Decades ago it would happen all the time: After the tragic death of a child “known to the system,” advocates would rush to blame a supposed fanatical desire to put “parents’ rights” ahead of “child safety.” After all, the case file had more red flags than a Soviet May Day Parade, so what else could explain it?
Understandably, people would buy it. That would cause a foster-care panic – a sharp, sudden increase in the number of children torn from their families and consigned to the chaos of foster care. That would further overwhelm caseworkers, so they’d have even less time to investigate any case with care. So it’s no wonder, in state after state, child abuse deaths didn’t stop – often they increased.
That’s because the real explanation for these tragedies almost always involves caseworkers overloaded with cases that are nothing like the horror stories. …
