Jessica Nicholson

Analysis Essay- Final Draft

WCI: 12:35

March 27, 2017

Child Abuse: Caused by families or the CPS?

The child protective services, CPS for short, is a bureaucracy required by federal law

within the department of social services to fight against child abuse. As it was made to help

children in need, has it overstepped its boundaries on what is right and what is wrong? An article

by Hannah B. Lapp from Reasons.com makes a personal case against the CPS, Child Abuse: In

the name of protecting kids from harm, social workers subject them to cruel and unusual

punishment. Lapp takes the views of herself, a bystander, and multiple views from people

directly related in the rulings and disasters of the CPS. She fights for the fact that the CPS

corrupts children and families more than they can help them. She has a very clear and present

opinion throughout her whole piece. An article included on MedPage Toady written by John

Gever, referenced a very similar concept to Lapps. This more science based article was titled

Child Protective Services Found Ineffective and put under the Pediatric section of the

webpage. This author relies solely on research and scientists with proven data about the mental

state of children and families who were dragged into the CPS system and put under investigation.

Gever doesnt have as much a powerful opinion on the situation than Lapp does, he pulls from

evidence and presents it to us, allowing the reader to make the ultimate choice in the situation.

These articles are both intended for very different audiences and have distinctly different

purposes but they do deal with an issue too similar to ignore. Through both the authors analysis
of their own gathered evidence and their appeal to their targeted audience they raise the question,

is the CPS doing more harm than it is worth?

Hannah B. Lapp wrote an intriguing essay that included accounts from multiple families

involved in the horror that they call the CPS. With these direct accounts from not only adults but

also the children, the article is present with a very clear appeal to pathos. The article begins with

a direct quote, But for Billy, it all ended in tears. "Daddy, why can't I go along home?" he had

pleaded., that very clearly pulls on the heart strings of many. Lapp sets the whole essay up with

that line, it draws the reader in and keeps their eyes on the page, it peaks a certain curiosity. With

this line, Lapp appeals to emotion of the reader, a child in distress causes an interest in what is

causing it. Lapp also brings in the account of an older child who was dragged through the CPS

system his whole life, You learn not to reach out, not to care, not to feel. The kids that emerge

[from foster care] are dead, after a situation like these where the CPS cant do any good it

doesnt only hurt the parents or the child but the childs soul, their whole being in general. Lapp

continues with her pathos direction when we read about a case handled by the CPS involving a

young 7-year old named Randy. The author directly quotes an interview where the young boy is

being asked about his dick, through this interview we see Randys inability to really say much

as he is getting asked things about sexual abuse. The interview is discontinued because of his

inability and due to scarring material. The use of the words of innocent children helps to pull the

reader in and give them some sort of idea of the people that are getting hurt and really scarred

and changed for good within this messed up process. This perspective on the CPS pushes readers

to consider if what the CPS involves young children in is morally right. As for the use of

audience, the author continuously used an elevated scale of vocabulary showing that this essay

was for an audience with a higher intellect, but at the same time the author incorporates a lot of
definition based ideas in the beginning of the article to set the audience up with the idea behind

the perspective the author would later give us. So, the audience being looked for is intelligent but

not necessarily educated on the topic of the CPS. Lapps purpose in writing this article is to

educate the reader on what the CPS does, at first without a bias, and then developing into her

argument. Lapp is very opinionated and this oozes out in every corner of her article. Though she

does focus heavily on her own personal bias she does pull in pieces of evidence through her

sister who was directly involved in various CPS cases. My sister, Barbara Lyn Lapp, runs a

chapter of one such group, Victims of Child Abuse Laws (VOCAL), in nearby Chautauqua

County. Her efforts to help the Stefans would ultimately land her in jail., having her sister give

her accounts in the article provides an unbiased look at what unfair things do occur continuously

in the CPS, she accounts for how much of the craziness she could take before Barbara fought

back. Lapp does an excellent job of pushing the reader to see that the problems in the CPS are

real, giving us direct accounts from families that were torn from one another and children who

were mentally and socially destroyed from the pain the CPS forced them to endure.

