{"id":31235,"date":"2016-12-09T09:50:32","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T13:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=31235"},"modified":"2016-12-09T09:51:27","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T13:51:27","slug":"anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/12\/anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology.html","title":{"rendered":"Anonymous Tip: Child Abuse Mythology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pp. 453-456<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, Supreme Court day!<\/p>\n

Peter looked at Gwen and said, \u201cYou look like a 9-to-nothing ruling in that suit. I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re here with me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do we have<\/em> to do this? SERIOUSLY.<\/p>\n

Oh no. Before they start,\u00a0we get this:<\/p>\n

A huge statue of John Marshall, in sitting position, loomed in front of them down he marble hallway. The statue depicted him with only a copy of the Constitution and a quill pen in his hands. \u201cThat\u2019s misleading,\u201d Peter said as he paused to look at the statue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you referring to?\u201d asked Gwen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, from that statue you get the idea that the Constitution was the most important thing in Marshall\u2019s life, but that\u2019s not true. The Bible was the most important thing in Marshall\u2019s life. He believed it was the foundation of the Constitution, without which we couldn\u2019t govern this country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Marshall was chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835 and played a big part in shaping the role of the court. I am assuming this is the statue described:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I spent quite some time googling Farris\u2019s claim about Marshall, but I couldn\u2019t find anything about it at all. The only thing I found about Marshall\u2019s religion is that he was an Episcopalian. I didn\u2019t find any quotes on religion by him, except for this one<\/a>, which appears to be wrong, because I looked up the newspaper referenced and the only letter there to a Rev. J. Adams was written by James Madison, not by Marshall, and to top it off it didn\u2019t include that quote anyway.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0doesn\u2019t mean Farris is wrong, necessarily, but it does make me skeptical.<\/p>\n

And now the hearing begins. Peter goes first. Do social workers have to follow the fourth amendment? Are social workers immune from lawsuits? What about lawsuits concerning deliberate fraud? I\u2019m not going to type this out in full, because reasons. Peter does sneak some of his new arguments in, noting briefly, for instance, that \u201cwe have demonstrated fraud by government officials before, during, and after the trial had been completed.\u201d This was the first time he\u2019d noted that the fraud wasn\u2019t only\u00a0committed\u00a0during<\/em> the case, but also after it. Farris tells us Peter\u2019s words were \u201ccarefully scripted with the professor\u2019s help and memorized.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Justice Kraus asks why their concerned about fourth amendment rights when they\u2019re just suing for damages, Peter says that \u201cour complaint also seeks a declaratory judgement asking for a ruling that it is unconstitutional to enter a home for a child abuse investigation whens the only cause for the visit is an anonymous tip on a hotline.\u201d This is something Farris has been pushing through HSLDA, down to arguing cases on it himself. I am not a lawyer, but I\u2019m curious why he frames\u00a0preventing social workers from making contact with your children as a fourth amendment issue; children are not property.<\/p>\n

Justice Geisler cites \u201cthe epidemic of child abuse that is obviously going on in this nation\u201d and asks whether, in that light, allowing social workers more leeway makes sense \u201cif our goal is to protect children.\u201d I suppose Supreme Court justices aren\u2019t necessarily experts in things like the history of child abuse, but the phrasing still bothers me; child abuse has always occurred, what has changed is not its incidence but rather our awareness and acceptance of\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

Oh wait. Wait wait.\u00a0This happens:<\/p>\n

\u201cYour Honor, I have two replies. First, the Constitution is applicable at all times and in all circumstances. We have always had child abuse in this country\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this level?\u201d Geisler interjected.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Your Honor, we are a much larger country and our moral condition has indeed declined. But the incidence of child-abuse that is presumed to be an epidemic is grossly over-inflated by the inclusion of demonstrably false cases into the record. Accordingly [sic] to a well-known children\u2019s rights organization, over 60% of the claimed two million cases of claimed child-abuse are unfounded.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*headdesk*<\/p>\n

There is actually good reason to believe that child abuse occurred at a much higher<\/em> level in the past than it does in the present. There were at one time no laws against child abuse, because parents beating their children was seen as normative. Parental control (and parental cruelty) was just a fact of life. In fact, many scholars believe\u00a0reformers were only able to gain attention for the first child abuse case<\/a> in which civil authorities intervened\u2014a case where a girl was being severely beaten, starved, and locked in a closet\u2014because the child was living with adoptive\u00a0parents rather than her biological parents. If it had been the girl\u2019s\u00a0biological parents, it is more than possible that the public wouldn\u2019t have blinked.<\/p>\n

As Lela B. Costin\u00a0notes in her article, Unraveling the\u00a0Mary Ellen Legend:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Cruelty to children had long been tolerated and suppressed. Why then did the Mary Ellen case serve to stimulate court intervention and a widespread philanthropic response? Clearly the answer is not the severity of the cruel treatment. Earlier in the same year, the New York Times reported that John Fox, 13, had died from a cruel beating by his father for \u201crefusing to go after beer without the money to pay for it.\u201d A coroner\u2019s inquest revealed that the child had died of pleuro- pneumonia caused by injuries inflicted by his father. No further attention was given to the case in the Times.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Mary\u00a0Ellen was an illegitimate child and beaten by someone other than her\u00a0natural parents, a circumstance that muted the old precept of a parent\u2019s\u00a0right to determine the nature and severity of a child\u2019s punishment.\u00a0Interfering with cruel treatment of this particular child did not violate\u00a0the privacy of family life; Mary Ellen did not live in a proper family.\u00a0Public outrage about the abuse and compassion for the child was\u00a0acceptable. Willingness to exclude cruelty to children from public consciousness was reduced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The only reason people many people (including both Peter and Justice Geisler in our story) believe the rate of child abuse has gone up in recent decades\u00a0is that our tolerance for child abuse has decreased and our awareness has increased. This really is 101 level stuff for anyone studying children\u2019s issues. It\u2019s not a secret.<\/p>\n

