How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2006/07/18/photos

by georgecmu • 16 years ago

428 210 16 years ago

georgecmu• 16 years ago

"If we get down to the bottom line, there is no clear-cut definition," said Dean Tong, who wrote "Elusive Innocence: Survival Guide for the Falsely Accused," after being jailed and then spending 10 years and $150,000 to clear himself of abusing his young daughter. Now a forensic consultant in thousands of false-accusation cases across the country, Tong told me that even most police officers are not well enough trained to interpret the law, let alone photo lab employees. Tong said that when facing the slightest doubt, law enforcement officers "err on the side of the child," noting the potential results: "I see families stripped and ripped apart in the middle of the night."

Jun8• 16 years ago

America has one of the absurdly strictest set of laws for sex offenses against minors, Economist had a great cover story about this some weeks ago. Problem is, since politicians know proposals for stricter laws bring in votes and no sane politician would ever propose a relaxation in these laws, they get stricter every year.

On the other hand, the US has one of the most sexualized tweens and teen-agers I have ever seen, go to the Mall or the local movie house on a Friday and you would be shocked at how girls dress (and how their parents let them dress like this). And if that doesn't shock you, watch the movie Thirteen.

jrockway3• 16 years ago

America has one of the absurdly strictest set of laws for sex offenses against minors

no sane politician would ever propose a relaxation in these laws

So what did the other countries, that have less-strict laws, do?

(I agree that Americans are very afraid of anything sexual, but I'm not sure how this happened. Not everyone is a Puritan.)

btilly3• 16 years ago

Back in the 90s I ran across an interesting survey. In America more people were privately concerned about excessive violence on TV than excessive sex. But most thought that their neighbors were more concerned about sex than violence. And therefore found it easier to publicly express their concerns about sex than violence.

As to your question, laws and solutions vary widely by country. And other countries have their own problems. (See, for instance, the Catholic abuse scandal in Ireland.) But in general other countries have laws which serve the same purpose as US laws, however with less draconian details. For instance England and Canada have copied US legislation for registered sex offenders. However they do not seem to have implemented the sort of geographic rules on where they can live that lead to the infamous tent city under a bridge in Miami.

ugh2• 16 years ago

So what did the other countries, that have less-strict laws, do?

It’s not a very nice answer but I think they have less direct democracies and delegate many of the nitty-gritty details of the law to experts. That’s also why there is no death penalty in Europe.

jacquesm9• 16 years ago

I think a good part of that is the fundamentalist Christian ('reborn') element in the United States which commands a fair portion of the vote.

splat• 16 years ago

I'm not so sure about that. I would assume that these laws mostly command support from those who consider themselves "Law and Order" types. They're often conservative, but I think it crosses ideological lines pretty well.

mike-cardwell• 16 years ago

I would like to blame the religious nuts, but I live in the UK which has considerably less of them than the US, and things are pretty bad here too.

There's a constant stream of fear mongering about paedophiles and terrorists in all mass media.

gscott3• 16 years ago

I would suggest these organizations are more liberal thinkers where the child is better off under Government supervision.

The Bible is pretty clear that the parent should raise the child. The Bible is really against "Caesar" taking a big part of your life for example 'spare the rod, spoil the child'.

btilly3• 16 years ago

It saddens me that for every ridiculous story like this, there is someone out there who really thought that trying to bring the case was a good idea.

Some things have improved in recent years. The incidence of bad therapy leading to false memory syndrome has been reduced, and with it the rate of false accusations. (There are also now improved odds for abused kids to be able to get information on what abuse is actually like, rather than getting detailed, unrealistic fantasies.) Others are worse. For instance in Miami the rule that sex offenders have to live at least 2500 feet from any school means that about the only place they could live was under a particular bridge. (As of April this year they have been transferred elsewhere, but which elsewhere that is I'm not sure. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offen... for more.)

I would be the last to trivialize abuse or its very real problems. But there is a world of difference between 50 year olds going after prepubescent kids and 19 year olds who dated 16 year olds. And there is little to be gained from treating them all like lepers. Certainly less than could be gained if we, for instance, took some of the energy that goes into following up on almost certainly bogus reports and instead put it into improving the foster care system.

danbmil992• 16 years ago

> there is someone out there who really thought that trying to bring the case was a good idea.

Really? Sounds more like there's some cynical jerk with no sense of ethics or boundaries who gets their jollies by randomly victimizing normal families with the excessive powers bestowed upon them by paranoid CYA legislation and an army of deranged ideologues who see abuse everywhere.

jrockway3• 16 years ago

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: "Someone who really doesn't understand what his job is does some work in an attempt to get a promotion."

ErrantX7• 16 years ago

Highly unlikely; I'm sure there are such people in the LE services - but fortunately the controls now are quite good to stop them from running amok.

It sounds a lot like mad bureaucracy, incompetence and disinterest. Which, if anything, is even worse.

midnightmonster• 16 years ago

I'm very close to people who were saved from really horrible situations by state intervention. But then for them, foster care was hardly any better until they were adopted.

The state taking my kids is actually my worst parental nightmare--even beyond all the accidental and criminal bad things that could happen. I'm a very good parent (you'll have to take my word, I guess), but I'm not conventional. And I know all it takes sometimes is a little misunderstanding.

Sukotto• 16 years ago

For me it's the #2 nightmare. Leaving the baby in the car in the sun is #1.

infinite8s2• 16 years ago

As a new parent, I can't imagine how anyone would ever accidentally leave a child in their car.

mkramlich5• 16 years ago

Horrible story, and I totally empathize with their situation. yes, the US is practically insane sometimes in how they deal with sexuality and minors, and yes there's a history of witch hunts in this area. all horrible.

That said, they did make 2 very big mistakes, and if they hadn't done either or both of them, none of the rest would have happened. first, they took pictures of the kids naked. two, they let those pictures get into the hands of strangers, ones who can then misinterpret and/or be legally obliged to do certain actions which could start a witch hunt. These people knew they were innocent, that's fine, but the problem is that from a stranger's POV, what they see is that two adult men went into the forest with some some kids, some of the kids got naked, they took photos of it. Connect the dots. It paints a bad picture. They were incredibly naive to have not realized this ahead of time.

But yes, we have a horrible system, and we need to find some way to make it better so we can protect children while at the same time not persecuting innocent adults. I'm not quite sure how we can do that.

logic• 16 years ago

My parents had childhood pictures of me, developed through the local grocery store, completely naked aside from a few layers of mud and a huge grin on my face. My teenage self might not have appreciated the opportunity to grandstand in such a manner quite as much. (I honestly thought I'd found and destroyed all of the copies. My parents were much sneakier than I gave them credit for.) My adult self thinks it's all rather funny.

Almost every other child I grew up with had "nekkid pictures" of them, taken by their parents: bathing, having done something foolish or amusing, or just generally running around the house like kids do.

Your post paints you as a reasonable person, and that actually terrifies me: a reasonable person shouldn't see an error in judgement here. These were parents doing what parents do, taking pictures of their kids doing what kids do. Proud parents, possibly thinking, "we'll embarrass the hell out of them when they're 16". (I may be projecting a bit of my father here.)

We're shaping a society that's cynical and distrustful, and it starts with reasonable people associating behavior like this with phrases like "they should have known better".

mkramlich5• 16 years ago

I didn't say we want to live in a world like this. I'm saying this is the world we live in. A reasonable, non-naive person would think twice about taking pictures of a kid naked, if they had any knowledge of the current state of society & laws in the US. This position should not terrify you. If there's no upside to it, but a pretty significant downside, then don't do it. Exercise willpower.

To put it another way, it's like running across a highway at rush hour. Why do it? Upside is a brief thrill (if you survive). Downside is you die horribly. Conclusion: don't do it.

thwarted• 16 years ago

We're shaping a society that's cynical and distrustful, and it starts with reasonable people associating behavior like this with phrases like "they should have known better".

The problem is that the cynicism and distrustfulness is directed toward the wrong things. There should be more cynicism toward the busybodies and the wolf-criers. We need more innocent until proven guilty, which means not hassling people just to find something, anything to support a case against them.

hartror• 16 years ago

There are photos of my parents, sister and I when we were little on a beach in the middle of nowhere all in our Birthday suits. Living in a desert environment for the first half of my childhood meant my sibling and I viewed clothing as very much optional.

