Everyday Erinyes #170

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

NEWS FLASH: It seems that people are human, and humans are not perfect. (In other news, life isn’t always fair.)

Therefore, if you want to accomplish something good, something that will bring true improvement into people’s lives, you should probably put some time into considering what could possibly go wrong. And not just to cut things going wrong off at the pass, either. But also to establish appropriate responses to the results of things going wrong – because, as a corollary to Murphy’s Law states, “If anything can go wrong, it will.”

The State of New Mexico (like probably every level of government anywhere in the United States, and that just for starters) wants to minimize and/or eliminate child abuse. Therefore, the State has a child abuse hotline and a mandatory reporting requirement – also like everyone else. But there does seem to be one little loose end (which I can’t compare to everyone else because I don’t really know each law):

A knowingly false report of child abuse is illegal, and many states impose strict penalties against any person who files such a report. In New Mexico, failure to report a case of child abuse is a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail and a fine of $1,000. But filing a false report effectively carries no punishment whatsoever.

Parents, attorneys, advocates and CYFD employees agree that such malicious reports by school personnel are widespread, both here in New Mexico and across the country.

Searchlight New Mexico is a non-partisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to investigative and public service journalism in the interest of the people of New Mexico. Searchlight launched an investigation into abuse of the abuse line, in the course of which it spoke with 28 parents who had personal stories to tell of false reports made about them to the New Mexico Children, Youth & Families Department (CYFD).

Gail Stewart is an attorney in Albuquerque, whose focus is not on false CYFD reports, but it is on helping children with disabilities and their parents, so she has run across false reports many times. Her take on false report is simple: “the root of it is a prejudice against children with disabilities.”

Christy Cartwright in Carrizozo has five children, of whom at least three have some kind of disability or difference leading to issues at school which caused her to address those issues with the school.

When 16-year-old Carlos became the target of homophobic bullying, the parents demanded that the school put an end to it. When a special education teacher drove Marcus, who has schizophrenia and autism, up into the mountains and left him to wander lost and alone for hours, Cartwright went ballistic. When Ashley, an 8th grader at Carrizozo Middle School, struggled for two years without a legally required update to her individualized education plan, the parents complained. Loudly.

(Christy in the middle, Marcus in the purple.)

Christy openly describes herself as a “pain in the ass” to school administration, because she won’t leave them alone until – and unless – they do their jobs. Then,

[W]hen a state investigator showed up at Christy Cartwright’s doorstep in January, the mother of five was horrified to learn that an employee of Carrizozo Municipal Schools had reported her for child abuse….

Then, less than a month later, another investigator from the New Mexico Children, Youth & Families Department came knocking — this time with two new reports filed by an anonymous school employee.

The first report accused Cartwright of abusing her grandson — who earlier that year had moved to Texas. The second said that Cartwright’s kids had missed more than two consecutive weeks of school: a clear case of educational neglect. It also accused her and her partner, Harold Burch, of giving the children marijuana, suggested the parents were high on meth, and charged them with “brain washing the children to say they are bullied at school.”

Two months later, CYFD sent Cartwright an official letter concluding that all allegations made by the school were baseless. The state tossed out the case

So, she was vindicated. But there is no way to give her – and her family – back that two months of their lives. And, with no system in place to track and prosecute false reports, there is not even any way to hold the monsters who would make such false reports against innocent people accountable.

Cindy and her partner Harold Burch were driven to request that a police officer sit in any time either or both of them spoke with a school official. This resulted in some body cam recordings which show a school principal acting very Republican indeed. I’m not going to quote any of that because I’d have to re-read it multiple times while editing, and I have to watch my blood pressure. You can find it in my source article, though.

Law enforcement has taken, and is taking, a pretty much hands-off position on any action which might discourage false reports – because any such action might also discourage valid reports. In a way, this argument is similar to the issue of whether or not there should be a question about citizenship on the census. While the answers might be interesting, we have done without that information for a long, long time – and it will certainly make enough people nervous enough to result in significant undercounts – and that will seriously harm our country.

however, it shouldn’t require a lawsuit, or even constant nagging – to get a school to produce a legally required individualized education plan for a special needs student either.  Or to prevent a teacher from playing “Hansel and Gretel” with your kids.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, you are all smart cookies. Perhaps you can get together with advocates and activists and help them to design and write provisions for a model tracking system, which will work, but not be intimidating to those in a position to make valid reports. Such a model would provide a service, not only to New Mexico, but to the entire country.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.