Also, no one denies that 60% of reports made to child abuse hotlines are determined to be unfounded. I\u2019m not sure why Farris thinks that such a bad thing, either\u2014it shoes that the system works<\/em>, that social workers investigate whether or not abuse is present rather than assuming that a tip to a hotline implies automatic guilt. This rather operates against<\/em> his arguments, not for<\/em> them.<\/p>\n

Also, if there are two million reports each year, and 60% are founded, that\u2019s 1.2 million founded cases of child abuse each year. I\u2019m not sure why Farris thinks that makes it sound like it\u2019s not a problem! That\u2019s still a huge number\u2014and it only contains\u00a0cases\u00a0that are noticed, reported, screened in, and successfully identified by investigators!\u00a0Peter claims Casey is now included in child abuse statistics, but that\u2019s simply not the case\u2014any serious children\u2019s rights advocate knows the difference between reports and founded cases and makes that distinction when working to raise awareness of that problem. None of this makes sense<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Still, Farris goes on:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only abuse this four-year old [sic] suffered was at the hands of the two state-employed CPS investigators who took her into her bedroom without her mother, closed the door, and strip-searched her. Every child who is traumatized in this way has been unnecessarily abused. The fastest way this court could dramatically protect children from unnecessary abuse is to rule that the strip search of Casey Landis was unconstitutional. Hundreds of thousands of children would be protected in the first year if this Court would simply say to the nation\u2019s social workers, \u2018Get some proper evidence and go have a five minute visit with a judge before you barge into a home in a non-emergency situation.'\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So there are actually two things going on here. I absolutely agree that there have to be standards social workers follow when interacting with children, and there are<\/em>. I\u2019m not sure what the standards were when this book was published, but I know social workers who have read this series and commented said back at the beginning of the book that what Donna and Rita did to Casey was absolutely inappropriate. But there\u2019s a difference between saying social workers need to be trained in how to assess children\u2019s safety without traumatizing them, on the one hand, and saying that we should limit social workers\u2019 access to children, on the other.<\/p>\n

It is not always possible to get additional evidence, especially when a tip involves the inside of a house, or the child\u2019s safety in the home. A social worker could canvas the neighbors, I suppose, but if I had a penny for every child abuse case I\u2019ve read about where the neighbors say, after the fact, that they had no idea any of that was going on, I\u2019d be rich. I should also note that reports that lack sufficient information or have to do with things that are legal (simple spanking, say) are already screened out and aren\u2019t handed on to investigators. Those that are investigated are ones that seemed credible only.<\/p>\n

The problem I have here is that while Farris is claiming to speak for Casey\u2019s wellbeing, he\u2019s really not. He\u2019s not simply asking the justices to require that social workers be trained in interacting properly with children so that they\u2019re not traumatized; he\u2019s asking the justices to bar social workers from entering a home and seeing a child until they already have enough proof to set before a judge that abuse is occurring when the point of the investigation is to get that proof<\/em>. This is not speaking for children\u2019s wellbeing. It\u2019s speaking for parents\u2019 ability to control who has access to their children and their children\u2019s living environment when\u00a0a tip is made alleging child abuse or neglect.<\/p>\n

But according to Farris, Peter\u2019s words were effective. Justice Geisler was taken aback\u2014he demanded to know whether this information is in the record, and Peter said it was gave him the page number\u2014and for his part,\u00a0Justice Rose was \u201csmiling slyly as he took notes.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to have to stop here though, because I\u2019m out of time.<\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!<\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is actually good reason to believe that child abuse occurred at a much higher level in the past than it does in the present. There were at one time no laws against child abuse, because parents beating their children was seen as normative. Parental control (and parental cruelty) was just a fact of life. This is not a secret!<\/p>\n

Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":31241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[469],"class_list":["post-31235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anonymous-tip"],"yoast_head":"\nAnonymous Tip: Child Abuse Mythology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There is actually good reason to believe that child abuse occurred at a much higher level in the past than it does in the present.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/12\/anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anonymous Tip: Child Abuse Mythology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is actually good reason to believe that child abuse occurred at a much higher level in the past than it does in the present.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/12\/anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-09T13:50:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-12-09T13:51:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2016\/12\/old-woman-1386231_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/12\/anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/12\/anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology.html\",\"name\":\"Anonymous Tip: Child Abuse Mythology\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-09T13:50:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-09T13:51:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"There is actually good reason to believe that child abuse occurred at a much higher level in the past than it does in the present.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/12\/anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/12\/anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/12\/anonymous-tip-child-abuse-mythology.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Anonymous Tip: Child Abuse Mythology\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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