Repeal New York State's Immunity Laws

The New York State Social Services Law Article 6, Title 6, Section 419 relating to Child Protective Services are unjust, ineffective, and racially biased.

This law requires ANY person, doctor, daycare, deadbeat parent, or stranger to telephone the New York State Central Registry Child Abuse Hotline to make an anonymous call to accuse a parent of child abuse or neglect WHETHER TRUE OR NOT.

The New York State Social Services Law Article 6, Title 6, Section 419 relating to Child Protective Services are unjust, ineffective, and racially biased.

When a telephone call is made to the New York State Central Registry Child Abuse Hotline. The person on the phone does not have to leave a name, just an allegation that a parent is abusing or neglecting their children. No proof or evidence is required.

Calls are only accepted by the accuser. Parents who have children in foster care are prevented from making this same call to the hotline.

This law states that an accuser shall have immunity from any liability, civil or criminal. No one is held accountable for making false allegations.

The harshest provision of the child protective laws are that children be removed from the biological home and placed in a strange foster care setting. Non-abused children are subjected to physical and sexual abuse by strangers daily.

73% of the children who are in foster care are African American, they spend an average of four years in foster care. 2% of the children in foster care are White. The remaining children are catagorized as other or Hispanic.

African-American children are overwhemingly penalized and removed from their homes without any prior evidence of parental wrongdoing.

The penalties apply without regard to the circumstances or the individual's character or background, making it irrelevant whether the parent is actually an abuser or not.

The racially disproportionate nature of the immunity law is not just devastating to African-Americans.

It contradicts faith in the principles of justice and equal protection of the laws that should be the bedrock of any constitutional democracy; it exposes and deepens the racial fault lines that continue to weaken the country and belies its promise as the land of equal opportunity; and it undermines faith among all races in the fairness and efficacy of the justice system.