Florida CPS to take more kids

Florida is making it easier for CPS to take kids:

The Legislature’s child welfare overhaul bill, awaiting Gov. Rick Scott’s signature, would make it harder for the state to reunify children with dangerous, drug-addled parents. ...

The child welfare bill, still awaiting Gov. Rick Scott’s signature, gives Community Based Care groups — private organizations contracted by DCF to provide child welfare social services — a chance to raise objections if they think reunification will leave a child in danger.

“We wanted to have a role in the conversation about reunification,’’ said Kurt Kelly, who heads the Florida Coalition for Children, which represents the state’s CBCs. “Because we are providing the services, we are often the closest to the families and can contribute to the decision about whether a child can be safely reunified.’’

Over the past five years, more than two dozen children have died after either they or an older sibling were reunited with volatile, lawless or drug-using parents. The parents were shown mercy. The children weren’t.

of course the article has stories to make this sound like a good thing.

I have a hard time seeing how private organizations have any business separating parents from their kids. If the parents are guilty of some crime, that is for the state prosecutors to prove in court.

In other news about presumed guilt:

A C Grayling has criticised a boycott of the Oxford Union after the president was reinstalled despite being investigated by police over rape allegations, saying he is “innocent until proven guilty”.

The Professor of Philosophy said the president, who was arrested by police earlier this month on suspicion of rape and attempted rape of two undergraduates, should not be subject to “the kangaroo court of opinion”.

I certainly hope that there is not a college president who goes around raping undergraduates. We should not jump to conclusions based on accusations.