Nudity isn't inherently sexual, culturally we have made it so.

sliverstorm5• 16 years ago

I don't agree that they made zero mistakes. Not exactly that I would call it a 'mistake'- that implies they were hiding from something from the start- but why, why were there photos of children drinking beer? Especially considering their children are 3 and 8 yo? Even in cultures much much more loose about alcohol, most don't give it to children in the single-digit age range. Hell, even if there were no laws and regulations on the stuff, I'd be extremely uneasy giving a child that young alcohol, unless it was just a taste. At 135lbs, half a beer can make me woozy if I haven't eaten. Small children are 1/2 to 1/3 of my weight.

dotBen2• 16 years ago

Yes, I completely agree with the naivity aspect.

As I read this I thought to myself "if you've bought a disposable camera that will need to be professionally developed why are you taking naked photos of your children?". Use a digital camera or skip the nakedness.

It's like me (a pasty faced white geek) taking my sports car out for a cruise around Bay Shore and Hunters Point here in San Francisco (big crime, gang and drug activity). Sure there is nothing illegal for going for a drive in any part of the city, but I'm going to get stopped by a police cruiser on the suspicion of looking to score drugs or prostitutes.

Even if I'm not doing anything illegal whatsoever, it's naive to think it isn't going to raise suspicion and investigation.

sliverstorm5• 16 years ago

Similarly, a friend and I were up in the mountains (halfway between our houses) once late at night on the side of the road to talk about some heavy stuff in our lives.

Pair of police cruisers pulled over completely unprompted and confronted us, ran our registration and driver's licences, and gave us a lecture on speeding & racing.

I don't blame them, and in fact I'm happy they were doing that, especially as they weren't assholes about it. They are trying to fight the death rate up there, and as they can't be everywhere at once, they were just doing all they could to proactively prevent. I think it'd be totally unreasonable to get upset over that. Sure, it'd have been a bit nicer of an evening if the cops didn't pay us a visit, but we were giving off some warning signs (being there late in coupes) so they checked us out, end of story.

Confusion3• 16 years ago

  Connect the dots. It paints a bad picture.

They already got to you :(.

In other words: no it bloody doesn't paint a bad picture. It paints a picture that is completely regular in 999 out of a 1000 cases. If you think it paints a bad picture, then you've already been convinced by them to such an extent that you feel their reasoning is justified. It isn't. The clerk was wrong to suspect anything from the photos. Completely, utterly, wrong.

  first, they took pictures of the kids naked. two, they let those pictures get
  into the hands of strangers, ones who can then misinterpret and/or be
  legally obliged to do certain actions which could start a witch hunt.

Right, and you think my parents, and all those others, developed their own photos when I was running around butt naked on some beach 28 years ago? It's a cultural change for the worse; nothing inherent in the photos.

mkramlich5• 16 years ago

nobody got to me

run4yourlives3• 16 years ago

first, they took pictures of the kids naked.

What is this world coming to when this is considered "a mistake"?

mkramlich5• 16 years ago

the voting system is broken if my comment was brought to -2. just because someone may disagree with the comment doesn't mean my karma should be lowered. that just encourages groupthink and political correctness. not cool.

to fix i propose allowing only a small number of trusted admins to be able to bring a comment below 1.

reader50002• 16 years ago

This guy's anger is justified and I think his lawyer failed him.

kls11• 16 years ago

I think his lawyer failed him

No he did not, this is not court, you have no right to due process. Your rights are considered secondary to the rights of the children given that you are in question you can not by nature be the child advocate. The DCF (whoever your states agency is) takes that role. So they get to decide if a lawyer is present or not for child questioning, etc.

All you really can get from a lawyer in this situation is advice and legal counsel if they decide to bring charges as well as a agent to act on your (not your children) behalf.

It is a nightmare where they have you and your lawyer over a barrel until you can catch them up and get them to relent.

reader50002• 16 years ago

I have no idea if this is settled law or not, but in this instance where the DCF is causing irreparable harm to both the children and the parents it seems a court's intervention could at least be asked for, i.e. file an injunction on the investigation or something to that effect. I'm not a lawyer but I don't think I would feel right just sitting back and being a passive message-passer for the DCF while they destroy my client's lives.

megablast• 16 years ago

Everyone should read Franz Kafka's The Trial. This story and The Trial depict the helplessness anyone can feel with our legal system, or any big bureaucracy.

billswift• 16 years ago

ESR's got a new post up http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122 about what he calls "Kafkatrapping", making unfalsifiable claims against people as a form of "moral" bullying.

eru2• 16 years ago

Yes. Although The Trial can also be read as a piece on his engagement. But Kafka was quite familiar with bureaucracy -- he worked for one.

siculars• 16 years ago

Wait until some enterprising district attorney confiscates your hard drive, surmises you frequent HN, subpoenas your voting history from pg, finds this thread and examines which anti-governement/pro-common-sense comments you up voted.

Everything you say (and/or write) may be used against you.

Have a nice day :)

scrod• 16 years ago

>Wait until some enterprising district attorney confiscates your hard drive, surmises you frequent HN, subpoenas your voting history from pg, finds this thread and examines which anti-governement/pro-common-sense comments you up voted.

But don't worry, because the web is the future of computing and one day all our information will be stored in giant central databases outside of our control. Isn't the cloud great?

(And by the way, "common sense" is not always the same thing as "good sense".)

jacquesm9• 16 years ago

They wouldn't have to go through PG either, votes can be lifted from the URL log that your provider is required to keep.

Retric2• 16 years ago

Sadly, my privacy is probably slightly more protected from such things on this highly monitored Army owned machine running on a secured and monitored network, than on my home computer. The DoD actually seems to care more about PII (Personally Identifiable Information) more than most other organizations, I suspect in large part because the people setting the regulations are also susceptible to them.

elbrodeur• 16 years ago

This is tremendously disturbing, but according to the article pretty common. It's a tough line.

On the one hand, nobody wants children to suffer. If at all possible, every child should be protected from abuse. I think the key, as the author elaborates on, is education. Knowing the difference between a crazy hippy family and pedophiles seems like common sense -- but if you, as an uneducated clerk at a crappy CVS in the middle of nowhere, saw something that offended your sensibilities and seemed perverse... Without education things like this will happen again and again. Once something like this gets into the bureaucratic pipeline it becomes an unfortunate problem of due diligence.

barrkel• 16 years ago

It's really common wrong-headed idea, and I suspect at its heart it's a fundamental flaw of democracy.

The idea is that if A does bad thing B, all you have to do is pass a law against doing B, and A will stop doing B.

But that's not how it works in practice. Instead, you introduce this third character C, who goes out looking for As who might be doing Bs, and potentially does a lot of damage in that search.

That damage isn't taken into consideration by the people who simply want As to stop doing B. But people, as a collective electorate, are like a simple-minded 6-year-old, who are promised something by their parents, and they clap their hands in glee, unable to imagine the downsides.

sgt• 16 years ago

In practice it just doesn't work very well sometimes. I think it's better to risk letting more child abusers off the hook, than potentially ruining the lives of decent parents like these.

ErrantX7• 16 years ago

This was a particularly clear cut case where the parents had done absolutely nothing wrong.

That is unusual (at least in my experience) and, yes, we need to avoid these cases.

But how do you treat the 8 year old who makes accusations about her father; how much do you have to believe before investigating him? How certain do you have to be that she may be lying before dropping the case? This is the main area of unjust investigations remaining (at least in the UK) and it is troublesome how to find the safe medium.

sliverstorm5• 16 years ago

If it's hurt adults or let children be hurt, I don't know if I can agree with you. Children are much more powerless than most adults, and the strong should always stick up for the weak.

cagey3• 16 years ago

We had "a run in" with Child Protective Services about 10 years ago. The charge: "Shaken Baby Syndrome" (symptoms medically caused; a long story). The "advocates" at CPS had me and my wife (in hospital having just delivered child #2) tried and convicted immediately. Only, I think, thru my self-advocacy directly to the head of pediatrics at the county hospital where my child was being held for examination, resulted in the case being resolved in our favor within a few days (in contrast, I could have talked to the bureaucrats until I died w/o making the slightest headway). Due process? What's that? Various lawyers I consulted advised me to not even hire a lawyer (imagine multiple lawyers saying _that_!) because the law was so stacked against parents, and so completely protective of the CPS bureaucrats, that it would be an utter waste of money with no hope of lawyer-aided "victory".

