Child “Protective” Services

It is very clear that CPS can be very wrong in most instances. There are many cases of child abuse and deaths because Child Protective Services did not do their job. Regarding the story of Gabriel Fernandez, whose parents tortured and beat him and this went on for months “undetected” by others. Now, despite how many time CPS was called to the house nothing was done for this 8-year-old boy who didn’t understand why he was being treated the way he was by his own parents. He would go to school and ask his teacher if it was normal for moms to hit their kids, or if it was normal to bleed. What is it about the things he said that wasn’t alarming? Why did no one help this boy who had obvious signs of abuse? He was ignored for speaking the truth. Gabriel died in 2013 because of how bad the abuse was.

Along with Gabriel, who is not the only one trapped in these cases, many children are still in these situations with no way out. Speaking with someone who had experience with CPS, they said, “I called CPS to report my boyfriend’s dad physical abuse. They did nothing. They had an officer sent to the house for a welfare check, where all they did was go to the door and ask my boyfriends dad what was going on (he turned them away obviously). My boyfriend needed help and he couldn’t get it, it left everyone in a bad situation, and the abuse continued until he moved out.” The fact that they did nothing and did not look around the house or ask to see the boy just shows they didn’t do anything to protect the child. When there is abuse reported and when nothing is done, it makes the abuse worse on everyone in the home. The parent takes the anger of almost getting caught out on the child. Looking at the reviews of Washington State CPS, almost every review says that they didn’t answer the phone or they were hung up on.

There are also cases where the person being abused kills the abuser. When nothing is done the victim will get irritable and they will see no other way to escape besides self-defense. If the victim is removed from the home then there is an avoidance of murder, on both ends. I am not sure on how to improve this situation besides having more thorough investigations when abuse is reported. These reports should be taken seriously and professionally. These victims want help and if they can’t even trust this service, whose job is to help and save them, then they will give up. They will stop fighting and they will allow it to get worse. I hope CPS will understand how much they don’t help and figure out how to change, or else more people will die because of them.