Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPhil
I agree.
Was the state trying to avoid bad publicity (they got it, anyway) and doing a "better safe than sorry" approach?
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In my experience whether a pickup order is issued is most often decided by a poorly trained, minimally educated individual who has only a glancing bit of court oversight. In Oklahoma, the only burden the state has to make after the caseworker has made the individual determination to pick the kid up is whether that caseworker had a "suspicion" which was "reasonable" that abuse or neglect is happening.
I understand legislatures wanting to tip the scales in the direction of protecting children, but few of them understand how potent and dangerous the combination of a referral being made by someone with a bad agenda and a stupid caseworker can be nor how common a combination that actually is.