More California CWS
More California CWS Out of Control 011611
Below is a link to a story about a family living in Stockton.
The family computer was taken to a tech, who found photos of the family’s children nude, and called the cops. Law enforcement decided, correctly, that nude kids aren’t pornography, particularly when they are your kids.
CWS got involved, of course took the kids, and the judge, as they are likely to do in more than 9 out of 10 cases, agreed, even though no provision of the penal code had been violated.
Under the law in most industrial nations, photos of children simply nude are not illegal. Indeed, photos and paintings of nude children in classic poses are not illegal. What are illegal are photos of children engaging in or seeming to engage in sexual conduct or posed in a sexual manner. What we as a society are trying to protect children from is sexualization, the exploitation of a child for sexual reasons.
We aren’t trying to protect them from simply being nude; children are actually nude when you get them. “Birthday suit” means “what you were born in” and it means: nekkid.
Some of the photos were “suspicious”, but the United States Attorney concluded that the photos were not taken by the parents, but by the 8 year old son. The cops all concluded the parents had done nothing wrong.
The D.A. would have filed charges if the law had been broken. The law is not what this is about.
What it is about is the comfort level of the mostly middle aged, mostly middle class, mostly female population that makes up the army of social workers. We are not discounting the many young male social workers, but they are in the minority, particularly among the decision-making cadre.
But, the law does not support government intercession into families based on the comfort level of this narrow stratum of society. Through government, we’ve dis-empowered grandmothers and aunts, and so we’ve filled that necessary function in our society with hired grandmothers and aunts, as we’ve hired better parents for our children. People with children should not be held hostage by someone’s comfort level.
Having the children in custody, a poorly executed “interview” was conducted by CWS. Interviews seeking evidence for sexual abuse are usually conducted by a SART interviewer who is trained to avoid leading the children toward “information” or causing them agree to events, rather than describing them. This CWS “interview” did not meet those standards. There are no clear indications of sexual abuse against the 5 year old girl. Again no charges have been brought, but the children are still not with their parents.
Janine Molgaard, attorney for CWS in San Joaquin County, said what all such attorneys say: they are in a privileged legal position. They need not arrive at the same conclusion as cops, since their level of proof is far lower. They need not share information since it is concealed to “protect the child”.
No social analyst could describe the most fatal flaw of our child protection system more clearly than that attorney. They are simply not accountable to the people, except through the judge. That is not sufficient transparency, not sufficient protection for families, a judge who has been schooled into the same sensitivities as the social workers, and is probably their peer in age and social class, and statistically, even in gender.
In a free society, people are not held to the comfort standards of a single perspective, in the United States, though, we are.
Serbia is not the United States, and the family is Serbian. The Serbian government is very upset about the case.
Stealing from the Associated Press, now (hey, the link is below!):
The affair has triggered outrage in Serbia, with officials there saying they would try to get the children back to the parents as soon as possible — even if it takes intervention through the highest diplomatic channels.
"There are indications of major human rights violations by the Child Protective Service, which is acting on its own," Serbian justice ministry official Slobodan Homen told the AP.
We note here that American, particularly California style, child protection is seen as engaging in human rights violations in Serbia.
Serbia is now providing funds for the father's attorney, and its Consul General in Chicago, Desko Nikitovic, is advocating on behalf of the couple. He said so far it has been an uphill battle with an agency and local judge with power to do what they want with the children.
"You feel totally powerless, like a mouse in front of an elephant," Nikitovic said.
The couple declined to be interviewed for this article, citing fear of compromising the ongoing legal process. But they have denied the allegations, saying the ordeal has torn a previously happy family apart.
The Serbian attorney has noticed what people here are saying: you are powerless in the face of CWS.
They acknowledge certain of the photographs may "look and feel" inappropriate to some people, but all were taken by the couple's son while playing with the camera.
Here is the key issue: the photographs may “look and feel” inappropriate. This, again, is acknowledgment of the “comfort level” of a narrow group of people in an entire society, but a group with the power to do harm.
"The parents do not dispute that they (also) took photographs of their children without their clothes on," said a statement from Powell, a San Jose-based attorney who specializes in child custody cases involving CPS. "However, not a single one of those photos was of a pornographic nature in any way.
"They were commonly seen photos taken by parents of their children, such as in the bathtub and lounging on the couch."
The article goes on to say that the county CWS has also separated the children from their religion, Serbian Orthodox. According to the article, the FBI is considering whether the family’s civil rights are being violated. Placement procedures require social workers to place children in homes which will respect their ethnicity and religion, though no longer are they required to place children in homes of the same ethnicity, unless the children belong to a recognized Indian tribe. Still, good practice requires that the children suffer as little cultural and religious upset as possible.
The father’s attorney, Robert Powell is quoted as saying: "They remain in utter disbelief, that although the only pictures that social workers felt were inappropriate are so clearly, and confirmed to be, the result of child's play."
Well, Mr. Powell, the problem is that many social workers and the waiting-for-retirement professionals that aid them don’t really know much about children, or about real life. They have an idealized image of children and people in general. Their guide is a system of beliefs about what childhood and children and families should be.
The Prospect recommendations: never let your family’s children be nude and never be nude near them. Teach your children that nudity is the same as sex, that they should be ashamed of their bodies and they should be completely ignorant of what their brother or sister look like beneath their clothes. Teach them that they were conceived and born in sin, that all their natural inclinations will lead them to the fires of hell, and they should pray for the strength to fight the temptation to be human. In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave we live according to the comfort of a few.
The problem becomes clearer: our families are in the control of nuns of a new order. Help may be on the way, see our article on Jerry Brown’s budget HERE.
Please read the AP article so they don’t sue us for stealing. Thanks to an alert MF for this link.
