They Took the Kids Last Night
How the Child Protection System Puts Families at Risk
- 304 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
This account of six families whose children were wrongly seized by child protection services vividly illustrates the constitutional balancing act where medicine, family interests, and child safety can clash. They Took the Kids Last Night shows a rarely exposed side of America's contemporary struggle to address child abuse, telling the stories of loving families who were almost destroyed by false allegationsâreadily accepted by caseworkers, doctors, the media, and, too often, the courts. Each of the six wrongly accused families profiled in this book faced an epic and life-changing battle when child protection caseworkers came to their homes to take their kids. In each case, a child had an injury whose cause was unknown; it could have been due to an accident, a medical condition, or abuse. Each family ultimately exonerated itself and restored its family life, but still bears scars from the experience that will never disappear. The book tells why and how the child protection system failed these families. It also examines the larger flaws in our country's child protection safety net that is supposed to sort out the innocent from the guilty in order to protect children.
Frequently asked questions
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- ONE Today the Brady Bunch Kids Could Be Taken Too
- TWO A âMultidisciplinary Pediatric Consortiumâ Means Doctors Help Police and Caseworkers to Take the Kids
- THREE The Investigation Begins in Earnest with âHurry Up and Waitâ
- FOUR Itâs Fine to Take the Kids, Unless the State Is Lying
- FIVE A Night to Remember
- SIX Planning for a Court Date to Keep the Kids
- SEVEN âWithout Prejudiceâ Means You Lose the Kids for Now
- EIGHT Bringing on the Witnesses
- NINE The Stateâs Star Witness and Someone the Investigation Missed
- TEN The Babyâs at Risk If Breastfed in Private
- ELEVEN Attacking the Doctor Who Knows Something About Fractures
- TWELVE To the Finish Line
- THIRTEEN Attempts at Recourse and the End of the Investigation
- FOURTEEN Partial Answers and Partial Remedies
- FIFTEEN A âConstellation of Injuriesâ Does Not Equal Child Abuse
- SIXTEEN We Believe the Children, Except When They Say the Baby Wasnât Abused
- SEVENTEEN A Statistical Likelihood Doesnât Make Parents Guilty
- Epilogue: What Needs to Be Done
- Notes
- Index
- About the Author