Supporting "get tough" laws and government agencies gives people the comforting illusion that they are really doing something, changing society, asserting themselves. Afterward, they can sink back into political numbness with a self-satisfied feeling that keeps them from actually going out into the world to achieve positive change through hard work and personal involvement. Family law and regulation is one of the most "get tough" areas you can find. In recent decades, lucrative and bureaucratic industries have grown up around issues such as divorce, domestic violence and child custody. Other than the IRS, it would be difficult to find an agency that is more draconian and self-righteous in destroying lives than the Child Protective Services under its various state names. Yet all that needs to be said on camera or to the voting public is "it is for the children!" and cries of "yea, verily, the children must be saved!" return. The CPS gets a rubber stamp that lets it function with impunity, without transparency or accountability. In contempt of the Constitution and of common decency, it rips families apart, makes de facto orphans of children and destroys the innocent. All with an air of sanctimony.

CPS continues to destroy families and children precisely because well-meaning "get tough" people give them a nod of approval, tax-money and their confidence. Then they turn away with a feeling of achievement and of relief at handing over a messy problem to "the authorities." They don't have to confront the nightmare bureaucracy they've facilitated. If the nightmare is glimpsed through newspaper accounts of abused children, dead children or kids who are lost in the system, then the messenger is criticized as alarmist or the account is dismissed as an aberration.

On Monday, the Chicago Tribune (13/04) ran an article entitled "In foster home, DCFS letter gave paper-thin authority" with the explanatory subtext "Despite lack of court supervision, some guardians have had years-long custody of children based only on a form letter." DCFS officials (Illinois Department of Children and Family Services) say they have issued "potentially thousands" of undated form letters that placed children in foster homes without ever having their placement brought before a court. The importance of this statement is that the letters were not aberrations but standard policy. The undated nature of the form letter is also important because it leaves the placement open-ended and allows it to continue for years. DCFS did and does such a wretched job of following-up and/or keeping track of the children it yanks from homes that some "caregivers" have had guardianship for years with absolutely no supervision from courts or social workers. In essence, the DCFS was making permanent custody decisions and arrangements on its own authority with no involvement of courts or outside legal authority.

The Tribune spotlights one such caregiver who received guardianship of two infant boys for years without any court approval, based solely on two form letters from the DCFS. Carolyn Lowe received the letters even though her foster parent license had been put on hold (it later expired) and a child had already been removed from her home. Among the complaints against Lowe: a child was scalded in a bathtub and received no medical attention for which Lowe was citied for medical neglect; a male resident at Lowe's home was accused twice of sexually abusing a 3-year-old foster girl; a 15-year-old foster boy used an illegal gun from the home to commit suicide; and one of the boys recently in her care may have been molested as well. An investigation is pending.

On one point I agree with the CPS and supporters of "get tough" agencies. It is for the children! Unlike the CPS, I am sincere. Abolish this terrible government agency in all its forms. Tear down their buildings and salt the earth upon which they stood.