The “unintended abolition” is still making New York City children safer

 Between 2019, before the pandemic, and 2023 foster care went down…

 ENTRIES INTO FOSTER CARE

...and child safety improved

           % ALLEGEDLY SUBJECT TO REPEAT “MALTREATMENT”

 Among the first studies to debunk the racist claims that, in the absence of “mandated reporters” keeping their eyes constantly on children, COVID would lead to a “pandemic of child abuse” was Prof. Anna Arons’ examination of what happened in New York City – what she aptly called “An Unintended Abolition.” 

Here’s what happened: The family police (a more accurate term than “child protective services”) were forced to step back, community-run community-based mutual aid organizations stepped up and the federal government stepped in with the best “preventive service” of all, no-strings-attached cash.  The result: A dramatic reduction in needless family surveillance and foster care with no compromise in safety.  Even the head of the city’s family police agency at the time admitted it.  Other studies, including one in JAMA Pediatrics, would confirm it. 

But, the fearmongers replied: It’s still early!  Just wait until 2021, when the kids are coming back to school.  But in 2021, the federal government’s annual Child Maltreatment report found that what family police agencies label “abuse” and “neglect” reached a 30-year record low. 

Oh, well, OK, the fearmongers said, just wait ‘till 2022!  Then you’ll see how all those overwhelmingly poor disproportionately nonwhite parents treated their children because, after all, you know how they are, right?  

Wrong. Data for 2022 from Pennsylvania and New York City showed there still was no surge in what agencies call “child abuse” and “neglect.” 

I don’t know if the fearmongers are desperate enough to tell us that the “surge” in child abuse will happen in 2023 – but it looks like they’re wrong again. 

New York City just released its annual Mayor’s Management Report for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2023 

So let’s compare 2019, the last fiscal year entirely unaffected by COVID, to 2023:

INVESTIGATIONS + INVESTIGATIONS NOT LABELED AS INVESTIGATIONS, BUT STILL INVESTIGATIONS:

 Let’s start with how often caseworkers for the city’s family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, banged on the doors of almost exclusively poor, nonwhite families and demanded entry.  In 2019 it happened in 58,217 cases.  In 2020, unsurprisingly, it went down a lot. It went down a little more in 2021, before going back to 50,516 in 2022.  In FY 2023 it went up a little more to 52,369.  But it’s still well below the figure before COVID hit.  Lesson: All those mandated reporters learned something – but they haven’t learned enough. 

Note that these figures combine formal investigations with cases that are investigations in all but name.  New York City’s family defenders have found that the city’s version of “differential response” can be even more intrusive than an investigation that’s labeled an investigation. 

There’s a similar pattern when it comes to children forced into foster care.  The number declined significantly, then there was regression.  But the 2023 figure, 2,798, remains more than 25 percent lower than the number in 2019 when the city took 1,000 more children. 

The safety measures 

But, of course, the fearmongers want you to believe that this modest reduction in family policing must have left children less safe.

There are two standard measures of child safety.  One is foster-care “recidivism,” that is, of all children sent home from foster care what percentage are returned to foster care within a year?  In 2023 8.5% of foster children sent home returned to foster care.  That’s up from 7.5% in 2022 – but still well down from the 9.8% in 2019.  

This also is potentially the more volatile of the two measures since the raw numbers are relatively low.  A one percentage point difference, whether up or down, probably represents fewer than 18 children, since 1,770 foster children were reunified in FY 2022 – and we’re looking at what happened in the year that followed. 

The second measure involves far more children: It concerns alleged recurrence of abuse or neglect – that is, the proportion of children for whom a caseworker checked the box declaring an allegation “indicated” for whom there was another “indicated” report within a year.  That figure plummeted during COVID – and stayed down, falling from 17.9% in 2019 to 13.6% in 2023.  

As we’ve noted previously, in 2022, New York raised the threshold for indicating a case to “preponderance of the evidence,” the abysmally low standard used in most states; incredibly it used to be even lower.  That might account in part for the lower rate of alleged recurrence of “maltreatment.”  But the dramatic decline in recurrence also could be seen in 2020 and 2021.  Again, the pandemic-of-child-abuse thesis was that, in the absence of mandated reporters and the family police, abuse would skyrocket – and we’d see it when we got back to normal. 

