California
Social Wreckers: The Grand Jury's Findings
Date: April 20, 1992
From:
Grand Jury, County of San Diego
1420 Kettner Blvd, Suite 310
San Diego, California 92101-2432
To:
Honorable John Burton
Assemblyman, 16th District
Chairman, Public Safety Committee
California State Assembly
2179 State Capitol
Dear Mr. Burton & Committee Members:
The San Diego County Grand Jury has spent nine months in an intensive
study of the Juvenile Dependency System. This has included hundreds
of professionals in the system, review of literally thousands of
pages of documents, study of hundreds of Juvenile Court cases, observation
of approximately one hundred Juvenile Court proceedings, and one
month of sworn testimony. This study resulted in Grand Jury Report
#2, "Families in Crisis."
Since issuing this report, the County Grand Jury has been inundated
with an additional flood of citizens and professionals desiring
to testify regarding their adverse personal experiences with Child
Protective Services. The Jury has serious concerns that these abuses
have seriously eroded public confidence in CPS' ability to fairly
protect children and their families. If the legislature does not
approve legislation to control social worker abuse of public confidence
the Jury fears a public backlash which may seriously impact society's
ability to protect children.
The S. D. County Grand Jury made ninety-two (92) recommendations
to improve the system, including that the Board of Supervisors seek
legislative changes in immunity provisions governing social workers
and others involved in the child abuse system. This may, in fact,
be the most important recommendation of the Jury because that single
change carries the potential to remedy a great many of the other
problems found in the system. The Jury believes the current system
of absolute immunity is the single greatest deterrent to change.
It is sad but true that many of us change our behavior primarily
to avoid adverse results.
This Jury is well aware of the historical reasons for extending
total immunity to social workers. This Jury recognizes that the
majority of social workers perform their tasks appropriately. It
is empathetic to the difficult decisions facing social workers and
does not seek to impair their ability to perform these tasks. Police
officers are faced with very similar situations. Wisely, they have
only been granted qualified immunity. Social workers who perform
their tasks in good faith will have nothing to fear protected by
qualified immunity.
The San Diego County Grand Jury has witnessed the unfortunate truth
of a statement made by a trial attorney within the Fourth District
Court of Appeal. "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Absolute immunity is absolute power." The Jury was hesitant to reach
the conclusion that absolute immunity must go, but having seen the
results of this immunity in the lives of the citizenry, we adamantly
believe it must.
The San Diego County Grand Jury has:
- seen repeated episodes of social worker perjury in court reports,
and indeed, even in court testimony;
- heard testimony by attorneys and court-appointed therapists
that social workers have threatened to remove them from court
approved lists if they failed to adhere to social worker recommendations;
- heard testimony that social workers have threatened to remove
additional children from families who fail to exactly follow social
worker recommendations even when there is no issue regarding that
child;
- heard testimony that even repeated adverse reports by professionals
about individual social workers have resulted in a failure to
discipline;
- heard testimony by attorneys that when faced with the most blatant
abuses of power, there are still no remedies available to their
clients;
- heard therapists testify that social workers have threatened
to ruin their careers with a report that they have "accommodated
the denial" of a client, or questioned a "true finding";
- seen documented evidence of social workers conspiring to
place children for adoption with their own family members even
while reunification with natural families was in process;
- seen evidence of social workers placing children in particular
foster homes which would render the opportunity to reunify non-existent;
- heard testimony of social workers lying to adopters about
the past history of the children available for adoption;
- heard testimony of social workers misrepresenting to natural
family members, in order to gain their necessary consent to an
open adoption, that they will be able to have a permanent role
in the life of the child when the law does not guarantee that
right;
- seen evidence of social workers placing children with an unfit
parent in apparent reprisal against the other parent;
- read numerous Social Study reports written by social workers
and filled with innuendo, half truths and lies;
- seen evidence of social workers so obsessed with molestation
scenarios that they were unable to maintain even a semblance of
objectivity.
Absolute immunity fosters these wrongs and then when the system
has wrought devastating financial and personal harm on individuals
and families, leaves them no recourse. More significantly, however,
absolute immunity promotes societal damage by removing any deterrent
to repeating these same types of activities, thereby removing a
primary incentive for change.
It is the view of the Jury that it is ultimately the children of
California who have been most damaged. We have seen the results
of the adoptions which must be undone, the relatives still seeking
their children, the throw-away children on the streets, and the
extraordinary costs of this system to the taxpayers.
This can not be totally rectified by this legislation but it will
mean some accountability among the line social worker and every
Department head. It will allow the system to purge itself of the
social worker who abuses power and leave in place those who are
the willing to live within the standards of law. This highly sensitive
and very vulnerable area of social service is not the place for
the abuse of power.
Reprinted Courtesy of Lifting
the Veil: Examining the Child Welfare, Foster Care and Juvenile
Justice Systems
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