| Monday,
Dec. 25, 2006 (SF Chronicle), SF Gate: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/25/BAGFCN5GL21.DTL
SFPD's new plan considers kids
if parent arrested
Elizabeth Fernandez, SF Chronicle Staff
Writer
Just home from school, the 11-year-old San Francisco boy found
his mother passed out in their Ocean View house. Also home was his
2-year-old sister.
The boy hurried back to school and told officials. The principal
called 911 and accompanied the youth home.
Police officers arranged for the boy's mother to be taken to the
hospital to sober up, then asked the child if he had any family
members nearby. The boy replied yes, but he wasn't sure of the relative's
whereabouts.
Ultimately, officers left the boy and his little sister at a barbershop
across the street from their home.
The incident last year triggered alarms among child welfare workers
and helped lead to the creation of innovative new guidelines on
how San Francisco police officers should deal with minors during
the critical moments when their parents are arrested. The goal of
the guidelines is to ensure that the children will not be forgotten,
left alone or dropped off with strangers.
San Francisco may be the first in the country to develop such a
comprehensive policy, say those involved in the project.
"Officers thought it was adequate for the boy to be left at
the barbershop,'' said Gordon Lew, emergency response supervisor
for the San Francisco Human Services Agency. "The young man
said he had some familiarity with someone at the barbershop, but
it was probably not the best judgment for officers to leave them
there. It was a red flag. ... We thought we should tighten things
up.''
Expected to be implemented early next year, the guidelines would
require officers, if possible, to make arrests out of view of children;
to inquire about the presence of children; and to seek an adult
relative who could take the children.
"When a parent is arrested, it can lead to disasters for children,''
said Susan Arding, a section manager with the Department of Family
and Children's Services who helped orchestrate the project. "Children
have an absolute right to be placed with family before we look to
strangers. This protocol was developed so police would have a responsibility
to inquire about children.''
A new state law, effective Jan. 1, requires the Commission on Peace
Officer Standards and Training to develop guidelines and training
for law enforcement to address child safety issues when a parent
or guardian is arrested. The estimated cost is $100,000.
Both new procedures are intended to lessen the psychological trauma
to children when their parents are arrested and to make children
a forethought -- rather than an afterthought.
"This is really groundbreaking,'' said Nell Bernstein, who
as coordinator of the San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents
Partnership helped launch the collaboration with the SFPD, the San
Francisco public defender's office, child welfare workers and the
Northern California Service League.
"We are simply saying that if you don't need to break down
the door, then don't. If you don't have to cuff mom or dad in front
of the kids, then don't," Bernstein said. "We want to
spare children the trauma of unnecessarily being put into a stranger's
home when grandmother may be just down the street.''
Some 2.4 million children in the United States have a parent in
jail or prison, says Bernstein, author of the 2005 book "Alone
in the World -- Children of the Incarcerated.'' As many as 1 in
10 children in California are estimated to have a parent in jail
or prison or on parole or probation, she said.
With support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco's
new policy took more than a year to develop.
Public Defender Jeff Adachi's involvement was inspired by a case
more than a decade ago when he represented a young, single father
of two charged with drug possession. Everyone agreed he shouldn't
go to jail -- everyone but the judge, Adachi said. The father pleaded
with the judge to let him pick up his children. "The judge
said 'Why don't you call the orphanage?' The father handed me his
car keys and asked me to go pick up his children," Adachi said.
"I never forgot that case.''
Under the guidelines, which are undergoing a final department review,
officers must inquire about the presence of children, and "be
aware of items which suggest the presence of children such as toys,
clothing, formula, bunk bed, diapers.''
Arrests if possible should take place away from children. If children
are present, officers are required to allow parents, whenever safe,
to reassure the kids. Additionally, officers are required to seek
-- if the other parent is not available -- an adult relative willing
to take responsibility for the children.
Background checks of those caretakers would be conducted by child
welfare workers.
"This is basically kindness and common sense. Most officers
already have that,'' says Police Capt. Marsha Ashe, head of the
juvenile and family services division. She helped spearhead the
guidelines with the support of others including Deputy Chief Morris
Tabak and Ingleside Station Capt. Paul Chignell.
"The goal is to ensure the safety and well-being of children
and to provide parents with a reasonable opportunity to arrange
for the care of their children in their absence,'' Ashe says. "Having
a parent arrested is tremendously traumatic to a child -- it adds
another pebble to an already heavy load. This protocol is an attempt
to minimize it.''
It's also an attempt to keep children unnecessarily out of the child
welfare system, said Susan Arding, who has worked in child welfare
for 25 years. "If children can stay in a known environment,
if they can go to their own school and wear their own clothes, if
they are not lifted out of their social situations and put into
a foster home where they know nobody, it is far less traumatizing
to them.''
Statewide, the new training and curriculum will address such matters
as ensuring that officers inquire whether a person being arrested
has minor children and authorizing parents to make telephone calls
to arrange for their children's care.
"This law is nothing earthshaking to the world of law enforcement,''
says Peace Officer Standards and Training spokesman Bob Stresak.
"Parents have been arrested and children have been at the scene
in untoward numbers of cases. Routinely, officers either try to
call a guardian or the child's other parent, or they will remand
the child to safe custodial environment. Children are very rarely
left unattended.''
But the California Research Bureau in a 2002 report found that children
were routinely falling through cracks when their parents were arrested
"because key questions about the children are not regularly
asked when a parent is arrested or incarcerated -- a de facto 'don't
ask and don't tell' policy. ... Our findings suggest that the children
... in California are in danger of being left in unsafe situations.''
Charles Williams, who was arrested late in the evening on March
27 in the Embarcadero apartment he shares with his wife and their
three sons, ages 4, 3 and 1, says that while officers showed some
sensitivity, there were aspects to the arrest that he wishes had
been different.
"The officers weren't overbearingly rude -- they didn't kick
in the door or run through the house,'' says Williams, a security
officer with no prior criminal history. Incarcerated in the county
jail, he is charged with attempted murder.
"They were decent,'' he said. "But my children saw them
put me in handcuffs and put me in the corner on the floor. The kids
could all see me. ... They were all crying. I kept trying to tell
them that everything was OK, but the police were asking me questions
so I really couldn't talk with them. I think it would have been
better if the police would have allowed the door to be closed and
if I had been allowed to put on my socks and shoes.
"And I wish I could have said goodbye to my kids. That might
have helped, at least for my oldest son.''
E-mail Elizabeth Fernandez at efernandez@sfchronicle.com.
Copyright 2006, SF Chronicle
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