID do such things get away with them. It is the latter group I wish a slow and painful death upon, and because of this lot that I hope that child protection don't slacken off...

"Tiz better to let 20 guilty men go free than convict 1 innocent."

[Isolde]

"Tiz better to let 20 guilty men go free than convict 1 innocent."

That's a pretty common catchphrase, but is it really as simple as that? It might make sense if those twenty guilty men you let free are unlikely to repeat their crimes, but that's unlikely.

What if you had 21 suspected serial killers, of which you know that at most one is innocent? If you allow all of them free, each of the killers is likely to kill again, possibly multiple times. You don't have the resources to watch all of them after you let them out, and it's close to certain that at least some of them would elude surveillance anyway.

With imperfect information, it isn't possible to never falsely convict someone. This is why we have "beyond a shadow of a doubt" and "innocent until proven guilty", but both whitewash a rather distressing margin of error. Therefore, taken to an extreme, your statement would require that we never punish anybody?

I empathize with the principle of it, but what I'd like to know is WHY you think this.

[Elric of Grans]

Hail [wcip]Angel.

Yeah, heard it many a time: I'd love to see you tell that to any one of the many, many children who have been taken through the court process only to see their molestor walk free. Care to explain justice to them? Would you like to tell them it is OK, because there is less chance of a person being punnished for something they did not do. Ever seen what molestation does to a child? Ever seen how seeing a court case makes things even worse for them? Well, both of them are nothing compared to what happens what the paedophile walks free. I once had a child protection officer tell me that it is normal for the child to suffer more as a result of the guilty party walking free than from everything else that preceeded it.

Lovely little tale to make people feel good inside, but tell it to the victims... I hope they don't hurt you too badly.

[Isolde]

This is a bit of a redirect, but would it work to simply not tell the child that the pedophile got off? This might be moot though, since the source I found indicates that somewhere around 45% are molested by their parents and another 40% are victims of relatives or someone in a position of trust (neighbor, coach, etc).

Though I'd like to point out that in the example given, the victim was 22 and so the crime could hardly be considered pedophilia.

[Mithrandir]

Double-negatives confuse me... don't do nothing, therefore do something wrong? I don't think that's what you meant

It was somewhere around 1 AM at the time, gimme a break ;)

Anywho, to the actual topic of the thread... well, I have mixed opinions here. Though I feel sorry for those falsly accused, I am also well aware that many who DID do such things get away with them. It is the latter group I wish a slow and painful death upon, and because of this lot that I hope that child protection don't slacken off...

Then what is wrong with the system such that there are both cases where the innocents' lives are made miserable and the guilty are permitted to walk free? Obviously, I doubt anyone here on the Lounge has intimate enough knowledge of the inner workings of Child Services to explain the problems inherent in it, but it's a disturbing flaw nonetheless where a mere accusation can place a large black smear on your record. More so than the money, you did nothing wrong and are treated as if you are guilty - innocent people are supposed to be innocent and thus completely vindicated... Not with Child Services though, your name goes on a list, viewable by anyone, that treats the individual as if they were guilty and just managed to wheedle their way out of the justice system. Why else would there be a need to keep track of the innocent?

[Kasreyn]

And I don't care who that pisses off. Putting people on lists of what they've done criminally is pointless and wrong, and I'll explain why.

Why do we put people in jail? To punish them? No, it'd be easier to flog them, so it's clearly not punishment. It's to rehabilitate them. So, we assign a sentence to a person, and the sentence is designed to be long enough that when he is freed, he will be rehabilitated, which means ready for reintegration as a functional, law-abiding member of society, right?

But then we short-circuit this lovely notion, by stigmatizing him, putting him on a public list to be pointed at as a "monster" for the rest of his days. We're trying to have our cake and eat it too, and it's unfair. If a person has paid his debt to society, then he has paid his debt to society. If he can't get a job or be part of society because of a stigmatizing reminder of his wrongdoings - which, remember, he did the time for! - then what will he do? I'll tell you what he'll do. He'll return to a life of crime, because it's clear we're not going to LET him reintegrate into society.