___
Below is a link to a story about a family living in Stockton.
The family computer was taken to a tech, who found photos of the family’s children nude, and called the cops. Law enforcement decided, correctly, that nude kids aren’t pornography, particularly when they are your kids.
CWS got involved, of course took the kids, and the judge, as they are likely to do in more than 9 out of 10 cases, agreed, even though no provision of the penal code had been violated.
Under the law in most industrial nations, photos of children simply nude are not illegal. Indeed, photos and paintings of nude children in classic poses are not illegal. What are illegal are photos of children engaging in or seeming to engage in sexual conduct or posed in a sexual manner. What we as a society are trying to protect children from is sexualization, the exploitation of a child for sexual reasons.
We aren’t trying to protect them from simply being nude; children are actually nude when you get them. “Birthday suit” means “what you were born in” and it means: nekkid.
Some of the photos were “suspicious”, but the United States Attorney concluded that the photos were not taken by the parents, but by the 8 year old son. The cops all concluded the parents had done nothing wrong.
The D.A. would have filed charges if the law had been broken. The law is not what this is about.
What it is about is the comfort level of the mostly middle aged, mostly middle class, mostly female population that makes up the army of social workers. We are not discounting the many young male social workers, but they are in the minority, particularly among the decision-making cadre.
But, the law does not support government intercession into families based on the comfort level of this narrow stratum of society. Through government, we’ve dis-empowered grandmothers and aunts, and so we’ve filled that necessary function in our society with hired grandmothers and aunts, as we’ve hired better parents for our children. People with children should not be held hostage by someone’s comfort level.
Having the children in custody, a poorly executed “interview” was conducted by CWS. Interviews seeking evidence for sexual abuse are usually conducted by a SART interviewer who is trained to avoid leading the children toward “information” or causing them agree to events, rather than describing them. This CWS “interview” did not meet those standards. There are no clear indications of sexual abuse against the 5 year old girl. Again no charges have been brought, but the children are still not with their parents.
Janine Molgaard, attorney for CWS in San Joaquin County, said what all such attorneys say: they are in a privileged legal position. They need not arrive at the same conclusion as cops, since their level of proof is far lower. They need not share information since it is concealed to “protect the child”.
No social analyst could describe the most fatal flaw of our child protection system more clearly than that attorney. They are simply not accountable to the people, except through the judge. That is not sufficient transparency, not sufficient protection for families, a judge who has been schooled into the same sensitivities as the social workers, and is probably their peer in age and social class, and statistically, even in gender.
In a free society, people are not held to the comfort standards of a single perspective, in the United States, though, we are.
Serbia is not the United States, and the family is Serbian. The Serbian government is very upset about the case.
Stealing from the Associated Press, now (hey, the link is below!):
The affair has triggered outrage in Serbia, with officials there saying they would try to get the children back to the parents as soon as possible — even if it takes intervention through the highest diplomatic channels.
"There are indications of major human rights violations by the Child Protective Service, which is acting on its own," Serbian justice ministry official Slobodan Homen told the AP.
We note here that American, particularly California style, child protection is seen as engaging in human rights violations in Serbia.
Serbia is now providing funds for the father's attorney, and its Consul General in Chicago, Desko Nikitovic, is advocating on behalf of the couple. He said so far it has been an uphill battle with an agency and local judge with power to do what they want with the children.
"You feel totally powerless, like a mouse in front of an elephant," Nikitovic said.
The couple declined to be interviewed for this article, citing fear of compromising the ongoing legal process. But they have denied the allegations, saying the ordeal has torn a previously happy family apart.
The Serbian attorney has noticed what people here are saying: you are powerless in the face of CWS.
They acknowledge certain of the photographs may "look and feel" inappropriate to some people, but all were taken by the couple's son while playing with the camera.
Here is the key issue: the photographs may “look and feel” inappropriate. This, again, is acknowledgment of the “comfort level” of a narrow group of people in an entire society, but a group with the power to do harm.
"The parents do not dispute that they (also) took photographs of their children without their clothes on," said a statement from Powell, a San Jose-based attorney who specializes in child custody cases involving CPS. "However, not a single one of those photos was of a pornographic nature in any way.
"They were commonly seen photos taken by parents of their children, such as in the bathtub and lounging on the couch."
The article goes on to say that the county CWS has also separated the children from their religion, Serbian Orthodox. According to the article, the FBI is considering whether the family’s civil rights are being violated. Placement procedures require social workers to place children in homes which will respect their ethnicity and religion, though no longer are they required to place children in homes of the same ethnicity, unless the children belong to a recognized Indian tribe. Still, good practice requires that the children suffer as little cultural and religious upset as possible.
The father’s attorney, Robert Powell is quoted as saying: "They remain in utter disbelief, that although the only pictures that social workers felt were inappropriate are so clearly, and confirmed to be, the result of child's play."
Well, Mr. Powell, the problem is that many social workers and the waiting-for-retirement professionals that aid them don’t really know much about children, or about real life. They have an idealized image of children and people in general. Their guide is a system of beliefs about what childhood and children and families should be.
The Prospect recommendations: never let your family’s children be nude and never be nude near them. Teach your children that nudity is the same as sex, that they should be ashamed of their bodies and they should be completely ignorant of what their brother or sister look like beneath their clothes. Teach them that they were conceived and born in sin, that all their natural inclinations will lead them to the fires of hell, and they should pray for the strength to fight the temptation to be human. In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave we live according to the comfort of a few.
The problem becomes clearer: our families are in the control of nuns of a new order. Help may be on the way, see our article on Jerry Brown’s budget HERE.
Please read the AP article so they don’t sue us for stealing. Thanks to an alert MF for this link.
___
