Expose and Reform CPS

1. Review and reform of federal adoption incentives:
Call a Senate Finance Committee hearing to review and subsequently reform the federal adoption incentives provided by the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 and the Adoptions and Safe Families Act of 1997. We want less money being funneled into this system. We want funding to be set based on the population of the county and not the number of children in state custody or number of cases open. Providing incentives per child or case only creates more unnecessary cases. We also demand that the wording and definition of neglect as abuse be reworded to only include extreme cases of neglect. This way case workers can focus on the children and families that actually need help and use funding for the purpose of keeping families together or reunification.
2. Full FBI investigation of all CPS offices and juvenile/family courts:
This is an extremely daunting task but it is absolutely necessary that it be done. An announcement of investigation by either the Federal Bureau Investigation or the Department of Justice must be made with a request for tips to be sent in via phone or email. The case files of every office need to be reviewed and cross examined with family/parent testimony to find examples of cases workers violating the law or regulations laid out in the state CPS handbook. Prosecution of workers must follow the investigation. Every state is different so we are asking that state governors and attorney generals work hand in hand with state FBI offices to make this investigation as thorough as possible.
3. Apply rules of criminal court to CPS cases. Criminal charges beyond a reasonable doubt, no preponderance of evidence:
This alone will solve many of the problems created by CAPTA's wording. Currently juvenile/family courts function like military tribunals, in that only a preponderance of evidence is needed for a conviction, or in this case termination of parental rights. If cases are treated like any other criminal case, then evidence beyond a reasonable doubt must be presented in order to terminate parental rights. This will stop the termination of rights due to false accusations or trumped up accusations by case workers. All evidence must be collected by law enforcement from now on. Case workers are not qualified to conduct criminal investigations and should never have been allowed to do so in the first place.
4. Independent oversight of CPS and juvenile/family court:
Lack of oversight of caseworkers and family/juvenile courts is a major problem leading to the violation of parental rights on a daily basis. We are calling for a new agency to be created to handle this and investigate claims of abuse of power. As it is now parents have no one to report rights violations to short of the Office of Inspector General, who is a part of the same agency. Most public defenders will not do this and could care less if a parent loses their child. Oversight during the process is what is lacking.
5. Pass the Parental Rights Amendment:
A copy of the Parental Rights Amendment can be found here, http://www.parentalrights.org/. Only a constitutional amendment will ensure that parental rights will be honored in the United States, and protected from the threat of international law.
6. Transparency in juvenile/family court:
We demand a stop to all gag orders as they are unconstitutional. We demand that cameras be installed in all juvenile/family courts with a live stream available as well as an archive of video preceedings made available throught a state website. Case workers will think twice before lying on the stand if they know that the world may be watching. Judges as well will be sure to be on their best behavior if they know they are being watched, possibly by several citizens of several countries. We advise that cameras also be places on case workers as long as they are gathering evidence to be used in court. Testimony of caseworkers will not be allowed in court unless there is video evidence to back up their claims.
7. Return of children