April 27, 2009 by Kent Smotherman
Posted in
From the Family Defense Center page on their 1997 lawsuit Dupuy v. Samuels:
The Dupuy I plaintiffs, after extraordinarily intensive work by the lawyers on their behalf, proved that DCFS's error rate in indicating reports of child abuse was 75% in appealed cases—that is, when accused persons sought a neutral review of the facts, they were able to exonerate themselves of abuse allegations in 3 out of 4 cases. This astonishingly high "risk of error," led the federal court to find that the policies and practices of DCFS harm not only people who work with children, but the children of Illinois as well. 141 F. Supp. 2d at 1130.
Wow - 3 out of 4 cases were found not to have the abuse HHS was alleging. For those of us with experience dealing with the system, this does not surprise us. The challenge is to get this sort of information out into the general public - to those who don't have our experiences.
Accountability..
Those are incredible statistics. I agree the public needs to be made aware of this. From where I sit you hear the horror stories of how someone is falsely accused and the family is seperated causing heartache and trauma only to find the accusations unfounded. But not having had this experience happen to myself or someone close to me it would appear these false accusations are few and far between. This isn't even close to the truth if 3 out of 4 cases are exonerated. Not to mention the after effects on the families who were falsely accused. I can not pretend to know the inner workings of HHS, but it seems to me that the policies need a little tweaking to improve those statistics.
Accountability
To ChildhoodDepression: Unfortunately, I speak from experience and I find those statistics credible. The police investigator became judge and jury in a 45 minute investigation and did not check out another child that was experiencing the same symptoms as my grandchild. It appeared that he made the decision based upon marriage status. The deputy county attorney in her closing arguments made the claim that bruises left by the day care provider, who now has a provisional license by this state, happen to babies. The whole system is just a job creating system and they truly are not looking our for the best interests of the children. You are correct in that the policies need tweaking, MAJOR tweaking, in other words accountability and transparency.