[textor]

For what it's worth, children from at-risk families achieve better education when the father ends up incarcerated. So we can absolutely make a case for "ripping families apart" and against supporting "families as they are".

> My findings suggest that on average, parents who are on the margin of incarceration are likely to reduce the amount of schooling their child attains if they instead remain in the household. This can be explained because the removal from the household of a violent parent or a negative role model can create a safer environment for a child (Johnson, 2008; Jaffee et al., 2003). Incarceration is also a mechanism that can limit the intergenerational transmission of violence, substance abuse, and crime to children. This result also relates to findings in other fields that conclude that See Kling (2006), Aizer and Doyle, 2013; Di Tella and Schargrodsky (2013), Mueller-Smith, 2015; and Bhuller et al., 2016, among others. For example, using data from Sweden, Hjalmarsson and Lindquist (2007) report significant father-son correlations in criminal activity that begin to appear between ages 7 and 12, and are 3 the positive effects of being raised by one’s parents depend on the quality of care they can provide (Jaffee et al., 2003).

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5664c583e4b0c0bb910ce...

[mercutio2]

You summarized the paper as, “children from at-risk families achieve better education when the father ends up incarcerated.”

The one study you’re citing here might suggest your summary statement if “parents on the margin of incarceration” was equivalent to “children from at-risk families”. But those are very different concepts.

You can have an at risk family just by being low-income. Certainly many low-income families are drawn into crime, but by no means all, or even a majority, of low-income families, have a parent who is at the margin of incarceration.

I think the only thing you can reasonably conclude from this study is that leniency in the judicial system towards parents just because they’re parents may be misguided.

[textor]

> those are very different concepts

They are overlapping. Moreover, "parents on the margin of incarceration" are an extremely significant group of parents for whom the discussion of "supporting families as is" vs. "ripping apart" is meaningful at all. For most poor families it's irrelevant as there's no grounds for dissolution.

I believe you can't deny that it's much more common and publicly acceptable to claim that such a criminal parent should be shown leniency when possible, because having no parent at all is horrible. Yet we have evidence to the contrary.

I concede that this may be inapplicable for some other cases (or at least that we have no proof that it would be applicable yet). However, I personally think that those "at risk families" where parents create an atmosphere that's detrimental for stydying (by being aggressive, anti-intellectual etc.) may well be worse than outright criminal ones, and I believe it'd be proven in due time.

[mercutio2]

I think leniency for violent crimes or burglary is probably misguided in at risk communities.

For most non-violent crimes, this study was unconvincing (generally speaking I’d like to see incarceration alternatives for non-violent crime, why send people to crime school at tax-payer expense?).

I agree that for these groups, there’s an elevated chance that the parent is actively harming their family. I just don’t think it would be statistically justified to separate families that aren’t criminal.

And, of course, it would be deeply inhumane.

[wjnqx]

I am appalled that such an assertion can be made openly. It is, frankly, simply vile to suggest that children be taken away from struggling parents by society, rather than society being obligated to help those parents raise their children. To do so would be not only criminal, but profoundly immoral.

[gizmo686]

Facts matter. Evidence matters. We should not ignore evidence because it disagrees with our ideology. And we certainly should not attack someone for trying to bring in evidence to a discussion about something as important as raising our children.

The poster you are responding to didn't even suggest a course of action. He mearly provided evidence that the "obvious" course of action might not be so obviously correct. You are free to (as another poster did) question the relevence, interperatation, or quality of the evidence, or provide other evidence or arguments to disagree with what the poster was presenting. But you should not attack someone for trying to have an evidence based discussion.

Even if he turns out to be completely wrong, figuring out how he is wrong will likely be far more enlightening than simply asserting that he is wrong on moral grounds.

[wjnqx]

> we can absolutely make a case for "ripping families apart"

I don't see how that isn't a suggestion of a course of action -- one that that is a blatant misuse of a study (with small effects only measured over a small time period) toward ideological ends, i.e. supporting the seizure of children of disadvantaged parents.

Moreover, I refuse to have an evidence-based discussion about whether certain people deserve human rights. That shifts the Overton window to present such ideas as acceptable, when in a civilized society they should not be.

[gizmo686]

I am not going to enter a discussion on the merits of the underlying argument because you have already acknowledged that you have no interest in doing so.