Miraculously we got our kids back in very short order, however the bureaucrats wouldn't give us the slightest scrap of documentation that the event had ever taken place (and this remains true til now). And needless to say, we received no apology either (at best they were all "just doing their jobs", just like concentration camp guards).

I have nothing good to say about the arbitrary, condescending, totalitarian bureaucrats/"advocates", or the (CA) legislators who wrote such one sided laws ("for the children", no doubt) giving these petty tyrants their obscene powers. I guess many reading this will think "necessary collateral damage by wonderful, diligent state employees pursuing the greater good"; all well and good until _you_ are the ones in their crosshairs: then we'll hear what kind of tune _you_ sing about the glories of the state when you are deprived of due process among other things.

Confusion3• 16 years ago

  (at best they were all "just doing their jobs", just like concentration camp
  guards)

Quoted for truth. This is not an invocation of Godwin's law, but the closest possible analogy, as these bureaucrats make the exact same repugnant decisions someone like Eichmann made. They fully well know they ruin the lives of many innocent folks; at least half the cases turn out to have been nothing. The problem is not 'the government' or 'society'. The problem is our neighbors: citizens like you and me, not realizing they have to question what they do in the light of each individual situation, not thinking for themselves or not having the moral fiber to act according to those thoughts.

These horror stories are not solely an American problem: there are plenty of similar European stories. However, the American stories are by far more extreme, as both the punishment and the immediate social consequences are worse. Not only the bureaucrats are like concentration camp guards: the teachers that immediately distrust you and the neighbors that won't let their kid play with yours anymore are equally guilty of 'guilty until proven innocent'.

motters• 16 years ago

Yes the hysteria in Europe is quite similar. I think that part of this has to do with the fact that whenever a case of child abuse arises, and it's shown that the social services did not do enough to protect the child from harm, there's a huge media circus, legal cases brought against the council, heads of department sacked and so on. So from the social services point of view false negatives can be prohibitively costly, whereas false positives rarely if ever make the headlines.

cagey3• 16 years ago

  The problem is not 'the government' or 'society'. 
  The problem is our neighbors: citizens like you and me...

I fail to see how my neighbors caused this problem (aside from demonstrating a tendency to vote for legislators who themselves had a latent tendency to write the laws creating the bureaucracy which assailed us). The problem is in fact those legislators (and a system that offers minimal checks on the legislation they pass into law), and an apparent collective swoon they fall into, where they think that every "issue de jour" needs a new law in response, and every law is a good law (and more laws, new laws, are better than no new laws) so they spend all their time writing and passing laws, thousands upon thousands of pages of new laws (and often vote to pass same w/o having read the laws being voted upon), many of which require new bureaucracies to enforce. Basically they are busy with their long term project (driven to some degree by the constant cajoling of "advocates" of all stripes who wish to inflict, by rule of law, their point of view on everyone) of legislating a straitjacket for each citizen. Do you like yours?

  the teachers that immediately distrust you

Even aside from our CPS experience, this is true: the classroom is their kingdom, and any parent who dares to question a teacher, or come across with an attitude other than "we worship the ground you walk on" (with smiley faces all around), is going to have trouble. NB: we were (parents) "in the special ed system" (another fine bureaucracy ... not!) so got to "get up close and personal" in ways most parents do not. Our ultimate solution? Home Schooling. I had assumed that switching to this schooling mode would, if not simply impossible, at least be a bureaucratic nightmare, but to my complete surprise, here in CA it is so easy to switch to Home Schooling (this improbable result is thanks entirely to HS groups fighting and winning a number of court cases), and you are (can be if you choose) completely cut loose from the government education bureaucracy.

You're probably thinking "aha! He's Home Schooling, therefore he's a Fundamentalist Christian therefore he's a loony tune, and I can scoff at him"; wrong; I am areligious. My bible, if any: http://www.amazon.com/How-Found-Freedom-Unfree-World/dp/0380...

EDIT: formatting

nprincigalli• 16 years ago

It surprises me that when it comes to bureaucrats causing harm while "just doing their jobs" no one has mentioned the Milgram experiment yet ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment ).

kls11• 16 years ago

I had a similar run in with DCF, not for child pornography but for accusations of child abuse. I helped out a high school friend who had become a heroin addict (I had no idea what I was getting into), by letting his family and himself live with me while he tried to recover. It ended up that this was a common scam with him and his wife and they use a sob story to get friends to help them out and once they wear out their welcome they move on to the next friend. They would exploit their two girls to make you feel bad about putting two little girls out on the street. This worked very well on me.

Anyways, we finally had had enough and we asked them to leave. I notified his brother of this an his brother had had enough as well, fearing for his two nieces the brother called DCF on them and started an investigation in an attempt to get the girls and provide them some stability (they where in and out of school, watched their father do drugs, and eventually watched him OD - more on that latter).

So, after that the crazy wife calls DCF on every family, that had kids, that they stayed with. So we end up getting cops and a DCF agent knocking on our door, conveniently at 11PM, a time when any dirt bag would be doing their nightly supply of drugs and we get this condescending attitude while we are being read a list of charges being levied against us. My father is there, because he is helping me install a wood floor in my living room and the DCF agent gives me a condescending lecture about unsafe environment for children (I answer well that is why we are doing it while they are in bed). She looked at me and asked what is going on here like it was some illicit activity.

They make us wake the kids up, and then they make them disrobe to see if they have any marks and take them on the back porch to ask them questions. Right before that, I asked if I needed a lawyer and the cop told me they are not needed in these situations.

Anyway, they told us we had to be at the court house for a urine test at 8AM the next morning. To which we complied after calling a lawyer once they left the night before.

In the mean time, I call the brother and tell him and his mother what happened. He, his sister and their mother calls the agent handling the case of his brother and tells her that their has been a false report that was used to victimize another person as a form of retaliation. He pretty much has to threaten the lady to contact the DCF agency in my town, which she finally does.

So, pretty open and shut right, nope. I ask our agent if she has been in contact with the (now network) of agents investigation false reports on everyone that has ever let these people stay with them and she tells me that she cannot confirm or deny it due to the fact that she has to protect the anonymity of the reporter but that our case was in active investigation, because they found items of concern in our house (If they provided half the case work diligence that they do to protect the anonymity of a random caller, we would have never been in this mess).

The items of concern was a pot pipe in the room that the family stayed in. I did not allow drugs to be used in my house and the brother clearly described the pot pipe to them as he had seen his brother pipe before, so there was no doubt that this pipe belonged to a known drug addict that lived in that room. Still no go, so now we are being investigated not for child abuse, as the original allegation claimed, but drug abuse, so they go through my medicine cabinet and catalog every pill bottle I have.

Then the drug test come back, and I come back positive for a controlled substance, Alazopram, I have had panic attacks since I was about 10 years old and have been under a doctors care for that long. They know this but feign like they don't.

They then decide to contact my doctor and volunteer the information that I am being investigated for drug abuse and then show up on my door to inform me that I will have to attend mandatory drug classes and enter a rehab facility or they will bring it before the judge. My lawyer called their bluff because they knew I had a prescription for the medication because they interviewed my doctor. Yet when they came to my house they acted like they must have missed the pill bottle with my name on it and asked to see it again. They looked at it for all of .2 seconds and then said well since you have a prescription it is probably best that we go ahead and close the case.

DCF gets brownie points if they can get you entered into some social program if they cannot build a case to get a conviction. They will do everything in their power to do so.

In my case they had a blatant case of their system being used to victimize someone else and instead of upholding justice they saw an opportunity to score a win due to poor circumstances (me not finding a pipe in the closet when we cleaned the room). They would have railroaded me if they could have with no concern as to right and wrong. I feel so bad for those who do not have the resources to retain a lawyer. Nevertheless like the article states the stain remains even after the case is closed. I always wonder if my doctor secretly thinks that I am a drug addict now. I was in a state of fear that my medicine for panic attacks would not be available to me due to the political risk of having me as a patient.

