Suffer the children

The latest scandal involving Arizona's Child Protective Services agency involves thousands of abuse and neglect reports that were not investigated.

I don't have much to add to the able reporting of Mary Jo Pitzl and Mary K. Reinhart at the Arizona Republic. This includes a year-long series.

Not much to add, but a little context.

This is what happens when you spend decades cutting the state budget, even as population and need grows, as part of worshipping the god of small gub'ment.

State spending as a percent of personal income in Arizona fell from 5 percent in fiscal 1994 to 3.5 percent for fiscal 2014. CPS has been underfunded for decades as the state added huge population, especially in vulnerable groups.

The starting salary for a caseworker is a little more than $33,000 — and he or she get to be vilified as a public employee, never mind the crushing case load.

So when you read or hear of failures such as Child Protective Services, just remember: Your tax cuts at work.

The Republicans have controlled state government for more than a quarter of a century. This, as the party has grown more extreme, emerged as the Kookocracy purging its RINOs and trying to shrink government small enough to drown in the bathtub.

Thousands of children suffered for this ideological bender. They are in the bathtub, too.

The only exception was the abbreviated two terms of Janet Napolitano, which were mostly spent playing defense against the crazies. Her signature achievement, all-day-kindergarten, specifically aimed at the neediest children, was rolled back when she left.

No wonder that for years, Arizona has turned in abysmal performances in such authoritative reports as Kids Count by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. In 2012, Arizona ranked 46 out of 50 states. Not to be outdone, it slid to 47 in 2013.

Arizona's education funding is among the lowest in the nation, a situation that persists year after year. Twenty-seven percent of Arizona children lived in poverty last year. More than 1 million Arizonans rely on food stamps (76 percent of Supplimental Nutritional Assistance Program households include a child, elderly person or disabled person).

The children suffer and the Kooks don't care because, well, so many of them are those people. Immigrants and the working poor.

Those people whose struggles make Arizona's low-wage economy so profitable for a few and the politics of white-right apartheid so rewarding for the reactionaries that keep getting elected.

 

Comments

[soleri]

This irony should not be lost on us, no matter how stubborn we are in our ideological fixations: Republicans don't care if you live or die unless you're a fetus. That's it. There may be a gray area here and there especially among people we admire and respect, like Cal. But for the most part, their political morals are beneath contempt. It's like Senator Rand Paul blaring his libertarian trumpet on behalf of greedheads and scumbags, but not for the needy. He's "pro-life" because the anti-abortion, anti-sex social conservatives are such a potent force in the GOP. It's hardly an coincidence that his own not-so-murky relationship to unreconstructed racists, much like his father's, reveals such loathsome sentiments about the poor. They don't hate abortion unless the fetus is white.

But we're not really permitted to say this out loud. When we do, we're told to sit down and recall that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican and Robert Byrd was a Democrat. The media play along with this conceit that parties never change, partly because the screamers on the right will make their lives hell otherwise. So, the conventional wisdom has evolved in this state that Republicans are fiscally responsible even though Arizona is now one of the worst states in the union for median income, poverty, and various social pathologies like teen pregnancy, suicide, and child abuse.

The Randian fervor persists despite its abysmal track record. People think themselves hip to be unmoved by the blatant cruelty in the political economy they created. They see themselves as part of a vanguard of rigorous thinkers who can laugh at the pain they inflict on their lessers because those people are also losers.

I am not a Christian although I love its metaphors about kindness, neighborliness, and humility. What I abhor more than anything are people who tribalize around Jesus as some Aryan god if only to disregard Christianity's most fundamental ethical precepts. We fight them not because we hate God or sexual continence but because there is no real morality outside the Golden Rule. How we treat the most vulnerable and weak in our society is a morality test you don't want to fail. Republicans fail it with relish. That is unforgivable.

[cal Lash]

Jon and Soleri:
Jon, I know U know the answer here but didnt see it elaborated.
There is a strong political voting religious based group that seldom ever uses the services of CPS. They handle their own problems internally. You know like when a 50 year old lady and her 18 year old daughter are screwing the same 16 year old kid. Consequently they vote down any tax proposals that would benefit anyone outside their group.

