I wouldn't have disrupted the children's routine and life. They could have been left on the ranch and the true problem which is the men... could have been taken to the Fort and detained.
That goes against all CPS rules, and I suspect you'd find in all states that it is the procedure to remove the children from the home, not the parents. If you were "detaining" the men at the Fort you would be violating their rights to due process. "Detaining or arresting?" You have to have grounds to arrest and you shouldn't do that without a thorough investigation or some evidence showing the need for "detaining" the men. Due process in action. So what is it? "make sure they are going willingly or being detained?
Make sure they "know" that they are going willingly...just like the woman that originally went to the fort. As a matter of fact it has been reported that the men have indeed offered to do this. Once everyone lawyered up that news disappeared, but the point is they were WILLING to go if the children and women could have remained.
Means absolutely nothing that they offered. CPS procedures preclude this. If it were to be allowed in this case, all others in the state of Texas who had their children removed would be clamoring that these people were treated different than they were and that their children should have been left in the home where the abuse was occuring or alleged to have occured.
While they were sitting in the Fort I would have had daily LONG meetings with them concerning their future in the state of Texas. Their assets should have been frozen and a guardian put in place to pay temporary basics like the electric bills and so on.
The men, unless they own their own business do not have assets, what they have or live in belongs to the FLDS and can be removed from them by word of their leader, Warren Jeffs. The assets currently in Texas for the FLDS sect at Eldorado would be their "church", the property and the buildings and all other machinery and equipment, furnishings etc. The same furnishings the children would be using under your scenario.
The state of Texas isn't going to "freeze" their assets until a thorough investigation is accomplished. Freezing their assets without an investigation or evidence would deprive them of due process. Only after an investigation, charges and a conviction would someone be put in place to oversee the assets of the FLDS at Eldorado, like what's been done in Colorado City.
Meanwhile back at YFZ the 500 plus support staff that is currently seeing to things could have been there seeing to things. The DNA swabbing etc could all be done just as efficiently there.Didn't I read that a team is going out to the ranch to collect DNA from the women there anyhow?
This is costing the city and state governments at last report in excess of $85,000.00 a day. That same amount of money (actually much less) would be more than adequate to maintain security around the ranch. Even at the height of the raid, LE was easily able to control who went in and out. So that is not the big issue that some might think.
The actual square footage of the ranch is much larger than you think and LE would not be able to easily control who went in and out. LE from surrounding counties were called in to help control the media and other gawkers outside the Fort as it was. The very same LE who have other duties in their own counties. Who do you suggest gets called in to guard it adequately? The Marines? National Guard? Border Patrol? The procedure is being done in a controlled environment. By that I mean that the children aren't being shuttled around between buildings and being hidden so that the swabs cannot be accomplished.
The advantage of doing it this way is pretty apparent.
One, this is a patriarchal group. If the men say stay the women wont run. Once you have them complying, they in turn make sure everyone else does. Its a trickle down affect.
Two, the men KNOW that they HAVE to keep control of the money. The combination of the threat of the money drying up combined with the threat of losing their families. would bring them into line much faster than threats of charging them with child abuse or jail time.
If ordered to leave by their leaders or husbands the women will leave. They have left husbands and children on their commands, so what makes you think they won't do it again? Threaten them with losing their families? The fact that the men are assigned other wives and children allows them to simply move elsewhere and assume another family.
The FLDS leaders receive money from other members located outside of the state of Texas, many of whom run businesses that they or the FLDS own.
The money won't necessarily "dry up." Perhaps the welfare money might, but those businesses won't be forced to stop operating without just cause, evidence and a court hearing.
Three, On the matter of threatening them with the "mans" laws that they have broken.... They would view going to jail for God and their beliefs as a good thing. To them that is honorable. They would feel persecuted. They would enjoy that. We don't want them to enjoy this, we want them to be fearful of noncompliance with the law, and that their way of life is in danger. That is a whole other matter to them. They feel they MUST cling to their way of life since in their minds that is what GOD wants of them and Gods law is superior to mans. Once it is down to them being unable to carry out "Gods" law unless they concede on some points....they would concede. They would do it because they would feel they "had" to in order to continue carrying out "Gods" wishes.