That didn’t happen.  

Whether this progress can be maintained is an open question.  That extra cash assistance is no longer going to poor families – resulting in a dramatic rise in child poverty nationwide.  It’s not as if ACS ever stopped confusing poverty with neglect; so more poverty means a more target-rich environment for ACS.  And, of course, at any time a child abuse death could prompt a demagogic reaction from politicians creating the risk of a foster-care panic, a sharp sudden increase in needless removals of children.  How would ACS respond to that?  The current leader, Jess Dannhauser, has yet to be tested. 

If we really want to keep making children safer a good start would be for the state and the city to step in and replace the cash assistance the federal government no longer provides – or at least provide no-strings-attached funds to the mutual aid organizations that sprang up during the pandemic. 

And remember, this progress comes in a place that, even before COVID had a terrible system, but a less terrible system than most.  Wherever you are, it’s all probably worse.

New child welfare data from NYC confirm: The “unintended abolition” worked!

Key child safety measures show significant improvement

A Black Families Matter rally in New York City in 2020.  (Photo by Rise)

 

This is the first of three parts about a scathing report, commissioned by the New York City family policing agency itself, which found pervasive racial and class bias in the agency, and rampant confusion of poverty with “neglect.” 

● Today: Context for the new study: The Administration for Children’s Services’ own data show that when the agency pulled back, did fewer investigations and took fewer children – child safety improved. 

● Tomorrow: ACS commissioned a study of racism in the agency.  Then they suppressed it.  Family defenders had to use the state Freedom of Information Act to get hold of it.  Once you read it,  you’ll see why ACS wanted to hide it. 

● Wednesday: The New York Times published a front-page story about the study that was, mostly, very good.  But it still fell into some of the traps that characterize much of the journalism of child welfare – including a crucial misunderstanding of poverty and neglect and one inflammatory claim that, as originally published, was flat wrong. 

● And always: New York City has one of the least awful family policing systems in America. As you read about what the caseworkers themselves are saying there, remember: Wherever you are, it’s probably worse.

 

There are two principal ways to measure child safety and the performance of family policing agencies. One makes sense, the other makes everything worse. 

Using the method that makes sense, new data show that during and after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the city’s family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, stepped back, mutual aid groups stepped up and the federal government gave poor people what they need most – money – child safety improved.  The data confirm the findings of Prof. Anna Arons of New York University School of law who called it, “An Unintended Abolition.”  They are still more evidence that the fearmongering claims about COVID leading to a “pandemic of child abuse” were false. 

Before getting to the data, let’s explore those two methods for measuring safety: 

Method #1 The worst method is the one most beloved by journalists: A child “known to the system” has died and the case file has more “red flags” than a Soviet May Day parade.  Child welfare establishment groups rush to claim the system is doing too much to try to keep families together.  Reporters buy it, and their stories almost always include a reference to their beloved “swinging pendulums.”   

Even if total child abuse deaths have remained the same or declined, if there are three such cases in rapid succession, it is officially declared by journalists to be a “series” of deaths (unless they’re writing for a tabloid, in which case it’s a “spate”).  The agency is then deemed to be “beleaguered” and/or “embattled.”  When it was pointed out to one of the worst reporters ever to cover child welfare that, while she was doing exactly this, the actual number of child abuse deaths per year had not increased, she famously replied “it was a series, but not statistically.”  So the lesson to agency chiefs is: If the horrible, and extremely rare, tragedies of child abuse deaths are evenly spaced, it’s one thing; if they happen to occur in rapid succession, that’s a series/spate and you are officially embattled/beleaguered. 

What all of this usually does is set off a foster-care panic, a sharp sudden surge in removals of children.  This further overloads workers so they have less time to find the relatively few children in real danger.  Child abuse deaths don’t stop, they don’t even decline, often they increase. 

