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Ask A Native New Yorker: Should I Report My Neighbor To Child Services?

Gothamist Staff

Published Mar 6, 2015

Modified Mar 6, 2015

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Gothamist Staff

Published Mar 6, 2015

Modified Mar 6, 2015

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Are you relatively new to this bustling metropolis? Don't be shy about it, everyone was new to New York once upon a time, except, of course, those battle-hardened residents who've lived here their whole lives and Know It All. One of these lifers works among us at Gothamist—publisher Jake Dobkin grew up in Park Slope and still resides there. He is now fielding questions—ask him anything by sending an email here, but be advised that Dobkin is "not sure you guys will be able to handle my realness." We can keep you anonymous if you prefer; just let us know what neighborhood you live in.

This week's question comes from someone who believes one of his neighbors is abusing his kids.

Dear Jake,

In the past few weeks I've heard some disturbing noises coming from my neighbors. I live in a building with lots of families and recently I think one of my neighbors has been getting violent with his kids. If not, it certainly sounds like it. I grew up in the suburbs where it was basically impossible to know what went on in our neighbor's homes. I, relatively new to apartment living, am not accustomed to hearing so much of what goes on with my neighbors and so you can understand why this is difficult to ignore.

Thanks for the help,

Anonymous

A native New Yorker responds:

Dear Anonymous,

Yes, you should call The Administration for Children's Services: the hotline number is 1-800-342-3720. That's not just my opinion; A.C.S. says: "Report any known or suspected case that you observe. Reporting abuse can protect children from further harm and help a family address its problems. All reports are confidential and may be made anonymously."

You might be wrong. Kids do scream bloody murder over all sorts of things: not getting to watch T.V., having to go to bed, being forced to take a bath. Even after five years of parenting I'm not sure if I could tell the difference between normal screaming and the kind of screaming that you need to report if I heard it through a wall, but speaking for 100% of parents everywhere, I can tell you that if I was in your place, I'd always err on the side of caution and dial in the report if my gut told me something was wrong.

That's because kids are precious and can't stick up for themselves, and it's the job of all responsible adults to make sure they're safe. Even if that means an innocent family gets hassled by the authorities—that's terrible and awful and shouldn't happen, but if it's the price for keeping a kid from getting abused or worse, that's a price that's worth paying as a society.

I say this fully aware of recent troubles at A.C.S. The agency has been underfunded and understaffed for quite some time, and it's unclear whether the current administration's plans to add $26.4 million to its current budget of $2.95 billion is going to make much of a difference. According to the Times, this is an agency that "investigates 62,000 cases of reported abuse or neglect a year, provides preventive services to another 23,000 families, and oversees 10,800 children in foster care." That's an enormous amount of work, and clearly not all of it gets done as well as it should.

That is not your immediate problem, though. Your only responsibility is to phone in your report, and hope for the best. I won't tell you to do more than call it in, either. In some situations it might help to befriend the kid or get more involved with the family, but in others it could make the situation worse, so beyond making the call, you'll have to just do what you think is right.

If anyone else is in a similar situation to Anonymous here, A.C.S. provides a short list of "signs of child abuse and neglect," starting with bruises and getting worse from there. It's terrible and sad to read about, but maybe it'll help you help some kid out.

N.B.: We've discussed a similar situation involving domestic abuse in a previous column. In that case, the victim was an adult and the threat did not seem immediate, and so the experts advised not calling it in. Here, the victim is a child and the threat does seem immediate, so the answer is different. (And we notified Anonymous of our advice before publishing.)

Ask a Native New Yorker anything by emailing our tips hotline.

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Gothamist Staff

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