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Nancy Schaefer was a Georgia state senator from 2004 to 2008. One of her primary focuses during her time as a state senator was investigating the department of Child Protective Services, in particular looking at the impacts of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) which was signed into law by Bill Clinton during his presidency (it's also worth noting that the act was Hillary Clinton's brainchild, saying at the time that it was her most satisfying achievement to date http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=43).
In November 2007, Schaefer published the findings of her investigation in a report called "The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services". She found that the ASFA incentivized CPS to take more children into foster care because the act offered states cash "adoption incentive bonuses" for every child that was adopted out of foster care (a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a special needs child in some counties). This effectively turned the foster care system into a business in which children are the merchandise and in which the 'bread and butter' of case workers, counselors, psychiatrsts, court personnel, foster parents, local governments, and so on is dependent upon having a continuous supply of kids in the system, and de-incentivizes reuiniting children with their biological parents.
She also found that the caseworkers and social workers often submit fraudulent reports by withholding evidence or flat-out fabricating evidence, and that even when this is proven the caseworkers face no consequences.
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>>136994322
There was even a federal court case last October, Preslie Hardwick v. Marcia Vreeken, involving social worker Marcia Vreeken and a woman named Deanne Fogarty-Hardwick, her two daughters, and the child welfare system in Orange County, CA. It all started back in 2000 when social workers Marcia Vreeken and Helen Dwojak filed false reports against Hardwick in order to take her two daughters into foster care. They attempted to coerce Hardwick to sign a document stating she was an unfit parent, saying that if she refused, they would make sure she never saw her daughters again. She did refuse, and a county commissioner ordered the children (then age 6 and 9) to be removed from the home. It was 6 1/2 years before Hardwick regained custody of her children, and only because she had the resources to take extensive legal action against CPS. The caseworkers involved were not disciplined, and in fact county records show that Vreeken received a promotion! In the court opinion, Justice William Bedsworth wrote that he had concluded that this conduct was not just an isolated incident but instead a reflection of how the system is run in general.
(http://www.ocregister.com/2011/04/21/county-loses-49-million-lawsuit-challenge-over-lying-social-workers/ , https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/child-welfare-2/federal-court-case-asks-constitution-caseworkers-lie )
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>>136994388
After years fighting in court, Hardwick has been awarded millions in damages and has her kids back, but the majority of families targeted by CPS do not have the financial resources to do the same and also may not be aware of their rights. Schaefer found that low-income parents are targeted by CPS more frequently for those very reasons, and that CPS and Juvenile Court often hide behind a confidentiality clause to cover their actions and maintain their funding. She called for higher accountability and transparency to show where the money is going.
There is more to the report, which you can read here: http://fightcps.com/pdf/TheCorruptBusinessOfChildProtectiveServices.pdf , but in general it paints a picture of what could reasonably be referred to as a state-sponsored child trafficking ring. That isn't to say that there aren't legitimate circumstances that would fully justify removal of a child from his or her parents for the sake of the child's safety, but that doesn't negate the sheer magnitude of the corruption in the child welfare system.
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>>136994428
Now, what ever happened to Nancy Schaefer? Well, she and her husband of 52 years were found brutally murdered in their home in March 2010. The police called it a 'murder-suicide' without conducting a full investigation or ever establishing a clear motive (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/murder-suicide-considered-nancy-schaefers-death/story?id=10219809 ).
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come on /pol/
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