I feared having my children taken away and believe that they had pushed me past the point of breaking. If they had taken my children I believe at that point I could have hurt myself or others. To be innocent with the truth so obvious and to have people ignore it makes you feel victimized and it makes you want to victimize the ones that are doing it to you. I think that is probably the one time in life that someone or some thing had driven me to the edge of sanity. I love my children more than anything in my life and I started to have crazy thought of having to protect my children at all costs. It was insane and they had no regard for the human wreckage they where leaving in their wake.

Fortunately, I held it together, my lawyer, just like the one in the article, constantly reminded me that if I displayed aggression they would use it against me. If I snapped and went postal they would use it against my wife and I would no longer be here to help my wife and children navigate that mess. And if I just killed myself that I would be a coward that left my wife and kids to fend for themselves. It is hard for a man because he has a natural instinct to protect his family and to have to quell that instinct in times of extreme stress when people are truly trying to attack your family is difficult to say the least.

In the end the case was closed, DCF thought they where going to get out quick and quite when they where rebuffed with my prescription, but my lawyer had one last volley with them, in which he insisted that it be noted on our file that the report be marked as a false report. They tried to resist but he threatened civil action against the agency and they relented. I requested the file and on the last line it states subjects request that this be labeled a false report. To the very end they cannot see the victimization that they did.

Anyway, like the article said it fades into a bad memory but leaves you always looking over your shoulder. The part that I am most bitter about is that I asked the agent as she was leaving, are you guys going to bring charges against them for filing all of these false reports. To which she said well the agency dose not really do that, with the case load we don't have time to chase false reports.

The man that we tried to help ended up overdosing 2 months later. The children where never taken from them because they complied with the mandated social programs that DCF required them to do so that DCF could get their check mark. They sent him to a welfare doctor that gave him methadone and klonopin (a stronger relative of the medicine that I take, which they had no issue with their doctor prescribing to a known drug addict), he took too much of both one night and died. His 8yr old and 5y old daughter found him the next day.

EDIT: forgot to mention, wife was pregnant and had baby during the investigation to which they showed up at the hospital to decide whether we could take our new born child home or not.

_pi2• 16 years ago

First off, I am so sorry for your experience that sounds completely terrible.

Second, was there nothing your lawyer could do, such as file an injunction against the DCF? Is there any way you can be compensated (in any way) for your experience? If there was would you take it?

jacquesm9• 16 years ago

The problem with that avenue is that this sort of agency is very vengeful and they have the power to make your life very miserable. So if after you've won your injunction they find half an excuse to 'intervene' again they'll definitely do so.

It's rare that I would advocate to just let it be but in this case that would seem to me to be the safest option. Pick your battles.

cookiecaper5• 16 years ago

DCF is a really problematic thing. I completely understand where you're coming from and we've had people close to us under false investigation from family services and it's a pretty bad gig. They act like everything you say is such an absurd lie and that you're just waiting for them to walk away so that you can start slamming your children into the floor again. It is really sad that they can't use common sense.

But at the same time, we've had people close to us exhibit a constant pattern of abuse with their children, including using and dealing hard drugs with the children present and leaving things like syringes lying around. We called DCFS and the investigation, as far as I know, has gone nowhere.

The woman still has her children because every time the agents show she happens not to have anything particularly incriminating in plain sight. The woman is a serial liar and manipulator and uses people wherever she can. She has many medical problems incidental of her drug use and the way she has treated her body and uses them to her benefit, playing the persecution card. We believe that she is constantly on the edge of sanity and has issues with schizophrenia. She is regularly beaten by her partners, and the children see this. She is always cracked out on legal prescription drugs, which she has a valid prescription to use, because as above, she has abused her body for years and now has serious problems as a result.

Her son has a disability that requires special attention. If he gets injured, he must be administered a booster immediately or he may die. This child is frequently unsupervised while his mother sleeps until 2pm and he runs around outside with kids who don't speak English, jumping off of balconies and stuff. He frequently misses school for a week or so at a time (she makes sure he appears at least once every 10 days, because the school people don't file a report until 10 consecutive absences). But apparently DCFS can't do anything unless they happen to appear at a time when the mother has drugs in reach or sight of the children, and the story is that heretofore they haven't seen this.

I sympathize that it sucks to be falsely investigated, but if you consider that there are people like those described above, who have become expert manipulators and liars to conceal and feed their habits, and DCFS has to investigate them too, you can understand some skepticism on the part of the agents.

Either way, it's a pretty horrible system. I don't really know the answer, but the current setup obviously doesn't work; this woman still has custody of her children six months later (the last time we had contact with them, her boyfriend, who speaks almost no English, called to say that the woman had been away for two days and asked us to take the children so he could go to work) and innocent people get harassed for years because of pettiness and retaliatory reports. Someone should try to fix this, though obviously it's a pretty intractable problem.

olliesaunders7• 16 years ago

How do you know this women is guilty when a formal investigation has failed to substantiate that?

kls11• 16 years ago

I am so bitter and cynical about the whole ordeal that I have come to believe that you can do anything you want want so long as you let them check off their list of social programs they ran you through.

The father and high school friend that I spoke of had a stand off with the cops (DCF was trying to enter the home to investigate his brothers call), in which he was brandishing a weapon on the front porch claiming that he was going to kill himself and his family if the cops tried to enter his house (he was protecting his drugs). When DCF got a hold of him and he agreed to "enter" their program, the judge released him into the care of DCF and the DA dropped the charges so long as he entered a facility (1 month). The brother (who is still a good friend and not a drug addict) called me so mad when he found out that because his brother complied that he would (a) not be getting the kids out of the situation and (b) his brother was being administered a cocktail of legal drugs in the facility.

In my situation this was the point that my sanity started to weaken. I know that they deal with all kinds of manipulators and these two individual where class acts when in came to manipulation, but man they had so many red flags with these people, meanwhile with us, they found a single pipe and neither my wife or I, tested positive for a substance other than one I had a prescription for.

Anyway, I am glad it has long been history for us, but from my experience if you jump through their hoops you can get away with murder. If you don't, they are going to come after you with everything they have got.

I would be half serious in saying that there need to be a support group for DCF false investigation survivors. It was the worst hell we ever experienced and we did not feel secure in our house for years. The article talked about the journalist being in live fire situations and it not being as bad, I believe it whole hardily I would have rather been in a situation where I was being constantly shot at, than to endure that again.

tptacek2• 16 years ago

Your school system doesn't "file a report" until TEN CONSECUTIVE ABSENCES? That's negligent. In ours, a truancy report is filed and the police are involved after ten cumulative absences or tardies throughout the entire semester.

(I found this out the 8th time I managed to drop my kids off 1 minute late).

protomyth2• 16 years ago

"Think of the children" is not a good enough argument anymore. I used to work with social workers a lifetime ago, and the IRS-like you are guilty without a trial harassment is all too real. Combine this with it being a government position with bad metrics and some people who really got into social work to save themselves instead of their client, it is a recipe for disaster.

The biggest problem with reform is the unions and professions that make a lot of money on the current system. Until we can change the evaluation, metrics, and tenure; I really don't think there is any hope. My only bit of advice is to get a lawyer as soon as any possible dealing happen. Don't ever believe the "you don't need one" line. Your life and family is at stake and it is much easier to go after the people who were trying to help as opposed to the person getting "one more chance".

tomjen3• 16 years ago

>I sympathize that it sucks to be falsely investigated, but if you consider that there are people like those described above, who have become expert manipulators and liars to conceal and feed their habits, and DCFS has to investigate them too, you can understand some skepticism on the part of the agents.

Saying that is the same as saying that they should have taken their children away just cause somebody claims you abused your children.

Do you want to retract that statement, or should I call DCF?

blueberry• 16 years ago

I wonder what is with those brownie points? Do they transform into big buck$?

loup-vaillant• 16 years ago

Promotions, or just having their superiors leave them alone. We have similar problems in France with quotas. Policemen are encouraged to arrest a certain number of people per year, or else. The problem here is that they are evaluated by the number of arrests (easy to assess), instead of the actual efficiency of their work (very difficult to assess accurately).

