New Mid Term

Ethical & Moral Issues
(As implicated by Noblesville, IN Department of Job and Family Services)
Kaplan University
CJ102 – Criminology – Professor Crowther
Patience Smith

Noblesville, IN’s Department of Job and Family Services’ implemented a new policy stating that “any household that has one or more documented offense of domestic violence, child abuse, or drug or alcohol related offenses committed by the mother, father, guardian, and/or caregiver, will result in the removal of any child or children from the home.” In addition to the removal of a child, “the child will be placed in the care of the state, or foster care services, until documentation can prove that the offender has undergone any or all of the following, and has thus been “offense free” for a period of no less than six months: alcohol and /or drug treatment, counseling, family therapy sessions, mental health treatment, anger management, life skills classes, and/or parenting classes.” I have to say that I strongly oppose the majority of the policy. Firstly, I see many ethical and moral dilemmas. Secondly, I believe this policy will have an immediate negative impact on the children, as well as an ultimately destructive effect on criminality in the future. Lastly, while I do feel that the Department of Job and Family Services interpreted the social learning theory properly, I do not feel, however, that they applied it properly when implementing the policy. I question this policy for that a number of moral and ethical issues come to mind when I think of this new policy. This policy seems to be that of one that too quickly jumps to conclusions as well as judgments. Which brings up questions such as who determines that a child is in danger? What constitutes endangerment in the government’s eyes? How is it decided that the state is better suited to raise my child?
As a result, someone has to inform the state if a child is in danger. Who is that person that will tell the state what is going on? Will it be a police officer that has responded to a dispute at the residence, or a neighbor that has been involved or heard something going on at the family’s residence? There could also be a situation where a family member or a friend that believes that it is their place to report to the state about the welfare of a child. The realization is that while there may be real danger at times, sometimes there is no danger! This could be a simple misunderstanding or worst case, a false claim. These cases should be very well investigated before removing a child from the house and family. I am not sure that I have enough faith in the Department of Jobs and Family Services to decide what is in the best interest of my child when dealing with this new policy implication. The policy that has been instated is intrusive and it allows the government to incorporate themselves in our home life. For the most part, normal American citizens embrace their civil liberties, freedoms and rights. This means that the American population should not be fearful that the government will step in and take their child or children away for some unknown reason or something that has barely been investigated. In my opinion, one bad offense does not seem substantial enough to pull a child away from the family that they know in order to try to rid everyone from the ills of crime. It seems that this could lead to a very nosy neighbor that could not hear a situation correctly and perceive it as abuse or neglect, when in actuality it really is not. In criminal cases, a perpetrator has the right to due process as well as the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. I have trouble believing that the employees of the Noblesville Job and Family Services Division are really, truly prepared to put the fate of a child and their family on the line. Are these employees really qualified to make such a huge decision in the life of a child? This is basically saying that the government decides that they can or cannot raise your child better than you yourself can. With this happening, where does the reach of the government stop forcing itself into our lives? This really borders on totalitarian government. One problem with this entire new policy is that it also encompasses alcohol. Alcohol is not against the law. It is not against the law to partake, it is however, against the law to drink and drive, but it is not against the law to have alcohol. Therefore, how can the government decide to take someone’s children away for something that it deems legal? It is a much bigger pill to swallow for average citizens, when a contradiction such as this exists in any new policy. It’s like telling someone to look but not touch, touch but do not taste, taste but do not swallow, swallow but do not enjoy. I do agree that alcohol abuse is an endangerment in a household. I just do not agree with using something that is legal as a justification for such an audacious policy.
Any policy such as this will always have an impact on children and families as well as the criminality of the country, whether it is immediate or eventual. In my opinion, foster care is actually not a good answer for problems in the home. Foster children are treated differently as are any children that are not from your body. Everyone says that you don’t understand true love until you have your own children and I believe that you can’t really love a child as much as you love your own. Some people try to be good step parents and foster parents, but I just don’t think that it is really easy to do. Children left in their own homes, tend to do better than if they are put into foster homes. “Children left in their own homes are far less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, far less likely to wind up in the juvenile justice system, and far more likely to hold a job for at least three months than comparably mal-treated children who were placed in foster care,” (Siegel, 2014). Joseph Doyle, Jr. from MIT did a study in 2007 which looked at 15,000 children and compared foster children not to the general population but to comparably mal-treated children left in their own homes, the evidence suggested that the children in their own homes tend to do better. Doyle published another study the next year and this time compared 23,000 cases of foster children to mal-treated children left with their original families, but showed which would be more likely to get arrested as adults. This study showed that the children left with their born families are less likely to turn to crime as adults. The children in foster care were much more likely to be involved in criminal activities as adults. This shows that children are better left in their family unit than ripped away and put into foster care. The trouble with foster care systems begins with the home. By removing the child from his or her family unit, the department of the government is taking the child from the only constant that they know, away from their friends, schoolmates, church family and other family. After pulling the child out of that unit, then what does the child have left? There has to be some amount of blame that the child will bring on themselves feeling that they are to blame for what is happening to them. I know that for me, personally, when my mother and father got divorced, my father left and I thought he was mad at me. I believed this until my mother’s death bed when she told me that he actually left our house for his secretary. This was a huge relief to me because I thought for more than 20 years that I was the reason for the divorce and upheaval of our family unit. It is not a good feeling to think that your family has broken up because of your actions. I feel that the only time that a child should be uprooted and taken from their family unit is if the child is in imminent danger and all other options have been exhausted. After removing the child from his/her family, the new policy states that the children stay in state custody until the parents “prove they have undergone any and/or all of the sanctioned treatments and be “offense free” for a period of no less than six months. Then the child will probably be away from their family unit for up to a year at the least. This is so traumatic for a child.
With all of this in mind, maybe a good result from this entire program would be that the family together be involved in these programs, not as separate entities. I believe that a familial problem should be worked on from the inside out, not from the outside in. Any town’s policy to use foster care as a first resort takes away a child’s chance to do this, which takes away the families ability to heal together. Most of the research up to this point shows that putting a child into the foster care system could actually increase their propensity for criminal activity. Based on the Doyle studies from MIT, implementing a policy that makes the use of foster care higher could possibly breed a greater population of young offenders. This could also lead to a “gang” of foster kids banding together and getting into trouble because they don’t feel loved in their homes. The foster homes bring kids from all walks of life with nothing in common other than the absence of their family unit. Many foster homes are just that for the federal funding, therefore they lack a father or mother figure that really cares about the children. So this will start a cycle of having criminals in the system. The first round of foster kids will grow up and bring kids into the world that will then be put into the system and start another generation of “foster” kids. This is just a vicious cycle that doesn’t ever end. Due to the new policy, these children of criminals that are a product of the policy will likely be placed into foster homes as well. This is just repetition of the same cycle, increasing the number of potential criminals. If there is truth in the statement that children learn abuse from their environment, and studies show that foster care is a much worse environment, then why increase the usage of the foster home. Noblesville cites from the social learning theory as a basis for implementation of the one offense/zero-tolerance policy. “Social learning theorists argue that people are not born with the ability to act violently; rather, they learn to be aggressive through their life experiences,” (Siegel, 2014). It is my opinion that the Department of Job and Family Services has interpreted the theory properly, and as a result, it is quite possible that children are a product of their environment and upbringing. Under the social learning theory, “people learn to act aggressively when, as children, they model their behavior after the violent acts of adults. Later in life, these violent behavior patterns persist in social relationships” (Siegel, 2014). The social learning theory very much applies to situation in which there is ample trouble at home. A child that sees his father abuse his mother in an angered rage, will possibly grow up to do the same thing to their wife. In as much as, a child that is beaten as a child and sees his brothers and sisters beaten as well, will very probably grow up to do the same thing. If the child sees alcohol and drugs abused, that child will probably grow up to abuse alcohol and drugs. With all of these scenarios, the child that is a product of this atmosphere will probably turn out to live a life of crime. All of that said, however, I do feel that the Department of Job and Family Services misapplied the theory when implementing their new policy.
As said earlier, foster care should not be the first response to a problem at home, for it does not give families a chance to work issues out and the increase of its use would create an influx of potential criminals. If the social learning theory is correct, Noblesville was right to suggest that something needed to be done. However, their policy is way off base in its goal to indeed do something. Their policy is counterproductive and actually produces an outcome that is contradictory to their overall goal. Just because a theory suggests that a child has a greater potential of becoming involved in crime when maltreated, just simply removing that child is not going to work. Not to say that there are not cases when a child should be removed for his/her own safety, but Any town’s policy seems to want to focus more on preventing children from becoming criminals rather than their safety. In my opinion, Noblesville should focus more on helping the family. That is to say that I think that they should help fix the environment that the child is in, for the social learning theory does suggest that it is the environment that is the cause. My point is that a different, and potentially worse, environment is not necessarily the answer. If studies show that families that stay together are better off, then attempts to fix the family while keeping them together should be the answer.

