The crisis at Child Protective Services, however, has reached such a scale that, if not rectified, it will likely result in a crime bump as the cohort ages who were abandoned by the state's penny pinching bureaucracy when they needed help most. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial board this week offered up this observation:
Texas Tribune investigated one of the more dire aspects of the state’s crumbling child welfare system — victims of sex trafficking.
One report estimates about 313,000 Texans are victims of human trafficking, about 80,000 of them minor and youth victims of sex trafficking. About 78,000 of those victims had some contact with the child welfare system, says the University of Texas at Austin study.
The Tribune investigation illustrated how the child welfare system fails some children, allowing them to become prey to sex traffickers. It laid out pertinent and reasonable solutions legislators should consider for fixing this atrocious cycle of crime and abuse.
The solutions rightfully focus on victim rehabilitation, decriminalization and prevention, something sorely missing from the state’s current strategy to stop sex trafficking.
Officials focus on arresting pimps, reasoning if there aren’t any sex traffickers, then children won’t fall prey.
This logic might sound reasonable, but it misses a major point. The state Child Protective Services agency is so damaged and unsafe that kids are slipping through the cracks to find better living options.
No child should ever be in the position that a pimp is the most appealing option for housing and food.The justice system should be the last resort by which society deals with frightened, abandoned kids from broken homes. Instead, according to these reports, some of them consider prostitution a better option than the ones the state has given them.
My tough on crime friends, let's see you get tough on that situation. Because if you don't, more and more of those kids will end up in your adult jails and prisons down the line. And they're going to be angry. This is a more important security spending priority for Texas than anything DPS is paying to do with its "surge" money down on the border.
It's going to get worse before it gets better. Mexican drug cartels are quickly figuring out that lost revenue from marijuana trafficking occasioned by legalization in many states, can quickly be replaced by trafficking underage girls from Central America for prostitution. These victims, from extremely impoverished backgrounds, are quickly isolated from their families and are often enthusiastically supportive of their johns who, even under exploitive circumstances, provide a better life for these children than they likely left behind. Accordingly, these victims are often uncooperative with law enforcement. And a drug dog can't tell if someone is being smuggled for prostitution. Lots of money to be made and hard cases to prove in court.
ReplyDeleteOne thing concerning about CPS reforms is the privatization of CPS's FBSS services. Texas has an extremely hard time keeping caseworkers and social workers. Privatization of FBSS will only lead to higher turnover and reduced services. Privatizatized family based safety services will only increase caseworker to client ratios as private contractors will pay the caseworkers less and have higher turnovers than those of CPS. Privatization provisions in the reform bill need to be changed if the state realistically expects to be released from Federal Court oversight which is the real reason for the reforms in the first place. Nationally recognized caseworker to client ratios need to be followed if reforms are to become successful.
ReplyDeleteMy extended family is foster to adopt. We've backed off from working with the Texas CPS system due to the vindictive nature of some of the CPS workers and their management.
ReplyDeleteI don't see any prospect of an improvement in the process through the use of contractors.
The movement to privatize CPS is an absolutely horrible idea.
ReplyDeleteMore police officers sex traffic children than all other professions combined. Often, children are trafficked through entire departments, and even those cops who don't engage in sex with the child are complicit in the cover-up.
ReplyDeleteSee the documented and indisputable facts: https://www.facebook.com/PoliceOfficersRapingKids/.
You know, reforming CPS and protecting children should be a priority in any state at any time. It's paramount. Those same kids grow up and become adults and carry a painful past experience. These are the same adults that fill our prisons. I'd bet if someone took the time to interview inmates in TDCJ, more than three quarters of them were abused as children. It's a cycle. It's a shame.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to see if the changing home demographics of our country has had an impact on CPS given that there are fewer and fewer parents staying at home to care for their children. Could this be one reason CPS is having a hard time finding qualified and quality homes in which to place children?
ReplyDeleteMy brother was a caseworker for CPS. He was miserable the entire time he worked for the agency. The amount of tragedy he witnessed in his 2 years with CPS still follows him today. For his own mental health, he had to leave, and it broke his heart to do so. CPS caseworkers have a huge mandate and are placed in very dangerous and difficult situations. Most are inexperienced and fresh out of college. They get overwhelmed by administrators who dump huge caseloads on them and then throw them under the bus when the inevitable shit hits the fan. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't agency. What's the fix? It has to come from the top. But will it?