The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives

Abstract

The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives. Richard Gelles. New York: Basic Books. 1996. 200 pp. Hardcover ISBN 0-465-05395-5. $23.00. In this moving, compelling, and provocative book, Richard Gelles, a sociologist who has devoted much of his career to elucidating the prevalence and incidence of family violence, turns his attention to child protection. In a strikingly effective effort to illustrate the manner in which social institutions protect children who have been exposed to violence in their homes, Gelles focuses on a single case, rather than on the system or the research literature. Gelles avoids the temptation to exaggerate and create an unrealistic horror story. Sadly, the events that befell little David are all too common, and the composite case that Gelles describes only contains elements that could have occurred in other cases in numerous city and state agencies. Rhetorically, the focus on a single child, rather than on anonymous children, proves an effective device for illustrating the many ways in which maltreated children are failed by the social systems and agencies that are ostensibly designed for their protection. It also provides an unusual vehicle for reviewing the relevant research literature and examining its implications for professional practice. Gelles describes pediatricians who overlook obvious danger signs and choose not to report their concerns to protective service workers, investigative agencies without adequate resources and experience to evaluate and intervene, and agency policies that routinely deprive investigators of crucial information about family history without which their evaluations and interventions are often doomed to fail. With rare exceptions, the professionals to whom Gelles introduces us are not evil, ill intentioned, or even negligent. More often than not, mistrust of the system and of one another, as well as endemic communication blockages and failures, make David's fate and that of many others like him appear inevitable. Gelles reserves his angry contempt-and this is a passionate book written by one who cares deeply about the circumstances described-for the system rather than the players. In so doing, Gelles raises troubling questions about some fundamental principles that undergird much protective service work. In particular, he criticizes an ideology (family preservation and protection) that forces practitioners to work toward the reunification of parents and children even when the risks to the child are high and the resources available for intervention limited. …