Just throwing money at CPS won’t fix agency
State’s system to protect children urgently needs structural changes
Recent news coverage of the case backlog at Child Protective Services suggests that the solution to protecting Texas’ abused and neglected children is simply more money: $12,000 pay increases for existing frontline caseworkers, and hiring more caseworkers. Sadly, the inability of CPS to protect the children under its care has always been used as an excuse to give the agency more money. However, a review of the agency’s crises over the past 20 years indicates that every Texas governor from George W. Bush to Greg Abbott has sought additional funding for this agency in times of crisis. Yet, at no time has additional funding resulted in an improvement in the performance of CPS to protect more children.
The reason for this is that we have never addressed the underlying problems at CPS, which are not fundamentally financial. The problems are structural, and they are rooted in conflicting priorities, poor public policy and simply bad judgment.
First, according to the spokesperson for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS, the parent of CPS,) there are about 125 children each day who are newly classified by CPS as “Priority I” cases — children in imminent danger. The Texas CPS Handbook states that, “A Priority I is assessed for any CPS intake in which the children appear to face a safety threat of abuse or neglect that could result in death or serious harm. CPS is required to initiate the investigation within 24 hours of receiving a Priority 1 intake.” By definition, such cases allege crimes against children. Though CPS is required under Texas law to cross-refer such cases to local law enforcement, by CPS preemption or the default of law enforcement, CPS social workers end up conducting these investigations.
Why would anyone think this practice is effective? Think about it: If your life was in danger, would you find it acceptable for the police response to be anything but immediate? Would it be acceptable to wait for officers to arrive at the scene “within 24 hours?” In police parlance of measuring response time in minutes, the picture truly comes into relief. No one would ever support a police response time of 1,440 minutes to a scene involving a child who is on-the-spot at risk of harm. So why does the state of Texas allow this? There is no other instance where Texas law provides that a caseworker should investigate reports of arguable first-degree felonies.
While crimes against children are a pressing social issue, using social workers to do the job of trained law enforcement officials is completely untenable, and the practice needs to stop. Moreover, CPS has a conflict en- shrined in the agency’s mission: On the one hand, it is charged with investigating and protecting children who have been abused or seriously neglected. On the other, it is tasked with “preserving the family unit.” When these competing priorities clash — as they frequently do — it is the child who suffers. Or dies.
Thus, while there may be a financial motive in the effort to keep turnover at CPS at an acceptable level, evidence suggests that it is faulty decision-making and institutional bias to protect or reunify “families” that has resulted in the continuous recycling of families through the system and fatality rates approaching 50 percent after CPS has initiated involvement with the family.
Surely, Hank Whitman, the new DFPS commissioner with his law enforcement back-ground understands as well as anyone that when the investigation into criminal matters are not properly performed, the result is that cases are much more difficult to prosecute, and botched evidence prevents civil authorities from removing children from dangerous homes. Crimes against children should be investigated by the police. Period.
Perhaps the most glaring gap in the agency’s structural problems: There is virtually no accountability when CPS fails our children. We’ve seen the scene play out repeatedly throughout Texas. A child dies, and the state office of CPS promises to conduct a thorough investigation. The details of the case are deemed “confidential,” preventing public scrutiny as to whether the child could have been saved. But we must press the agency to respond. What privacy right does CPS seek to protect when the abuser is behind bars and the child is no longer with us?
I am certainly not against spending more money to protect children. But, that alone has never worked. Nothing less than a complete transformation of how our state protects children is what has been needed for 30 years. BandAids, wringing our hands and throwing more money at the problem has proved fruitless, and it hasn’t saved lives. If we are truly serious about protecting defenseless children in our state, lawmakers must address and fix this system’s institutional problems.