Why U.S. Child Protective Have Services To Do Better

Pexels / محمد عزام الشيخ يوسف

Child neglect and abuse are clearly some of the worst facets that humanity brings to the table, so the United States having specialized sets of agencies who set out to act to oppose and prevent these horrid, life altering events is not surprising. It is incredibly surprising is how ineffective these agencies can be in practice.

The inefficiency of the United States’ efforts to protect children is well known, especially to those lackadaisically left behind by it. Hell, even I, the writer of this article, was a victim of Child Protective Services simply not doing anything. Inaction seems to be their go-to action in most situations. This ignored abuse can range from psyche altering, to deadly. Disturbingly enough, an article by Douglas Besharov cites this statistic: “About 35 to 55 percent of all child fatalities attributed to abuse or neglect involve children already reported to a child protection agency.”

Obviously, this makes people not very keen on Child Protective Services (as seen by a good amount of their Google Reviews). However, while it’s extremely easy to see (or experience) all of these agencies’ shortcomings, it’s much harder to identify the root of these inadequacies. Without truly understanding why a system fails, it can never be repealed and remade. Boiling it down, I can boil these shortcomings into two categories: improper staffing and a failure to properly address situations.

Pexel/cottonbro studio

First-off: Improper staffing. Many will only blame the protocols that the staff follow (which is obviously also a problem), but there’s also an issue with the way CPS constructs its agencies. 

A big issue with the formatting of personnel constructed by CPS agencies is the number of people they have employed under their various branches. According to statistics recorded in 2023, the workforce of CPS clocks in at a measly 32,685 employees. While some may see this number of workers as impressive, when it’s compared to other businesses, 32,685 is but drops in the ever-expanding pond of the United States population. Hell, even Arby's has a greater surplus of workers than those who are in charge of keeping our children safe

You may be thinking “well, at least that’s 32,685 workers actively searching abusers’ homes to keep all of beloved children safe and sound,” but even that isn’t the case! According to the previously mentioned statistical data, 21,739 of the 32,685 of those workers that actually go into abusive households to record what kinds of abuse is afflicted upon American children! The rest simply funnel paperwork and emails through the endless drool halls of an office building! 

Overall, despite the fact that CPS’s workforce should have a strong fleet of countless employees working to help our children, it ends up being closer to a tiny number of workers that barely have the numbers to run a fast-food franchise, let alone protect an entire nation’s upcoming generation.

Pexels/Mohammad Husaini

Well, quantity will never triumph over quality, right? Simply giving out a statistic showing how incredibly understaffed CPS wouldn’t be nearly enough to prove that they’re “failing the next generation of America, right?” Well, of course! If CPS was simply understaffed, then this article would be much more empathetic; but that simply isn’t the case.

CPS’s other major issue is their failure to properly identify and confront situations of abuse and neglect. Some might think this couldn’t be the case, as CPS has protocols to arrest abusers and move children who are improperly taken care of to new homes. However, while CPS is sure to help children if a problem is identified, that “if” seems to be a herculean task for their agencies of investigators. 

This failure to properly identify and address childhood neglect and abuse can be seen within the checklist guide used by CPS employees. While this protocol is clear on what actions are harmful, the guidelines’ exceptions are what leads to childhood abuse being left unresolved.

This can be seen in the guidelines’ section titled "Standards of Culpability.” For harmful guardians to be persecuted by CPS, they must be doing their harm intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly. Some may see these guidelines as fair, thinking that some parents may fail children despite doing all that they could reasonably do. While this may be the case in some situations, this sentiment fails to account for one major aspect of these guidelines: objectivity.

Of course, guidelines can never be entirely objective. Human interpretation is bond to create a layer of subjectivity to every text. However, these three categories are so subjective that workers can either fail to report abuse due to a misunderstanding or a lack of care. Not reporting is a lot less work than reporting, and if there’s wiggle room to make their job easier, most workers will choose to take it.

This wiggle room can be compounded by the egregious lack of staffing. If an overworked employee has a certain number of cases they need to investigate in a day, most will attempt to rush through to get to every house. This can lead to potentially harmful, or even deadly forms of abuse being inflicted upon our children.

Overall, CPS needs to step it up. Their job is to protect the backbone of our nation, and that cannot be done with their weak staffing and unclear policies.