I think the struggle for civil forfeiture reform offers some suggestions. Child Services operates similarly to these programs in that they can size children and impose sanctions without a court finding any wrongdoing first.
Child Services makes use of broad powers and would indeed be "gutted" if they couldn't act until neglectful parents were tried or pled guilty. I think that is a good tradeoff. Similarly, I don't mind that civil forfeiture reform lets drug dealers continue to drive sometimes. This is a major political controversy, though.
Can't really agree though. The issue with child services is that they can act faster than the criminal system. You might want to say that they couldn't act to remove or otherwise enforce parental restrictions until criminal charges are made (leaving other less adversarial actions available). An unintended consequence of this may be that charges are made much more easily for the purpose of unblocking child services.
Alternatively, it may be that we want to take the same 'rational' look at risk that we want the courts/child services to take. Maybe the few kids that get taken away 'unreasonably' are actually just the cost of having an otherwise sane system. Lest that come off as callous, I just mean that if you have a country of 300 million, you'll get some pretty far out scenarios played out. You don't necessarily want to add process to protect those very few scenarios that are outrageous because it may cost more (by e.g. tying CPS' hands so that they can't take actually at-risk children out of homes).
I guess I'm suggesting that this might, in the end, be much ado about nothing. It's hard to say without numbers and analysis.
Realistically, CPS is overloaded. I know people who've worked with CPS, and I think if you went and worked with CPS for a few months you would change your tune pretty quickly. They don't have the resources to take children and put them into foster care on a hunch.
The percentage of placements is at a nadir but will change as budget crises are solved, child services scandals are forgotten, improved reporting and improvement plan maintenance technology is deployed, outsourcing becomes more common, etc. It is better to solve this problem than to rely on underfunding to lessen the problem's impact.
Child Services makes use of broad powers and would indeed be "gutted" if they couldn't act until neglectful parents were tried or pled guilty. I think that is a good tradeoff. Similarly, I don't mind that civil forfeiture reform lets drug dealers continue to drive sometimes. This is a major political controversy, though.