The scientific views of John Gever are presented to the audience mostly by pure data.

The author has an excellent quality of touching upon both opinions and both sides of the data

relating to if the CPS is genuinely attempting to do good opposed to it making more of an issue.

Throughout the essay, Gever focuses on a big study that focuses on 575 families and how their

risk factors for child abuse are affected over a period, the ranging variable being if or if they

were not involved in some type of a CPS investigation. The author found out that, Adjusted

measures of social support, poverty, and children's anxious, depressive, aggressive or destructive

behaviors grew worse, though not significantly, in household subjected to any CPS investigation,

compared with uninvestigated homes. As well, maternal depression also worsened -- to a

statistically significant (P<0.05) degree. This piece of evidence is what leads the author to

conclude that the CPS should be dismantled and that child abuse should be dealt with by a more

direct system, through the police possibly. Gever cites many various scientific sources including

an account from someone who does believe that the CPS is still a positive piece of society, Janet

Warren, DSW, of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, offered a more upbeat perspective

on CPS"Many children are taken out of very dangerous living situations permanently based

upon investigations conducted by CPS," Warren said in an e-mail "CPS serves an essential front

line of protection for the most vulnerable children in our society," she added. Giving the

contrasting ideas in his single article helps the author to trust that their getting the whole truth

and not just getting a one-sided argument, making this source more credible. This author has a

very clear audience of people with knowledge of the CPS looking to investigated further. The

terminology and the evidence used shows that the audience looked for should be well educated

on the controversy over the CPS. Gever also has a clear purpose of comparing two sides of data

and inquiring about them and hoping readers also allow themselves to inquire before jumping to

a side. This piece is more open ended and lets a reader decide what to gather from it for

themselves. This approach taken by the author provides a very true and commendable quality to

the piece. As gathered by the authors research and various sources, the CPS causes familys

mental instability and is proven to push the risk factors of child abuse to a higher percentage over

all.

These two articles expose a lot of harsh truths about the CPS system as a whole. They

only prove to a reader that, whatever the CPS is doing, it needs to either be altered or completely

dissolved. Through the direct, personal experiences of the first essay we are able to not only see

how the victims of the CPS feel but it allows us to see exactly what sections of the CPS lead to
the destruction of a person. When you bring in the scientific findings of the second piece

analyzed it becomes nothing but clear that the CPS has the complete ability to alter someone

mentally. The ability of the CPS to rip a child away from a while family, isolating them from the

world they once knew, is no longer a system that can work in the modern-day society that we

have. This presents the more important question as to if the CPS should be dissolved or if it

should be improved, which would require altering many aspects. Another concern is all the

children or families that did get their identities ripped from the CPS, is there any way to restore

their victims mentality to what it was before being investigated? Is there any way to mentally

cure the kids that have been without the love of a family for years? The question of the CPS will

forever continue until more people speak up.

Through the use of evidence, audience, purpose, and either pathos or logos, the articles

that dealt with the shady regions of the CPS helps to open the mind to the possibility that not

everything is as shiny, perfect, and helpful as it makes seem to the outside world. Behind the

closed doors, anything can be happening. The CPS was once a helpful tool in providing safety to

children but according and based on these articles, the CPS has some improvements to make

before that can continue.

 Works Cited

Gever, John. "Child Protective Services Found Ineffective." Medpage Today. MedpageToday, 04
Oct. 2010. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.
<http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/DomesticViolence/22557?
utm_content=GroupCL&utm_medium=email&impressionId=1286262799132&utm_campaign=
DailyHeadlines&utm_source=mSpoke&userid=212936>.

Lapp, Hannah B. "Child Abuse." Reason.com. N.p., 01 Feb. 1994. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.
<https://reason.com/archives/1994/02/01/child-abuse/>.