But Alt/fuel put a bunch of $$ into the groups 10 percent fund.

[cal Lash]

Soleri, thanks for the vote of confidence.
I am a republican with a wig.

[headless]

"They see themselves as part of a vanguard of rigorous thinkers...."

That's why they invariably get as mad as hornets when you point out an obvious error or contradiction in their thinking.

[Diane D'Angelo]

Laurie Roberts has been reporting on CPS for years, but I believe her focus has been all wrong. She tends to blame caseworkers for everything, which is like blaming a post-op death on the surgeon who has only one scalpel.

[AzRebel]

This is not a party issue.

You could increase funding ten fold and cps would not be able to fix the majority of unfixable cases they face.

Money can't fix a problem that started five, ten or fifteen years ago at birth.

If you could have seen all the cases play out as I have, you would understand this comment: cps, God bless you for trying everything you could to save the kids, but damn it, you failed. You failed before you began because it was unsolvable years before you stepped in.

If you think money is the answer, you don't know nothing about nothing.

[AzReb]

Folks,

Ever attend a CPS hearing?

Let me describe one for you.

The central character:15 year old male, dropout, wannabe white rapper. With his CPS appointed lawyer.

Meth-head Mom with CPS lawyer.

Unemployed Dad with CPS lawyer.

Out going foster parents with CPS lawyer.

In coming foster parents with CPS lawyer.

Older sister with CPS lawyer.

Grandparents who didn't know enough to get a CPS lawyer.

CPS caseworker with CPS lawyer.

The judge

Current status of kid's situation - a total clusterfuck.

So let me ask you, there is the equation. Exactly where do you inject funding to make that situation get better????

You inject funding, you fix NOTHING except the legal profession.

This was a simple case. I can't type enough to explain some of the complicated ones.

[terry dudas]

Az Reb, you nailed it. Not that anyone on this blog will believe you, but you speak truth.

[john tally]

So what you're saying, AzReb, is that CPS is a waste of money and a waste of time.

Like the War On Drugs.

Who will intervene in behalf of the little girls and boys?

[AzReb]

Did I say that john?

Where did I say that?

Show me, please.

I just wanted you to get a glimpse of reality, minus the BS that blows this political football back and forth.

********************************

Want to know what I wish, john?

That somehow a miracle happens and the family unit reappears in this country and no one needs to intervene cause the little girls and boys will be safe.

I know it won't happen john, but I can dream.

[Diane D'Angelo]

I really, really dislike black or white thinking on these issues. Will more money make meth-head families functional? No. But will it provide decent salaries for CPS workers who are treated like the social service equivalent of process servers? Yes. Will that help with burnout that destroys good caseworkers? Yes. Will it help to provide a social safety net so maybe, just maybe a kid in one of these screwed up families has a door out? Yes.

[[email protected]]

When the citizenry becomes convinced that Gov. is incompetent and not worth fighting or paying for,like Germany in the 30's,they look for a dictator to make it run efficiently.This may or may not be the goal of the Kookocracy,but the results will likely be a police state .The next Reagan will make Hitler look like a piker.

[cal Lash]

Well Reb U certainly made your point. So tomorrow I am asking the state of Arizona to shut down all Law enforcement (I got my guns) and child protective services (my kids have left the nest) and ADEQ (I boil my water) also. In defense of REB I have seen the cases he is talking about. However I have also seen many cases where law enforcement and CPS have been instrumental in saving salvageable kids for a productive future. But the point REB makes for me is there needs to be a refinement of the process. Strong leadership from the legislators and the governor. Legislation to provide more insight into cases by the public and the media. The legislature, the governor and the public along with CPS are supposed to protect children from birth until 18. Positive family structures such as you find in homes from Atheists to Mormons are a key to reducing CPS case load. Likely to happen? I am not optimistic. By 2100 the census folks are predicting there will be 11 billon people on the planet earth. Under current circumstances there is not enough money to fund the CPS needed in the future. However, cutting social services to reduce tax loads many times ends up costing more to fix the problem later. Kinda like me trying to fix my car. A mechanic I am not. Its easy to criticize from afar but hard to get up and get involved. Get involved, Volunteer to help the kids of the future.

