譯者 | 王佳穎 對外經濟貿易大學本科
一審 | L Y J NUS LL.M.
二審 | 李正茂 香港大學普通法學碩士
編輯 | 楊詠文 中南財經政法大學碩士
田 悅 華僑大學本科
責編 | 扎恩哈爾 新疆農業大學本科
The University of Chicago Law Review Volume 91.2, Number 8 | March 2024
《芝加哥大學法律評論》第91卷第2期第8篇
Nudging Improvements to the Family Regulation System
助推家庭監管系統的改進
Josh Gupta-Kagan
The Restatement of Children and the Law features a strong endorsement of parents’ rights to the care, custody, and control of their children because parents’ rights are generally good for children. Building on that foundation, the Restatement’s sections on child neglect and abuse law would resolve several jurisdictional splits in favor of greater protections for family integrity, thus protecting more families against the harms that come from state intervention, especially state separation of parents from children.
《兒童與法律重述》（The Restatement of Children and the Law）明確申明瞭父母對兒童具有撫養、監護和控制權，這種權利通常對兒童有益。在此基礎上，重述涉及兒童忽視和虐待法律的部分意在解決跨司法轄區的分歧，並傾向於在更大程度上保護家庭完整性，從而減少因國家干預（尤其是使父母與兒童分離）而對家庭造成的傷害。
（圖片來源於網路）
But a close read of the Restatement shows that it only goes so far. It is not likely to significantly reduce the wide variation in practice by jurisdiction, nor will it satisfy calls for a more fundamental transformation of the legal system. For instance, the Restatement requires consideration of the harm of removing children from their parents, without explaining how to weigh that against possible harms of remaining at home. It provides that poverty alone does not amount to neglect, without providing much guidance on the difficult question of how to implement that principle. The Restatement creates a clear preference for placement with relatives over strangers, without clarifying what suffices to overcome those preferences. It recognizes a right of parents and children separated by the state to visit with “frequency,” without defining that term.
然而，仔細閱讀《重述》可發現，其影響力較為有限，該部分內容不僅難以顯著降低不同司法轄區在實踐上的巨大差異，也無以滿足對法律體系進行深層變革的呼聲。例如，儘管《重述》中要求考慮將兒童從父母身邊帶走所造成的傷害，卻未能說明如何權衡該情形與將兒童留在家中可能遭受傷害；《重述》中雖規定，貧困本身並不構成忽視，卻未對如何實施這一原則提供詳細指導；其雖已明確載明瞭對優先安排兒童與親屬而非陌生人共同生活的原則，但並未明確在何種條件下此種優先級別可被克減。同時，《重述》承認因國家干預而被分離的父母和兒童享有“頻繁性”（ frequency,）探視的權利，卻未具體對“頻繁性”這一術語進行定義。
This analysis is not a criticism of the Restatement—by codifying existing law, it does what the Restatement should do. Rather, this analysis highlights how this Restatement can contribute to child neglect and abuse law in the present context. It can help nudge the law in a modestly improved direction and highlight areas that require more transformative legal changes.
本文並非是對《重述》進行批判——事實上，透過對現行法律的編纂，《重述》已實現了其應有的功能。相反，本文意在強調《重述》如何在當前情境下促進對兒童忽視與虐待法的發展，即《重述》將助推現有法律的進步，並更進一步促進對那些呼喚更深層法律變革的領域的關注與聚焦。
引言
If a restatement’s job is to codify consensus views about a body of law, this is a challenging time to draft a restatement of the law of child neglect and abuse. The Restatement of Children and the Law describes the legal system that defines child neglect and abuse. It determines when families should be subject to family court and Child Protective Services (CPS) agency oversight, when the state should separate parents and children, if and when they can reunify, and what to do if they cannot. But there is not a consensus about that legal system. It is under attack for intervening in and separating families too frequently and for too long, and for disproportionately taking those draconian steps toward families in poverty, families of color, and families in which one parent has a disability. Calls for dramatic change—whether it be the “abolition of child welfare as we know it” or “transformation”—abound. The very name of the system is subject to debate: common titles like “child welfare” and “child protection” are criticized as misnomers, and “family regulation” or “family policing” are proposed as alternatives.
