Child Protective Services - Essay Example

Arguments from both sides will then help the audience reach a conclusion on their own. Running through a brief history of CPS, 1655 was the first time a criminal case was brought up against child abuse in the courts of what is now the United States of America. In 1825, states made laws etched in their law books to protect the rights of children and granting the authority to several agencies to remove children from the custody of parents and guardians who deemed unfit to perform the parental role (Thomas, 295).

By 1974, 49 U.S States had passed the law, hence the federal government moved quickly to pass the federal “Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act” (CAPTA) (Pecora et al, 232). This act was actually the last calling to establish the CPS which started functioning with proper rules and policies by the end of 1974. Thesis CPS is an essential part of the current society in the modern world; it should be made a strong agency with the proper backing of law enforcement agencies so it is a reckoning force against those who tackle with the future of our young generation.

A lot of voices have been raised against the CPS and its services but every establishment has its flaws, so does the CPS. As the number of cases reported in a year on a rise each year, more efforts have to be made for securing the future of our country. Arguments are that the program should be downsized because of its inability to do its job efficiently. However, the actual requirement now lies with the government to properly fund the program so no child goes unattended because the workers are not being able to attend to every child abuse report being filed with them.

Support A variety of important people in the social service circles have been calling out for reforms or betterment for the system in place. Some even dare to propose the calling off of the CPS as they believe that it is not meeting the desired goals, across the nation. Abuse and neglect in children is still prevalent; the system has loopholes through which parents and foster care givers are benefitting, covering their deeds by the noble act of performing their responsibility, key word being ‘act’.

Every coin has two faces; both are different, almost opposites. American sentiment toward residential placement for troubled youths is increasingly suspicious, pessimistic, and even hostile. Yet many families are too dysfunctional to warrant keeping their youth at home and alternatives are scarce. Foster families are simply unavailable for many of the estimated 840,000 children who will require out-of-home placement by 1995. The most empirically supported criticism of residential placement is its limited positive influence on post placement problems such as delinquency (Pecora et al., 1992). Children are living on the roads because their parents are too poor or too intoxicated to even know their own identity, let alone take care of their children.

Also the issue of child abuse is one which will have calamitous effect on the future generations. The only hope for the distressed children is the CPS. They take the children under their umbrella and place them with willing and caring families; families, who have taken up the added responsibility on their shoulders to provide care and affection to the children who did not have the same environment to grow in. It is a dangerous world for un-protected children out there;