Reimagine Child Safety Coalition rally in May 2022 at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting. Image credit: Reimagine Child Safety Coalition

The Ties that Bind: Relationships Between Law Enforcement and the Department of Children and Family Services in Los Angeles County

Leah Gasser-Ordaz and Alicia Virani, UCLA Law

Los Angeles County has the largest child welfare system in the country. The Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) removes children at a rate of 23.9 per thousand low-income children, the second-highest of the U.S.’s ten largest cities.

There is some publicly available information about DCFS partnerships with law enforcement, but the ties between DCFS in Los Angeles and various county law enforcement departments are understudied. This project brings to light the local landscape of law enforcement partnerships with DCFS, and will focus on the laws, policies, and contracts that govern these relationships.

Our forthcoming report will include the following:

  1. The impact of policing and child protective services collaborations on families and communities
  2. An overview of the federal, state, and local cross-reporting laws between DCFS and law enforcement in California and Los Angeles County
  3. An analysis of the formal relationships via existing MOUs between local law enforcement agencies and DCFS
  4. Information regarding the informal collaborations between law enforcement and DCFS