This evaluation method is of course as disastrous as lines of codes are for programmers. As a result, 1% of the French population has been arrested at least once last year. And this number is increasing.

Another example would be the number of American citizens that are on the Terrorist Watch List (I recall 4% [citation needed]). Official may get brownie points for putting one in, but never for putting one out. (Plus, there's might be an almost non-null chance that the guy might be, or know, a terrorist. Perhaps.)

kls11• 16 years ago

Increased budget next year.

hga5• 16 years ago

If they take the children away, yes, they get a "bounty" you might say for each child removed from a family. This is from that 1974 law mentioned in the article.

Once you understand the incentive system it all starts to make sense.

jacquesm9• 16 years ago

I guess that's proof positive that no good deed goes unpunished. What bothers me most about this story is that the organization that is nominally in charge of the welfare of children actually achieves the exact opposite by their behviour.

These people ought to be summarily dismissed for gross incompetence. I'm happy it wasn't me under investigation if there is one thing that gets my dander up it is abuse of power like that.

Kudos to you for keeping your cool.

sesqu• 16 years ago

Does the DCFS investigate only parents, or can you e.g. accuse a kindergarten? Maybe one could ask DFCS to investigate DCFS?

jbooth7• 16 years ago

Well, the plural of anecdote is not data.

Maybe we should reconsider the laws, rather than the organization. If we didn't have a different standard of "guilty until proven innocent" that immediately kicks in when someone's accused of child abuse, the organization might be much more effective. Or less effective. I don't know. Let's not overgeneralize from a few bad stories though.

gscott3• 16 years ago

I have had something similar, someone called "CPS" (Child Protective Services) who came over and told us that our 1 month old child might crawl into my computer cables.. The challenge is that a 1 month old doesn't crawl or do much really. We lived in a studio apartment, turned out her real desire was for us to move. That appeased the social worker for some reason, this was 14 years ago luckily my father was around and he figured out what the social worker wanted because she kept threatening to take our 1 month old son. It was pretty insane.

eru2• 16 years ago

By the way, if you, say, gave birth at home, how do the authorities come to know about your children? Do you have to register them somewhere?

wjy• 16 years ago

Thanks for sharing that.

How did you manage to stay calm and respectful in the face of all the condescension and threat of losing your children? Since my son was born, I've observed my own protective tendencies really ratchet up. The few times I believed he was in real danger, all other concerns fell away, and removing the perceived danger was the only thing that mattered to me. I worry that were I to find my house invaded with people searching my stuff, accusing me of abuse, treating everything as evidence of guilt, the urge to crack some some heads might become overpowering. Of course, I rationally know that's the worst possible thing to do. But in the heat of the moment, the cerebrum doesn't always prevail. How did you keep your cool?

kls11• 16 years ago

In the article the authors writes about being on a ladder and loosing it. That was a really hard part of the story to read as I remember that exact moment when I started to fade and the exact moment when I crossed the line. I would be foolish (and afraid) to openly talk about my thoughts and private actions during that period. On that subject, it is best left at; in my opinion, I was further gone in my mind then the author seemed to be. It may be that he fears talking about it as well for fear of charges or another investigation for making threats. This experience leaves and indelible mark and leaves you looking over your shoulder for the boogy-man.

but seriously just like the author stated, my lawyer was the only thing that could pull me back into sanity. His slow calm voice logically deducing my actions and the outcomes would allow me to see the checkmate I was in and that any of those actions would be selfish (only make me feel better) and bring my family more harm than good. He would talk about my family being abandoned via my actions. Those words hurt more than knifes given the situation, thinking about your kids and wife left alone to deal with it (whether from you sitting in jail or worse) really cures you of those kind of thoughts.

EDIT: my wife reminded me that I did have one episode. We have an ice maker in our fridge that if you put it on crushed ice it will jam up due to poor design. Anyway the DCF agent is talking to me and I am trying to get ice, one of the kids put it on crushed so it is jammed, I go to the drawer to get an ice pick and start break up the ice. The DCF agent has got up from her seat and is walking towards me and is accusing me of all kind of crap, I am starting to raise my voice, keep in mind the fridge door is in between our views of each other. She continues on and at this point I am screaming at her and I slam the door and have an ice pick in my hand, keep in mind I resemble a younger Jack Nicholson (a lot). So here she is presented with a screaming man with an ice pick in his hand that looks as crazy as Jack in the Shining. She quickly left the house and returned with a police escort and always had an escort from the point forward. My wife said it was the most frightening things she had ever seen. The ice pick was a coincident and I was not holding it to intimidate her but looking back I can see how crazy that scene must have looked.

klipt• 16 years ago

> we don't have time to chase false reports

I wonder whether they'd start chasing false reports if somebody made a list of every DCF employee, their close friends and family, and called DCF on every single one of them.

dotBen2• 16 years ago

I read this story, and it's very sad. But I just feel the need to ask... why is this on Hacker News? Surely this is Reddit type content?

I read loads of really interesting and eye-opening posts about all sorts of non-tech subjects... but I don't feel they should be on Hacker News to the detriment of other tech stories that could be on the front page.

erikpukinskis• 16 years ago

Lots of hackers are parents. Where else can a discussion of parenting issues from a hacker perspective happen? Or law, for that matter? Just because the OP isn't specifically about tech doesn't mean that there is no value in a hacker-specific conversation.

nitrogen• 16 years ago

I suspect that an increasing number of hackers rely upon HN for the majority of their news, myself included. Since "hacking the system" is a popular subject on HN, personal interest stories that show how "the system" works, or doesn't work, are of interest to enough readers to bring those stories to the front page.

JeffL• 16 years ago

Because it's very interesting and very high quality. Also, from the guidelines of this site: Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

holdenc• 16 years ago

This kind of story is indicting of our culture.

Outside the US nudity is not so taboo. In my daughter's kindergarten (a nice private school in Southeast Asia) boys and girls share the same bathroom, with no private stalls, and no door on the entrance. Everyone sees everything -- passers-by included. Meanwhile, in the US, nudity is synonymous with sex, and good people have to worry about things like this.

c1sc02• 16 years ago

I'll add to that by saying it's a sign of our times as well. I was educated with material from the 60's / 70's & having nudity in school textbooks was perfectly normal then, including shared nudity between adults & children.

pyre• 16 years ago

I almost have a feeling that in the US we are building up to a Hilter-esque take-over of the government. It's just taking a lot longer than it took the Nazis because the times aren't as extreme, and our system of government was better designed to resist such things...

Yaggo3• 16 years ago

After reading the article, my first thought was "why I can't imagine that happening outside the US?". When and why did nudity become such a taboo there? It seems to be much more acceptable to show children violence than nudity, which I found absurd. I mean, which is more harmful for 13 years old child to see on TV, a breast or shooting?

randallsquared2• 16 years ago

While I don't necessarily disagree, let me point out that it's considered okay to show a painting of a breast, or an acted shooting, but showing an actual breast or real shooting are both considered taboo. I think people lose track of the fact that violence on TV (and in video games, etc) is pretend violence, whereas most nudity is real nudity, rather than a simulation of same.

I'm not saying that makes it sensible, but it does bring the American treatment of them closer together than they seem at first glance.

roc2• 16 years ago

> "When and why did nudity become such a taboo there? "

Much of the country was built and populated by puritans. State's rights and a lack of urbanization allowed tight-knit communities of like-minded people to keep anyone different away. This created a sort of moral echo chamber, that carried their views into modernity without ever being tempered via intellectual or moral challenge. And the US system of representation gives those rural communities quite a bit of power over national mores.

As for the rhetorical: it depends on context. It always depends on context. Nudity isn't necessarily less harmful.

Hiding violence and death away from children can be just as harmful as hiding nudity.

steveklabnik2• 16 years ago

I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a terrible troll, but when an entire religious group gets up and sails across an ocean because everyone back home won't stop telling them that they're crazy... what else would you expect?

Alex3917• 16 years ago

"When and why did nudity become such a taboo there?"