And it constrains what public officials say and what they can support.  If, for example, Dannhauser, were to come out for key legislation to give families “Miranda rights” or to give ACS the authority to screen out false reports forwarded by the state (something discussed in future posts in this series) and if, in the ensuing months, total child abuse deaths declined but three happened to occur in rapid succession, a “news analysis” in The New York Times probably would say something like this:  “After a series of deaths, Dannhauser, the embattled commissioner of the beleaguered Administration for Children’s Services, is seen by some observers as letting the pendulum swing too far toward family preservation.” 

Method #2: Because fatalities are, fortunately, as rare as they are horrifying, they tell us almost nothing about overall system performance.  There are two measures that do indicate if children are getting safer: One is re-abuse – that is, of all children caseworkers alleged were abused or neglected how many were allegedly abused or neglected again within a year? The other is foster-care recidivism – of all children reunited with their families, what percentage had to be placed again within a year? 

This measure also has flaws.  To be significant, changes should be substantial and sustained.  A tiny increase or decrease means nothing, and even a big change may mean nothing if it’s only a single year’s results. 

But we now have a fair amount of data on this in New York City.  The data are measured by fiscal year. So the baseline is the year ending June 30, 2019.  In FY 2020, which included the start of the pandemic, reports alleging child abuse or neglect dropped sharply, entries into foster care also declined.  But contrary to the fearmongering that made it into countless news stories, the absence of all those overwhelmingly middle-class disproportionately white mandated reporters having their “eyes” constantly on children who were neither did not set off a “pandemic of child abuse.”  On the contrary, both key measures improved.  

But that didn’t stop the fearmongers.  They poured their old whine into new bottles and said that as soon as schools reopened, we’d see a surge in child reports as all that hidden child abuse came to light. 

That didn’t happen either.  

After schools reopened, the number of reports declined again, entries into foster care declined again and the key child safety measures improved again.   In FY 2022, reports started to increase again, so did foster care entries, but both still were way below pre-pandemic levels.  By then, compared with before the pandemic, re-abuse had declined by 15% and recidivism had declined by 40%   It should be noted that the biggest decline in recidivism occurred in a single year, and, as I said above, single-year changes should be treated with caution.  But the multi-year trend still is clear: As ACS stepped back, and the community stepped up, child safety improved. 

One reason this is so important: Family defenders just got hold of that scathing report, mentioned at the start of this post; the one commissioned by ACS itself, finding pervasive racial and class bias in ACS.  Who said so?  Among others, frontlines caseworkers for ACS. 

The report was the subject of a front-page story in The New York Times.  Over the next two days, we’ll look first at the report itself, and then at how the Times covered it. Read all three parts of this series here.

Child welfare lessons from New York City’s “unintended abolition”

UPDATE: Nationwide confirmation for what happened in New York City can be found in this article, just published by the ultimate establishment source, JAMA Pediatrics. (Subscription or "rental" required.) The headline says it all: "Child Physical Abuse Did Not Increase During the Pandemic"

I began last week’s weekly review of family preservation news and commentary with this video: 

It’s from a panel on narrowing the front door to the family policing system.  The focus was New York City, but it’s just as applicable anywhere else in America – indeed, in most places the harm done by family policing is even greater and even more widespread.

The centerpiece of the event was a presentation, starting at 17:54 on the video, by Prof. Anna Arons of New York University School of Law, in which she summarized her landmark study “An Unintended Abolition.”  The study found that when COVID-19 forced the city’s family policing agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, to step back and community-run community-based mutual aid organizations stepped up, the trauma of needless investigation and foster care was significantly reduced, with no compromise of safety.

 Even the ACS Commissioner confirmed it.

 Here are some highlights from Prof. Arons’ presentation, lightly edited for space and clarity. I've also included some of the slides from her presentation. All of the slides are available here.

On the harm done by needless investigation:

These investigations even if they don't end up in family court are incredibly invasive and even if they don't result in a separation, we have an agent of the state who's entering families’ homes often unannounced in the middle of the night, demanding to see the child's nude body, demanding to look in every cabinet, and it's just a terrifying experience for any person to go through, even if that's the end of it. And for most families that is the end of it, in that 65% of reports, even before COVID were not substantiated. … This trauma is induced for this whole family, and then ACS finds no evidence to support the report whatsoever. 

