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There really is quite a lot of it going on. Between financial incentives to the agencies for taking the children, and new-age-nut therapists who aren't very bright and were schooled in an uncritical faith in "repressed memories", and have you ever seen the "anatomically correct" dolls which are used with young children? No child who has ever played with put-the-square-peg-in-the-square hole toys could fail to start connecting these things. And the stats on kids abused in state foster care placements?

The scope of the problem varies a lot from state to state, but in a lot of states it's really serious. There was recently a final ruling in a court case in New York, against the agency, which had fought the case for years (and the case was brought by disgusted former CPS workers). The agency is now ordered to cease and desist from removing children from a mother, who has taken the kids and gotten away from an abusive husband/boyfriend/father, on the SOLE grounds that she had "exposed them to abuse" -- that she had rescued them from abuse was irrelevant. The agency kept claiming that it only did this in very rare cases and with other circumstances involved, but the judge pointed out many hundreds of well-documented cases, along with creidble allegations of many hundreds more.

The bottom line was that abused women with children (often also abused, of course) who called police or a domestic violence hotline for help in leaving the abuser, or for protection from threats from an abuser they'd already left, often found that they'd started an irreversible process in which their children were taken from them, often permanently for all practical purposes. Word got around and they were learning to call for help in the first place. This example is just one little piece of the problem in one state.

I know we still need to call police when we see or hear strong evidence of abuse, but we also need not to ignore the very real reasons why many people think they shouldn't do that. When those reasons are eliminated (or just substantially reduced), a lot more people won't hesitate to call, and a lot more children will be helped.

You and I both have a problem of burying the lead:

YOURS: I know we still need to call police when we see or hear strong evidence of abuse, but we also need not to ignore the very real reasons why many people think they shouldn't do that. When those reasons are eliminated (or just substantially reduced), a lot more people won't hesitate to call, and a lot more children will be helped.

MINE: In our effort to be hawkish about the misuse of CPS power, lets please not get so twisted that we can witness an assault on a child and worry about parents' rights being threatened.

The most words on thise thread are about getting people to even recognize abuse and the need to report it without getting paranoid about the authorities.

The other complaints about CPS belong in a discussion, but don't you see how mucked up this thread is with people who are too cynical to help an abused kid being beaten before their very eyes? - Their first thought is that CPS is somehow worse for this kid than her mother?