They don't respect laws, they aren't fearful of the laws, otherwise they wouldn't be breaking them. FLDS members have been known to file for welfare benefits when not entitled to them; others practiced tax evasion; children are required to have birth certificates and social security numbers in order to receive benefits, education etc.. and yet the leaders of the sect have practiced a form of discrimination against many of the children. Certain mother's hold birth certificates for their children while others do not. This is due to their leaders being afraid CPS and other authorities will determine from birth certificates the mother's age and the child's age, and be better able to prosecute them for criminal behaviour.
Granted, some of the young men who were born and raised in the sect may not have been told of the laws if they've been kept from the outside world and are not taught about laws. However, many of the men/boys are sent out to work in the outside world and before Warren Jeffs took over, there was an amount of contact via limited tv etc.. The people they send out for their PR on tv all state that they follow the law. IMO BS
Never in history not even ONE time has jailing people who think they are doing something in the "name of God" worked on any significant scale. The reason for this is that the more you use the law of man on them the MORE they feel that they are pleasing God to resist. While the state or the rest of us might be fearful of jail, they don't have the same view. Of course they don't want to go to jail but if they are sent there by force then it is no longer about what they did "wrong" that got them there. At that point they are being "persecuted" and remaining rigid in their thinking and waiting things out is a wonderful thing because it is pleasing to God.
No? I seem to recall there are clerics and their henchmen and other persons convicted of terrorism activities who thought they were doing it in the name of God and it has worked quite well. They are behind bars still.
Those who work in corrections or LE can tell you that the majority of those who are incarcerated blame others and forces outside themselves and claim persecution. They remain rigid in their thinking as well. It isn't a phenomenon restricted to those who believe they are persecuted and incarcerated for their religion...like Warren Jeffs believes.
I know all of this would have been outside the current CPS protocol but this entire situation is large and new so why couldn't a "new" way of handling it been tried? I keep hearing "that is not the way its always been done" "That's not the way CPS works" etc...
CPS's protocol in all states is not perfect. Its protocol is determined by lawmakers and others, and in many cases it has been changed and improved upon through the citizens of the state keeping an eagle eye upon it and holding it accountable. So, you want a "new way" of dealing with the FLDS. Why? Are they SO special, held up above the rest of the citizens of the state of Texas? or of the rest of us?
Well the facts are that Texas has one of the poorest performing CPS's in the entire country. I am basing this not on hearing "horror stories" but rather on going to their website as well as other governmental web sites and reading the statistics. Texas has an over burdened under staffed CPS system that has been accused of drugging children as well as losing them. Their are children in their system they cant even account for. I am not picking on Texas, heck I am from Florida and our CPS is a disaster here also. This was just NOT the environment to bring an influx of 400 children into.
Then what "environment" do you suggest they "bring them into?" Federal custody? Out of state custody? CPS in each state has their own over burdened, understaffed system. Texas is doing the best it can with what it has, and there have been many fine citizens of Texas who have stepped up to the plate to ensure that this happens according to the law and with the children's best interests in mind. Do we fault them for that just because CPS didn't do it "different?"
When CPS release a press statement they seem so proud of how well they are handling these particular children. Not once have they commented about how many children already in the system have had the attention funneled away from them because of this.
We haven't heard of the CPS personnel who are working hard to carry the load, nor have we heard of all the individual LE who are working hard to protect the children. Do you expect them to give you or me chapter and verse of their entire system to satisfy a purient desire to know?
They are bending over backwards for these children of this sect. In all other cases the children would have been removed instantly from both their parents. Mothers were allowed to stay with their children for a time. How many mothers are going to complain to CPS and file lawsuits because they weren't allowed to stay with their children and these people were?
Also not mentioned, how many currently occurring abuse claims are not being investigated as closely and thoroughly as they would have been before because everyone is so focused on this one case. Even if they try their best, the manpower just isn't there. The best time to think outside the box is when the box is riddled and full of holes.