[cal Lash]

Terry Dudas
"Az Reb, you nailed it. Not that anyone on this blog will believe you, but you speak truth."

I am OK Tery with REB "nailed it" but I think its rather naive for you to suggest that no one besides you and Reb(on this blog) speak truth.

R U sure of what the truth is?
U been talking with the gods?
Can U get me a direct line?
I want to complain to god about how we are treating his children!

[cal Lash]

HLS security is keeping your children "safe"? and

Reading to make your Holiday's a permanent Halloween.

Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights Open Media) Paperback – March 18, 2014
by Todd Miller

Todd Miller's book Border Patrol Nation has some eye opening reporting, especially for those of us who live along the border and think we know the facts of the expanding police state. Well, I didn't know the Border Patrol provided security for the Superbowl. And I was ignorant of their youth groups and the scale of such propaganda work. I don't think anyone can read this book without being alarmed by the growing presence of surveillance, the expense and the apparent acceptance by our fellow citizens of this new national police force. He illustrates how the border increasingly is running right through our living rooms regardless of where we live as the claims of the security state crush any ideas of personal freedom. And like any good book, the reader will argue with some pages and think about others. Miller also captures how the universities are become satanic mills for the growing industry of spying on us for our own good. Who knows, maybe the academy will stop accepting grants from the people who want to build more cages and instead become centers of critical thinking. ---Charles Bowden

[headless]

"Money can't fix a problem that started five, ten or fifteen years ago at birth."

You make a good pro-choice argument.

However, let's remember that CPS is 'Child Protective Services', not 'We Need to Fix a Lot of Social Problems that Begin at Birth with no Money Services'.

CPS' limited role of protecting children from abusive families would definitely be helped with more funds for more caseworkers who then have lighter caseloads and more time to do the job that they are paid for.

[headless]

How can you be so obtuse, AZReb?

[cal Lash]

Retired cop Bill Richardsons take on CPS

http://eastvalleytribune.com/columns/east_valley_voices/article_6306ce0a-56ff-11e3-90b2-001a4bcf887a.html

OK

[headless]

Lash -- Read the article. Sounds spot on.

[cal Lash]

Guantanamo Joe:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/27/joe-arpaio-thanksgiving_n_4351729.html
Seems if the supposed religious, supposed to be humble and care for your fellow being have lost the story of Jesus and the thief on their crosses.
Jesus promised the thief a place in heaven. Joe promises you a place in hell.

[cal Lash]

Speaking of children:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/11/19/beyond-so-called-first-thanksgiving-5-childrens-books-set-record-straight-152337
take that pilgrim.

[Rocky]

I have been a supervisor with CPS for the past 9.5 years and have been with the agency for a total of 15 years.

Problems CPS Case Managers & Supervisors face:
Case loads that are too high
Cases that are complex and confusing
Judges that tend to be pro-parent and suspicious of CPS
High turnover as case managers don't stay with CPS very long
Supervisors who burn out and volunteer to take a demotion or leave CPS
Attorneys that take advantage of case managers in court due to their lack of legal expertise
Attorneys who make unrealistic demands and threats towards case managers and their supervisors
Lack of resources including enough properly trained personnel to supervise visits for parents and their children
Lack of relative placements for children
Lack of foster home parents for children
Pressure by upper management for case managers and their supervisors to close cases
CASA Volunteers appointed by the Court that do not understand the juvenile court and CPS system and harass case managers as a result of their ignorance
System changes requiring case managers and their supervisors to learn new policies and procedures in a short period of time
Unrealistic deadlines for completing certain tasks
Attorney General's Office which represents CPS but tries to run cases and tell case managers and their supervisors what to do
Family members who do not cooperate with CPS and pit one side of the family against the other side of the family (maternal vs. paternal) and expect CPS to take sides
Threats made by family members and parents against case managers and their supervisors
Physical confrontations by family members and parents against case managers and their supervisors even at CPS offices and at court hearings

[cal Lash]

Rocky, excellent post

[cal Lash]

Watch POOR KIDS
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/142a4f93980e99b1