Quick FAQ
Yes. Repeated child deaths, ignored warning signs, and delayed interventions show systemic breakdowns across CPS and related agencies.
No. Child protection failures are structural and bipartisan. Children pay the price when accountability is optional.
The death of a Michigan child following repeated CPS contact has reignited calls for mandatory accountability measures.
Key Takeaways
- Michigan’s Child Protective Services (CPS) is failing children due to systemic breakdowns, leading to preventable deaths.
- Recent tragedies have reignited calls for mandatory accountability and reform across multiple support systems, not just CPS.
- Accountability has been optional for too long, resulting in a culture where failures have no consequences for agencies.
- Real reform requires independent reviews, cross-agency cooperation, and transparent reporting on CPS outcomes.
- Child protection should not be a partisan issue; all policymakers must prioritize children’s safety over politics.
The Hard Truth
When a child dies after repeated contact with Child Protective Services, that is not a tragic anomaly. It is a systems failure.
And on that point, Jim Runestad is right.
Michigan’s child protection infrastructure is failing kids. Not occasionally. Not accidentally. Structurally.
That conclusion does not depend on ideology, party affiliation, or tone. It depends on outcomes. Dead children. Missed warnings. Paper compliance instead of protection.
The Case That Forced the Issue
The most recent catalyst is absolutely devastating. A Michigan child died after what has been described as a cascade of missed red flags and insufficient intervention, despite CPS involvement. The reporting outlines a familiar pattern already on display in the Michigan Court System:
- Prior agency contact
- Known risk indicators
- Fragmented oversight
- No effective accountability when intervention failed
The result was not uncertainty; it was death.
That is the context in which Senator Runestad has proposed increased accountability measures for CPS. While the politics around the proposal will be debated, the underlying diagnosis is not controversial among child welfare experts or frontline workers.
How many ways and times can we say that the system is broken?
This Is Not a CPS-Only Problem
Focusing solely on CPS misses the larger truth. Michigan’s failures are cross-systemic.
CPS intersects with:
- Family courts
- Prosecutors
- Schools
- Mental health providers
- Law enforcement
- Medicaid-funded service networks (like Bethany Christian Services)
Each of these systems carries partial responsibility, and each has its own blind spots. When no single entity owns the outcome, children fall through procedural cracks wide enough to kill them.
Michigan has normalized fragmentation. No unified data trail. No real-time escalation triggers. No mandatory independent review until after a child is dead.
Our state’s model has moved away entirely from child protection and exclusively rests on liability management.
Accountability Has Been Optional for Too Long
One of the most uncomfortable truths is that Michigan has built systems that tolerate failure without consequence.
Caseworkers are overburdened. Supervisors are risk-averse. Courts defer. Agencies close ranks. Reviews happen quietly, internally, and too late.
When accountability exists only on paper, behavior does not change.
This is why external review, mandatory reporting thresholds, and independent oversight are not “punitive.” They are corrective. They are how complex systems learn.
Children do not get a second chance when the system misses theirs.
Why This Should Not Be Partisan
You do not have to agree with Jim Runestad on anything else to agree with this. We just have to agree that enough is enough.
Children are not conservative or progressive. Neglect is not ideological. Trauma does not check voter registration.
If policymakers dismiss child protection reform because they dislike the messenger, they are choosing politics over lives. That choice is itself a failure of duty.
Clutch Justice has consistently documented how Michigan institutions resist meaningful oversight until public pressure becomes unavoidable. CPS is not unique. It is simply where the consequences are most irreversible.
What Real Reform Would Actually Require
If Michigan were serious about protecting kids, reforms would include:
- Mandatory independent review after serious harm or death
- Cross-agency data integration, not siloed records
- Early escalation requirements when risk indicators stack
- External oversight insulated from political pressure
- Transparent public reporting on CPS outcomes, not just caseloads
None of this is radical. It is standard systems engineering applied to human lives.
Why This Case Matters
A child is dead.
That fact does not become less important because reform proposals come from someone you disagree with. It becomes more important.
When a system repeatedly fails its most vulnerable users, acknowledging the failure is the first ethical step. Fixing it is the only acceptable second one.
So yes, Jim Runestad is right about this. Michigan’s child protection systems are failing kids. And pretending otherwise is how it keeps happening.
Sources
- MLive reporting on CPS accountability proposal and child death
- Michigan Department of Health and Human Services child welfare oversight materials
- National child welfare accountability and fatality review research