It gradually became less and less common, but it didn't actually become taboo until relatively recently. Maybe 1996-1999 if I had to put a timeframe on it. This is back when we were approaching the millenium so there was momentum behind 'modern' reforms, and at the same time public opinion was mostly determined by glossy magazines like Newsweek. So around a lot of 'glossy' policy was enacted based on this formulaic and simplistic journalism style, which was good for covering the school shooting of the week but not so good for anything else.

wil2k• 16 years ago

And as the late Terence McKenna put it:

Culture is your Operating System http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c8an2XZ3MU

Stuff to ponder about! :O

olliesaunders7• 16 years ago

Ah, I see, the solution is to get high! (That's what the video says).

yummyfajitas• 16 years ago

Even in Canada, nudity is not such a big deal. In Montreal last week, I saw billboards with ads like this (partially cropped):

http://www.montrealsciencecentre.com/documents/csm/images/Im...

It was advertising this: http://www.montrealsciencecentre.com/exhibitions/sex-a-tell-...

danbmil992• 16 years ago

Thank god for digital cameras. I've avoided film since that Robin Williams movie about the crazy at the 1-hour place.

robryan• 16 years ago

Not saying this applies to you but a lot of possibly questionable material that is bypassing the eyes of processing at a drug store is now being made available to many more than a couple of people online.

noonespecial• 16 years ago

I half expect these stories to end with:

"He loved Big Brother."

We use "Orwellian" a little too loosely but for the victims of this, it seems almost that bad.

known• 16 years ago

Changing your name may help.

jrockway3• 16 years ago

Sounds like the system worked. She was accused of a crime, an investigation was performed, the state realized they had no case and that nothing was wrong, and the charges were dropped.

I guess it's kind of a pain to be the target of an investigation, but nobody's life was ruined.

Batsu• 16 years ago

> I guess it's kind of a pain to be the target of an investigation, but nobody's life was ruined.

I'm sure you've met someone who did something stupid, and every time you come across them it springs to mind. How would you like it if that was you, and the something stupid was being accused of was child pornography? Everyone who heard about it didn't necessarily hear the resolution or the circumstances.

... This is the longer and cleaner version of the "you can build a thousand bridges" anecdote.

c23gooey• 16 years ago

I disagree with "nobody's life was ruined"

Ruined maybe not, but based on the article and other comments in this thread there is clearly a lasting effect felt after having to go through such horrendous circumstances.

The uncertainty, anger, frustration, guilt, depression etc are all things which do not just stop when the case is dropped.

All these people needed was for the person making the original accusation to think for themselves and make a rational judgment rather than simply "do their jobs".

philk• 16 years ago

That is entirely false:

a) If the system worked, the initial photos would have been checked and then the complaint would have been disregarded.

b) If the system worked, innocent parents who provided a loving and safe home for their children would not have been treated like criminals.

c) If the system worked, the state would not have kept pushing in the hope of getting some sort of conviction in a case where it was manifestly clear that nothing had happened.

d) If the system worked, the children in the case would not have been subjected to invasive and personal questioning by government functionaries.

Accusations of pedophilia do ruin lives, and no one should ever have to go through the hell of proving their innocence in a case as flimsy as this.

pbhjpbhj4• 16 years ago

>b) If the system worked, innocent parents who provided a loving and safe home for their children would not have been treated like criminals.

Your statements (a) and (c) seem sound to me. (b) and possibly (d) is a necessary part of the system. If guilt can not be ascertained without investigation then practically some innocent people will be treated like criminals by being investigated. (d) may be a necessary part of such investigation depending on the allegations.

That said in the OP's case I don't think (d) should have happened and I'm concerned that the investigators could have effectively opened the door to improper sexual activity by asking the children questions like "did an adult touch you between your legs" or something that would lead the child to see this as a forbidden fruit that they had previously not regarded but now desired to explore.

Confusion3• 16 years ago

  I guess it's kind of a pain [..]

It would be 'kind of a pain' if the system worked so reasonably well that any remotely decent parent could trust to be acquitted within a week. As the system is, it's not just 'kind of a pain'. It's an emotionally wrecking experience, because you live in uncertainty for a long time, where the possible consequences are severe and you can't be sure of a positive outcome, no matter how decent you are. Kafka understood this.

Debugreality• 16 years ago

I don't think the fact that false leads are investigated is really the problem. But that investigation should be resolved much more quickly and much more transparently.

Really the harm seems to be in they way people are being treated not in trying to prevent child abuse etc...

davidmurphy• 16 years ago

Yikes!

jvdh3• 16 years ago

On the one hand I completely sympathize with the author. As a parent myself I would not wish this upon anyone.

On the other hand, the author is a journalist, exactly the people who are the cause of this type of witch hunt. If you would leave out the prologue of the story, and make it into a story where the accusations actually were true. Then noone would have blinked about what happened. If they were treated any other way, there would have been a public outrage.

Think about the officers handling this case. There is absolutely zero incentive for them to handle this case differently. If the accused turn out to be guilty, then they better have handled this case with the utmost seriousness. Any leniency can possibly lead to a scandal. And media love childmolesting scandals, so the officers will be part of a nation if not worldwide scandal. They will be singled out, their mistake will be broadcasted for the whole world to see, and they effictively lose their job.

If people turn out to be innocent, psyches have been damaged, it's bad but they'll get over it. More importantly, maybe a complaint will be filed, they will have done the right thing within the rules, and case is closed.

Tichy• 16 years ago

"a journalist, exactly the people who are the cause of this type of witch hunt."

And I am a software developer, exactly the kind of people who cause computer viri, identity theft, spams and scams?

run4yourlives3• 16 years ago

How many journalists are in jail for causing which hunts? How many have even uttered an apology?

That's the difference.

jvdh3• 16 years ago

Your job as a software developer is to prevent viri, identity theft, spam and scams.

Journalists are looking for scandals, stories that score lots of eyeballs.

djacobs• 16 years ago

> If you would leave out the prologue of the story, and make it into a story where the accusations actually were true. Then noone would have blinked about what happened.

If that's true, then we have a huge problem.

Basically I'm hearing this in that comment: If someone is innocent, they are innocent until proved guilty. If someone is guilty, they are guilty until proved innocent.

The problem with that idea is supremely obvious.

jvdh3• 16 years ago

I completely agree with you. The problem is that 90% of the general public does not.

kls11• 16 years ago

I would buy your argument if they would not have selectively chosen 6 photos to sent to DCF without the context of the other photos.

loewenskind4• 16 years ago

Why wasn't the Clerk investigated for child pornography/molestation?

If you look at a picture of naked kids in non-sexual situations and think you're seeing something sexual then there is something wrong with you. Full stop. Either you've been abused, you're an abuser yourself or you've been horribly brain washed. Any of these possibilities makes you more of a risk than the person who shot the photos.

Taking this a step further, people need to start filing scary "child pornography" charges at judges, lawyers and everyone else who participates in this kind of insanity. If the judge doesn't take one look at the photo, realize it's nothing and dismiss the case then he might well be a consumer of child pornography. Otherwise, why didn't he realize it was innocent? If a few people in power start getting their lives ruined by this nonsense maybe it would stop.

ErrantX7• 16 years ago

That's absurd; there is a distinct difference between seeing something that concerns you and becoming sexually aroused by said image. To suggest they are "consumers of child pornography" is just a bit rude...

For the untrained eye such photo's as in this case may have shocked him/her and prompted the knee-jerk reaction of calling the police. You are right in part; I think the main problem is that, absurdly, any images of naked children are starting to worry people. Part of that is founded in fact; you will find people with thousands of images of different children running around naked on beaches/parks/camping trips. But, clearly, in this case it is just a family camping trip and the clerk has either refused or is unable to process that.

I recall that a few years ago I was taking pics at a family wedding and happened, while taking shots of my cousins running round playing, to take a shot which included my youngest cousin doing a handstand with her skirt over her head. It was a completely innocent picture; and if I was ever investigated for CP it would never be flagged as CP - but my Aunt was absolutely insistent I should delete the photo.

And that is the sort of society we live in.

loewenskind4• 16 years ago

>That's absurd; there is a distinct difference between seeing something that concerns you and becoming sexually aroused by said image. To suggest they are "consumers of child pornography" is just a bit rude...