In review, Noblesville, IN’s Department of Job and Family Services, citing the social learning theory as their basis and over concerns about child endangerment issues, implemented a new policy stating that “Any household that has one or more documented offense of domestic violence, child abuse, or drug or alcohol related offenses committed by the mother, father, guardian, and/or caregiver, will result in the removal of any child or children from the home.” I personally find many moral and ethical issues with this policy, such as the intrusive and unforgiving nature of the “zero-tolerance” style it comes with. Certain situations are just misunderstandings. In my opinion, the policy seems to judge to quickly and the tearing apart of a family should be taken seriously. I feel a parent should have more of a right to fight to keep his/her child than to keep him/herself out of jail. The Department of Job and Family Services isn’t exactly a court of law either. Not to mention the fact that the state is more concerned with taking a child away from his/her family in an attempt to reduce future crime, based on the idea that a child is a product of his/her environment. On the contrary though, studies show that children placed in foster care are actually more likely to become involved in crime than children that are comparably maltreated and stay with their families. While I do agree with the Department of Job and Family Services plan to implement such things as parenting classes, family therapy, and alcohol drug rehabilitation, I disagree that the removal of the child is necessary. The family should attempt to heal together and all other options exhausted before foster care should be considered. Finally, regarding the policy being based on the social learning theory, the DJFS is right in its interpretation of the theory, just wrong in applying it to the policy. Overall, I do not agree with Noblesville’s attempt to reform child endangerment issues.

References

1. Doyle, Joseph J. (2007). Child protection and outcomes: measuring the effects of foster care. American Economy Review, 97(5), Retrieved from http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/fostercare_aer.pdf
2. Doyle, Joseph J. (2008). Child protection and adult crime: using investigator assignment estimate causal effects of foster care. Journal of Political Economy, 116(4), Retrieved from http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_jpe_aug08.pdf
3. Siegel, L. J. (2014). Criminology: The Core, 5e, 5th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781285965543

References: 1. Doyle, Joseph J. (2007). Child protection and outcomes: measuring the effects of foster care. American Economy Review, 97(5), Retrieved from http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/fostercare_aer.pdf 2. Doyle, Joseph J. (2008). Child protection and adult crime: using investigator assignment estimate causal effects of foster care. Journal of Political Economy, 116(4), Retrieved from http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_jpe_aug08.pdf 3. Siegel, L. J. (2014). Criminology: The Core, 5e, 5th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781285965543