Returning to the meta discussion. Let us trace the course of the conversation in question:

neuland: ...focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it

house9-2: wouldn't it be better to support the families as they are? help improve peoples lives instead of ripping families apart

textor: For what it's worth, children from at-risk families achieve better education when the father ends up incarcerated. So we can absolutely make a case for "ripping families apart" and against supporting "families as they are".

The only proposal being made here is a voluntary foster/adoption system with encouragement. This is then framed as "ripping families apart". While this framing is arguably unfair, it is within the bounds of reason so, giving it the most charitable interpretation possible, textor responds to "ripping families apart" in the context in which it was introduced and provided evidence that keeping blood families together is not inherently the best course of action. To be clear, at this point the conversation is about how much we should be supporting voluntary adoption; and textor is arguing that the idea is not as inherantly bad as house9-2 seems to be assuming.

Stepping up a level of meta:

>I refuse to have an evidence-based discussion about whether certain people deserve human rights.

This is what political correctness looks like. Literally. You are interested in what is politically correct, evidence be dammed. Further, no one in this discussion has argued for denying people human rights. Even further, every society on the planet accepts that we can violate "human rights" in some sense for the greater good. Eg. prisons deny people their human right of freedom; taxes partially deny the right of personal property.

At risk of entering into the merits of the original discussion, leaving children in poor home environment arguably denies them their human rights, including their right to: education security of person, and food.

How do we balance these conflicting goals? With evidence to inform us what our options are and what effects they will have with regards to our goals.

Going meta again:

> one that that is a blatant misuse of a study ...

It is not a blatant misuse; it is extrapolating beyond the facts of the original study. The first step of evidence based inquiry is to work with the evidence you have. This informs the questions you can ask, so you can look for the evidence you want to have [0]. Once you've done that, you can move onto making the evidence you want to have [1]. Each step of this process provides a foundation to build the next step.

And yes, the process is not as simple as I lay out. You need theory crafting. And once your theory starts to develop holes, it may be time to revisit an earlier step until you have enough of a foundation to make the later steps worthwhile (either because your foundation is strong, is the lower tiers are short of relevant evidence)

> ... toward ideological ends,

Please take a moment to rethink who is arguing towards ideological ends. In my experience, it is generally the person arguing against the concept of evidence; not the one trying to ground themselves in evidence.

>That shifts the Overton window to present such ideas as acceptable

And what about the overton window you are moving towards. Where it is accatable to blatantly argue that evidence should be ignored. Where the very concept of introducing evidence is morally abhorant. Is that the window you want us to live in?

>when in a civilized society they should not be.

Are you arguing that the very concept of seperating children from their parents has no place in civilized society? Child Protective Services might disagree with you. They do place strong emphasis on keeping families together where possible; but they acknowledge that sometimes conditions are so bad that it is unacceptable to leave a child in that situation. Where is the line that determines what warrents CPS to remove children from their families? Again, evidence is the best approach to find it, unless you want to remove children unnecessarily while leaving others in bad situations that they would be far better off out of.

Going meta again:

The discussion is not simply two extremes. Even if we agreed that one (or both) extremes was morally untenable, by seriously exploring the benifits of it, we can look for ways to obtain those same benifits by other means: such as turning school into a 'second home', as this the content of the original article, or voluntary foster care with active involvment of the birth parents in a non-primary-guardian capacity.

[0] And by want to have, I mean the evidence that answers the questions you want to ask; not the evidence that supports the conclusion you want to reach

[1] Again, in the sense of the evidence that answers the questions you want answered.

[textor]

While I appreciate your even-handed and careful defense of the point I was making, it's probably necessary to note that I didn't consider the merits of adoption at all. I have no idea what sort of policy to support on this issue. Indeed, the only thing I was objecting to was the idea of the company of biological parents being preferable by default. Given the evidence, I think that options rank like this: good parents > good foster parents > single parent > no parents > violent antisocial parent(s). Maybe it's wrong, but I don't immediately see how and believe we shouldn't assume that any position pro "ripping families apart", whatever the circumstances, is indefensible. If anything, the only policy I can responsibly advocate for, and not just voice general agreement with, is more rigorous and unbiased research into life outcomes.