Laws like "Megan's Law", which permanently stigmatize criminals even after they've done their time, are travesties which turn the entire penal concept of rehabilitation into an elaborate farce at taxpayer expense.

Of course, it doesn't help that in this country, males seem to be considered sexual deviants and bums by default. Go check on some statistics, sorted by gender, of divorce, child custody, and rape settlements if you don't believe me. It's as if people have gotten this weird idea that women are naturally more truthful or good than men. Odd.

-Kasreyn

[Logic_X]

Kasreyn....the American penal system is very much a pathetic attempt at rehabilitation in most cases imo (not all, but most).

Criminals in prison get beyond the basics usually, while not the Hilton - it is more than a group of the non-criminal portion of the country's people live in. (the Poor and very poor people) - so they have a reason to want to come back if they can't afford decent in the real world (you do have to inform an employer if you have a criminal record - which reduces you chances of getting a job). That's why you see higher crime rates among the lower classes (yes, we have a "class" system in the US...it's a mental segregation that the majority of Americans grow up around).

If you do a background check on someone - anyone - you can find their criminal record from age 18+ - this is not limited to sex crimes. I think public announcement of these things is wrong, but it should still be available should someone which to check on the history of a potential employee or tenant, etc.

And your reference to males being considered sexual deviants heh....that's a sociological standpoint passed on from MANY years ago, but yes it is VERY present in modern day society (although not as bad as few centuries or even decades ago). A balance is coming underway, slowly but surely... I don't see it coming to full realization in ours or our children's lifetimes though.

[--Pete]

Hi,

If I'm reading the stories correctly, the person is on a list not because they were found guilty but simply because they were ACCUSED!

Now, argue as you want about making lists of former felons. I really don't give a damn either way. But to be branded for life because some snot nosed brat accuses you? That *is* disgusting.

--Pete

[Isolde]

The first thing I thought of (but didn't write) when I read these stories is that they tell just one side of the story. That you got them off of the web doesn't help their case either.

Regarding the second story, why would Child Services get involved in a case involving a 22 year old? They have more than enough to do as it is -- it seems unlikely that they'd take on something so far out of their regular jurisdiction.

As far as the first story goes -- where did the charges for molestation enter into the picture? Child services asked a whole lot of questions, but we only get the kid's answer to one of them.

What I find really odd is that the poster asks the question, "If you have ever been involved with Children Services you know how well they listen." Which gives the impression that some significant portion of his audience has been involved with Child Services. So I now find myself wondering, "where the heck did Mithrandir get these posts?"

[loonygloss]

Well, apart from these problems, the second post illustrates a problem which may be a significant one - that is false rape accusations. It depends on whose statistics you believe.

I don't pretend to know anything about it but some of the statistics noted up to and over half of rape accusations being false. Also, generally no charges are laid against the accusers for perjury or false accusation or whatever the correct term is.

If it's true, then it's a disturbing trend.

(Note: I don't actually believe the 50% figure, but the middle-of-the-road figures were more like 20% ish - still fare too high)

[Roland]

I think many of us have had a similar scare in our lives before. I know I have, and know a friend or two that have, as well. Always some BS case brought on as a sort of "revenge". Although, more often than not (at least in my case) it was by some parents who just wanted to rule their child's life with an iron fist. I pity anyone who has to live with a family like that.

If you're convicted, have the list. Otherwise, there's no reason you should be on it.

[Occhidiangela]

As far as I am concerned, once the felon has served his time, the list issue is wrong. Tell me all you want about recitivism, if you have paid your debt to society, it is time to move on and take the risk that you will be able to be better the second time around.

Now, about child sex molesters? I'm more likely to suggest the death penalty. Different subject, certainly, but THAT prevents recitivism. :P