What is absurd is a situations where natural actions (taking photos of your children) become, randomly, life ruining [1]. You say my suggestion is rude but this is in fact exactly what happened to the author of the story. If one of these two people (the author or the clerk) had to have their life ruined because of the chance that they might be dangerous I would pick the clerk as he/she is actually exhibiting bizarre behavior.

Further, having an extreme reaction to natural things indicates some kind of problem. I can't know if the clerk was sexually aroused by the photos, felt guilty and reacted extremely to fight against those feelings that he/she knew were wrong. I can only see the extreme action they took. I can't know what triggered it, but it's definitely a problem and more worthy of looking into than the random innocent by-stander who triggered this persons episode.

[1] If this were isolated it might not be such a huge issue, but it's happening quite a lot (relatively). Remember the recent case where photos of a 17 year old girl in a bikini were investigated as child pornography? What about the guy who was naked in his house making breakfast and was accused of being an exhibitionist? Couple this with the insane "child abuser register" the US has and things look pretty alarming.

Twisol• 16 years ago

I've read just over 30 pages of the comments on Salon to this story, and undoubtedly I'll read many more. My main observation is that most of the commenters seem to be sensible people who do understand what parenting is like, and how kids really act. Thank _God_. But some of the other comments just make me facepalm terrifically.

Legally, I'm going to be an adult within the month. I'm certainly not a parent, but I am a kid, and I haven't been so brainwashed as to lose sight of what pre-adolescence is like. I could go on and on about the funny, stupid, and downright embarrassing things I did, particularly before I turned "double-digits".

Side-point: Giving these decidedly private photos to a public agency to develop was an absolutely stupid thing to do, but by no stretch of the imagination can I blame everything on him because of it. That's a lesson learned, for sure, but the idea that anything else he did was "wrong" just blows my mind. I'd like to say to some of the salon commenters... don't impose your personal morals on everyone else, please. I know there's a fantastic one-word term for people who do that, but it escapes me.

dhimes• 16 years ago

Giving these decidedly private photos to a public agency to develop was an absolutely stupid thing to do

But that's the way we used to live. Before digital, very few of us could develop our own film. Just like most of us buy our beer at a store rather than making it- and therefore some agency could get a handle on how much we consume. In the future this may look like a stupid thing to do, but now it's all we really have and nobody thinks about it twice. My parents had no alternative to developing the pictures of me at a store.

impeachgod• 16 years ago

I tend to hold the Thoreauvian point that one ought to resist unfair laws. As I noticed, Child Protective Services are state agencies. If someone was falsely accused of child abuse/child porn, with no hope of winning the case whatsoever, how effective would it be to run away with the family?

cookiecaper5• 16 years ago

IANAL, but in general, I think meritless cases like this one eventually get dismissed, though it's a lot of hassle and waste in the meantime. Even if your case doesn't get dismissed and your children are about to get taken away, running away with the children could only vastly, vastly aggravate the matter, as far as I am aware. In many cases you'll be able to get the children back. If you flee, that is much less likely. You'd be a fugitive and you'd be in serious, serious trouble, I think, even if the state's case was baseless to start out.

I think the best option is to do as the person in the article did and deal with it in a cooperative and respectful manner, as much as we may resent it.

run4yourlives3• 16 years ago

While I agree with you, it's worth noting that your children are removed from you custody almost immediately, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. So, the "hassle and waste" you refer to can devastate a family.

lftl• 16 years ago

I think it depends on what phase you're in with regards to leaving. If at the very beginning of the investigation, after the first visit from DFS, they had left for France I imagine this case would have simply been forgotten. They hadn't been charged with any crime, so they're not legal fugitives in any sense. They may never want to return to that particular state on the off chance someone from DFS who remembers the case notices them, but I imagine even that to be a very slim possibility. Even later in the case though, I'm troubled to think of a law they're breaking by simply moving to another state.

If I'm ever in a situation similar to this, I will heavily weigh moving, or at least sending my wife and kids out of state, before entrusting my family to a random bureaucrat.

ErrantX7• 16 years ago

Besharov also said that the current law should be amended to grant immunity to those who in good faith deem a situation not to be child abuse or pornography. That way, those who report cases of abuse of questionable merit, simply to err on the side of mandatory reporting laws, might feel less pressure to do so. In our case, maybe the responding officer, who initially commented that he didn't find the pictures pornographic, would have dismissed the case at the drugstore and not reported us to child services.

This is the key takeway - and the thing that really needs to change.

In this case, like some many others, the process really broke down at that point.

But it is incredibly difficult, I imagine, to make such a call. If it later turns out you just let a child pornographer go free you will be proverbially screwed; both by the LE services and the media. We ask completely the wrong people to make these choices; inexperienced officers with a lot to lose if they make the wrong call.

pstuart• 16 years ago

I think that such a call should be relatively straightforward. A picture of a naked child is not pornography unless there is explicit sexual context, i.e., touching of genitals, etc. Otherwise, a naked child in a bathtub, pool or such activity is the picture of innocence itself.

If there was doubt, bring it before a jury of one's peers as opposed to some back-room morality police.

flostre• 16 years ago

    If it later turns out you just let a child pornographer go free you will be
    proverbially screwed; both by the LE services and the media.

Not to mention your conscience.

dan00• 16 years ago

Sometimes I'm pretty scared of the missing of common sense and disgusted by the people who are "just" doing their job, without compunction what this might imply for other people.

It's a confession of failure for a society, if the determinant of acting is fear.

DanielBMarkham2• 16 years ago

Welcome to Child Protective Services, where folks with sociology degrees, sometimes poor cognitivie abilities, and questionable work ethics who want to be on a mission to save the world are given powers that would make the local police chief blush.

I hated to write that. Snarky it was. Of course most of the cases these folks work are really sad -- I have family that work there.

But it's a blunt instrument, and politicians have decided that anything to do with kids gets "special" treatment. I know of about a dozen good people who have had run-ins with these guys. None of them were guilty of anything bad, yet all of them went through hell. (this list includes me) I also know (from my family members who work there) of really bad people who keep their kids through atrocity after atrocity. Very sad.

EDIT: Just guessing, but it's almost like the closer to upper-middle class you are, the more likely you are to be a victim of CPS-gone-wild. The really poor crackheads don't give a shit, so CPS charges them and shuffles them through the system. Nobody has resources for these kids, so they go back to mom and/or dad. The really rich have a platoon of lawyers descend on CPS (and they have political connections). It's the poor schmucks who have the energy and wherewithal to screw around with CPS (probably in a useless attempt to save their reputation) that get dragged through the dirt.

DanielBMarkham2• 16 years ago

I'm just guessing the following numbers for effect, but I believe them to be true within an order of magnitude.

We have a thousand political systems that can punish people. Each one has at least a 1% false-positive rate over our lifetime. That means that each of us will get screwed over many times by government. Hopefully when we get screwed over it won't be like this guy.

akeefer• 16 years ago

Sigh . . .

I get that CPS doesn't always do the best job, and plenty of the people that work there are on a power trip and got into social work because they like telling other people what to do. The world would certainly be a better place if they were able to do their job better and if some of their officers were more courteous.

But as you probably know, working for CPS is an incredibly difficult job. It's very demanding on your time, it's immensely stressful emotionally, everyone hates you, and it can put you in physical danger (you often have to be accompanied by a police officer). Unsurprisingly, in many places they have trouble finding enough qualified applications to fill the necessary positions. I know that I sure as hell wouldn't want to do that job.

I guess I just get tired of the vitriol directed their direction as if the world would be a better place if CPS wasn't around, or as if they intentionally make life hard on people just because, or as if they're somehow more lenient on poor people. Your additional comment there is, in my experience, pretty wildly off-base: my wife is a social worker who works with plenty of poor clients who have had children taken away and never managed to get them back because they're unable to support them financially or have ongoing drug or alcohol problems. The kids are put in group or foster homes basically permanently, not sent back to their parents. And it's not like the "poor crackheads," as you so respectfully put it, don't care: they care just as much as anyone else does.