Who is most affected? 

If we're looking back at the family regulation system at each stage from investigation through filing, 90% of reports received [in New York City] are about families who are Black or Latinx.   They're hugely disproportionately in neighborhoods that are lower income. So even if we are going to control for poverty, there is still an overrepresentation of for black and Latinx families at every stage of the system. 

What COVID changed – and the dogwhistling that followed 

First was just the shutdown of in-person schooling, which reduced the contact between children and this army of mandated reporters.  [Then we saw] reflected in the media at the time all of these narratives of children are going to be locked away at home, out of the eyes of mandated reporters.  We can also see that as [the] dog whistle it is, for not all children are we concerned about  - we were concerned about Black and Latinx kids who are being trapped at home with these parents who we in the predominant narrative are going to argue, have to be monitored in order to keep their children safe; they can’t be trusted to do that. 

[NCCPR has more about this false narrative here.] 

What the drop in foster care suggests 

The drop outpaced the drop in reports alleging abuse and neglect. As Arons explains:

This significant drop in foster care seems to indicate first that ACS itself began assessing more rigorously whether it was in fact going to go to court and request a removal and it seems to have held off on filing cases where it might previously have sought removal … We also had judges at least initially granting fewer applications, even when ACS did request them, which would seem to indicate that judges were paying a bit more attention to this key factor for removal: whether there is harm or the risk of harm to the child that would be outweighed by the harm that was going to be enacted by removal itself … 

And this to me seems to show that the ACS claim [and] the family court claim that it only had previously used removals as tools of last resort is just not true … That would seem to show that in past years we have a huge number of children … who were taken from their family, for no reason. [They] could have stayed at home with their family, and yet the city still removed them and judges still approved of those removals. … 

By last summer ACS itself, through its commissioner … acknowledged at a city council hearing that he too had come to the conclusion that there had been no increase in child abuse or neglect, and it did not seem that this narrative of children being trapped at home with their abusive or neglectful parents had actually been borne out. … 

And finally, looking forward  … we also now can say that there has been no kind of observable rebound effect.  Even now, as children are back in school, while the number of reports received creeps back up to what it was prior to COVID, there has not been any kind of bubble any increase in the number of reports as if teachers were reporting abuse or neglect that had gone unnoticed in the last year. …   

What accounts for these results? 

This is also a period where we have had more government assistance to families with fewer strings attached than essentially any other period since the New Deal. … [These programs] they do have the benefit of giving families the autonomy to receive funds and spend funds the way they would like to … fully outside the auspices of the family regulation system.  So unlike something like preventive services where, if you're accepting aid from ACS … you're also accepting ACS into your home to monitor you and police you and to accept X, Y or Z condition that goes along with that. This is just families getting money to spend as they see fit, much like we already give to, for example, foster parents, when they are caring for children. 

At the same time, we also have this huge growth in mutual aid projects … to a large degree able to take control of their own redistribution of wealth to some extent, and able to help their neighbors with everything from providing diapers, clothing and provisions like that to each other as well as services like counseling childcare, things like that. 

The way forward 

All of that to me feels like the path forward.  How do we solve child neglect, how do we keep children safe in this country?  We give families money.  We give families money so they can keep their own family safe. And so, we are not requiring the government to come in and police them and say this is how you need to raise your children. 

I think also we need to reconsider the role of mandated reporters and particularly the existence of mandated reporters in school in that I think that destroys the relationship between parents and their children school and seems to serve no real benefit. 

And I think finally … as we creep back to the system as we saw before, I would just urge us all to kind of reject this notion that we need to return to business as usual.  … If we are going to return to a world that looks more like the world that we were in before that doesn't mean accepting all of these abusive practices of policing that are still continuing to target Black families and poor families and Latinx families and police and surveil them.  Instead, we need to move to a future and call for a future where those families are able to care for themselves the same way that all families should be able to.