What I'd like to see is some more level-headed analysis of what the "false positive" or "false negative" rates are. For every family innocently harrassed, how many families are quickly cleared of any wrongdoing and how many children are removed from abusive situations? It makes a big difference if 60% of the claims CPS investigates result in putting an innocent family through hell or if 1% of the investigations do.

Again . . . would the world be better if CPS was able to do a better job? Sure. Would the world be a better place if we reverted back to treating children like property with no rights and allowing parents complete free rein over their children? No.

troubledwine• 16 years ago

"I took a few of my youngest daughter, Eliza, then age 3, skinny-dipping in the lake, and my son, Noah, then age 8, swimming in the lake in his underwear, and another of Noah naked, hamming it up while using a long stick to hold his underwear over the fire to dry. Finally, I took a photo of everyone, as was our camping tradition, peeing on the ashes of the fire to put it out for the last time."

jgoewert• 16 years ago

I remember reading this when it first came out and reminded me of my own run in with DFS right around the same time. Stopping real child abuse is important, but the system is so lopsided that merely being accused makes you the criminal. People spread the rumor of you being investigated by DFS, they don't spread the rumor of you being cleared.

My run-in was no where near as large of scale, but aggrivating, humiliating, time wasting, and ridiculous. I'm no hippy journalist letting my kids run free, basically just your run of the mill suburbanite developer 8-to-5 schmoe and my wife is a Special Ed teacher . One day, we come home from work to find that DFS had tried to visit and that we must call back with a time we can be interviewed. At the time, we had a six year old and a less than 1 year old. Someone had reported us for child abuse. It was like a record scratch. What? I don't hit my kids. My oldest went to a private school. I spent plenty of time with them. Our #1 fear is leaving them somewhere so my wife watches them like a hawk. It made no sense.

We called back and an agent came by the next day. We tried to leave our oldest at school because at that age, he would babble about what was happening and other parents would find out and the stigma would be set. But she demanded to see him, so my wife went and got him while I got the 5th degree. We were accused of some stuff that seemed hilariously lame.

* We made our son pee in a dollhouse toilet and just left it there full. --- Uh, yeah, one day we found it in the back of his room behind the shelf. We think he did it and hid it. Kids do weird things. * We let our oldest run around screaming and being reckless and has untreated ADHD. -- Yeah, he has ADHD, he's took Ritalin since he was 5 and is now on Adderall. * Our home is unsafe with rotten food all over. -- Yes, my wife is messy, but not to the level of fire hazard or health violation. Rotten food? You mean like having cans from last night's dinner still next to the stove? * And numerous other things like this...

After being checked out, she said that it was most likely a false report and that it would most likely be dropped, but the file stays around permanently and that we can't find out who made the report.

Of course, our son blabbed about the experience, and now even 5 years later, none of his school friend's parents let their kids come over to our house because the original rumor. No one makes false claims, right?

I figured out who made the report through the neighborhood network. Some old guy across the street who was mad that I left the trashcans out on the front of my home instead of the side and one time when I had let our grass grow too long because every night that I got home from work and all weekend for 3 weeks it had rained a crap-ton. I still catch him taking pictures of our house to call the Neighborhood Preservation office with when I let the slightest thing go wrong. (ie, a storm gutter fell off over the night and I didn't notice until I got home from work that evening)

The worst part is, there is little you can do. Everything is "anonymous". You can't hire a lawyer to go and tell this guy to piss off. Retaliation would be stupid. You are just "stuck".

slantyyz• 16 years ago

Neighbors can be the worst people.

You think you bought your dream house, and someone moves in next door who is a total nightmare and makes you feel completely trapped and miserable.

cagey3• 16 years ago

And if they're there only because of "Section 8" funding you get to revel in the knowledge that it's your tax dollars "at work" subsidizing the mayhem next door! [BTDT] Hey, another bureaucracy at work!

waterhouse• 16 years ago

Story in comic form: http://www.pbfcomics.com/archive_b/PBF215-Kitty_Photographer...

Dove2• 16 years ago

It makes a mockery of the life, liberty and property clause that family can be threatened so lightly.

In my opinion, it is a fundamental right to raise your children according to your standards. Parents should be in control of the risks, ideas, and experiences their children are exposed to. Minority views on what is appropriate should be protected as rigorously as minority political or religious views.

I would like to see limits on state intervention in families. I'd like to see CPS investigations require probable cause, warrants, and time limits. I'd like to see a clear standard for circumstances under which the state can take action. Personally, I think the standard for any enforced separation should be clear and convincing evidence before a jury of gross neglect (lack of life necessities, repeated serious reckless injury, serious risk of death) or malicious, repetitive physical abuse. And even in those cases, I'd prefer the first conviction to result in parole, not immediate action.

Child abuse is serious business, but separating families is serious business too.

chc• 16 years ago

First of all, there's no such thing as the "life, liberty and property clause" in American law.

Second, what if my standards for raising children are similar to Josef Fritzl's? Is that a fundamental right? You'd probably say no, but now the black-and-white rule is turning gray, and we're heading back toward the maddening uncertainty that our society has developed.

Dove2• 16 years ago

Well, I was thinking of the piece of the 5th amendment that says "No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". I don't know what you call that clause, but there is definitely such a thing.

In my opinion, it's intended to protect against government oppression in the form of taking away things you value. But if you were to include "access to family" on that list, I'd put it about where I'd put "avoidance of bodily injury". Here: "Life, family, liberty, property".

That government institutions can so casually disrupt family bonds, either temporarily, permanently, or during a long investigation? It makes a mockery of the protection against government we are supposed to have. They can't search your car without a warrant, but keep your head down or someone might call the CPS and they might arbitrarily decide to TAKE YOU FROM YOUR PARENTS.

(And it's silly to bring up a seriously abusive case like Josef Fritzl. The right to exercise your parenting philosophy is like the right to exercise your religion. I want to defend it against busybodies. I even want to defend your ability to hurt people, up to a degree. But there's a limit; we don't tolerate sexual assault in the context of cults, and we shouldn't tolerate it in the context of parenting either.

With that said, would I want to limit the state's ability to ACT IMMEDIATELY to separate kids and parents in a seriously and clearly abusive case, in order to offer normal people the protection of due process? Yes, I think I would make that tradeoff. Abuse is rare, and the kid who's lived with the problem for years can manage another six hours while you get your expedited, emergency warrant.)

mattmaroon• 16 years ago

Taking pictures of naked 8 year old boys and groups peeing on a fire is really weird. If I were the random drug store employee processing that film (for $8/hr) I'd report that without hesitation. If I worked for the government agency tasked with such things, I'd investigate it too.

I know this won't be a popular sentiment here because there's so much loathing of government in general. It's hard to make a judgment about how well the situation was handled from one side of the story, but that he was investigated seems about right.

cromulent2• 16 years ago

The spectrum of human sexuality that is accepted by society is narrower than the human biological spectrum of sexuality. Rightfully, we reject behaviour that can damage children.

Wrongfully, many modern societies (until recently) fiercely rejected homosexuality, with often tragic results.

The current methods of dealing with pedophilia - by suspecting everyone, every man in a park taking photos of his children - are a blight.

At some point, society will have to stop trying to drive pedophilia into the ocean and find a different way to deal with it. Nobody chooses to be a pedophile, they can just choose to repress their behaviour. We should find them and help them instead of victimizing the innocent.

derefr• 16 years ago

What can we really do to "help" pedophiles, though? Chemically castrate them, like we did to homosexuals (e.g. Alan Turing)? Teach them how to go through life having desires but not acting on them (which is what 99% of them already do successfully)?

cromulent2• 16 years ago

I don't know, but I think we need to accept that they do exist, now and in the future, and find a way to deal with it.

This is not the way.

hga5• 16 years ago

Recently I've noticed a ... crystallization of a meme about America's ruling class and this is the most trenchant essay on the subject ... and one that just happens to explain a whole lot of what's going on here at the broad level. Highly recommended: http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-cla...

sdh• 16 years ago

Sickening.

It seems like the best way to handle something like this is to bring public scrutiny to bear on the insanity. Make a politician answer for it and the case will probably disappear.

VladRussian• 16 years ago

The DCFS/CPS employees are your wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, uncles, ..., basically they are _you_. So stop whining and just think for a second whose life you're going to make miserable today.

How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer

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