如果說《重述》的任務是編纂有關一套法律的共識性觀點，那麼此時編寫一部關於兒童忽視與虐待法律的重述無疑充滿了挑戰。《兒童與法律重述》描述了界定兒童忽視與虐待的法律體系，這一體系進而確定了於何時家庭應接受家庭法院和兒童保護服務（CPS）機構的監督，政府有關部門應使父母與子女分離、重聚及在無法重聚時後續處理的具體情境。但現實中，就這一法律體系並未形成共識。該體系因其過於頻繁且長期地干預和分離家庭而受到抨擊，尤其是對貧困家庭、有色人種家庭，以及父母一方有殘疾的家庭採取了比例失衡的措施。社會上亦出現了許多要求對其變革的呼聲，如“廢除現有兒童福利體系”或“徹底轉型”等，該體系的名稱也引發了爭議。諸如“兒童福利”（child welfare）和“兒童保護”（child protection）這樣的常見稱謂被批評為用詞不當，並有提議將其改為“家庭規制”（family regulation）或“家庭監管”。
（圖片來源於網路）
One dominant critique of the status quo does seem to be emerging: the system should be significantly narrowed in scope, reserving its most invasive interventions for the most severe cases of maltreatment where the harm of maltreatment outweighs the harm of intervention. Instead of relying on coercion and separations, the system should develop alternative methods of helping families at the margins and pursue greater equity by race and class for families impacted by the legal system. While the status quo is unsteady and under attack, relatively little legal doctrine has changed, at least yet, and the agenda for such change is not fully formed.
一種對現狀的主流批判觀點認為：應大幅限縮該體系的適用範圍，僅將具有侵入性的干預措施用於最嚴重的虐待案件，即僅適用於在虐待所帶來的傷害顯然超過了干預可能造成的傷害的這類案件中。該體系應摒棄強制和分離的手段，轉而訴諸於其他能夠幫助邊緣家庭的替代方法，併為受法律制度影響的家庭爭取更大程度的種族與階級平等。儘管目前存在對現有體系的諸多批評，但截至目前，在法律規範層面仍缺少對此種轉變的回應，且在立法方面也尚未完全形成針對該轉變的議程及導向。
Another challenge exists. While the law on the books—the black-letter law advanced by the Restatement—does have significant commonalities across the United States, what state and local legal systems actually do under that law varies significantly across jurisdictions. That variation results from the legal indeterminacy that has long been part of this field and recognized by those on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. When observing how the law operates in practice, there really is no consensus. There is wide variation by state in substantiation rates, removal rates, kinship placement rates, and termination of parent-child relationship rates, just to name a few important decision points. The indeterminate substantive law permits this variation by effectively granting discretion to agencies and, secondarily, family courts, which then use that discretion differently in different jurisdictions. Moreover, legal system failures—especially weakness in family defense legal services provisions in many if not most jurisdictions in this country—ensure that few functional checks exist on exercises of this discretion.
此外存在另一個挑戰。儘管在字面意義上——即由《重述》所提出白紙黑字的規範本身——在國家層面（全美國範圍內）具有一定共性，但在現有各州和地方法律體系下所實際執行的法律仍存在顯著差異。此種差異源於長期以來這一領域下部分法律內容的不確定性，且該差異已被持有相異意識形態觀點的人群所認可。事實上，就法律將如何在實踐中的運作、實施這一點尚未形成共識。僅從幾個重要決策方面而言，各州就如何判斷證實率、分離率、親屬安置率和終止親子關係率等方面已存在很大差異。實體法的空缺與不定性造就了這種差異產生，並在實踐中賦予了機構自由裁量權，其次賦予家庭法院自由裁量權。這些機構和法院將會在各自轄區以不同的方式行使這種自由裁量權。此外，法律系統的本身缺陷——尤其是在大多數轄區內家庭辯護法律服務的缺乏——進一步導致了該自由裁量權行使幾乎無功能性制約。
The Restatement enters the legal field in the context of significant political contest about where it should be going, and significant variation in practice by jurisdiction.Beyond fairly restating the law on the books, I will argue that because of these challenging contextual features, the Restatement offers two useful contributions to this field. First, it advances black-letter law by identifying areas where jurisdictions have differences and choosing the option which better protects the constitutional right to family integrity. This step is normatively valuable because this legal system has a long record of unnecessarily invading that fundamental constitutional right. By choosing modestly stronger standards to limit government intervention, the Restatement will modestly limit those harmful interventions and slightly reduce the wide variety in practices.
《重述》主要涉及的法律領域，其語境涉及該法律在重大政治爭議與不同司法管轄區實踐存有重大差異。除了闡釋《重述》文字之外，筆者將論證在現有背景的重重挑戰之下，《重述》為這一法律領域從兩方面所提供的有力貢獻。即《重述》透過確定轄區差異，並選擇更好地維護家庭完整性這一憲法權利的選項，推進了實體法發展。鑑於該法律體系長期以來對該項基本權利的不必要侵犯，《重述》中這一敘述具有規範意義上的價值。透過選擇更合適的標準來限制政府幹預，《重述》將在一定程度限制不利干預，並減輕實踐中存有的差異。
（圖片來源於網路）
Second, the Restatement simultaneously illustrates how much work remains and how much legal change is required to truly transform the system. It is not the Restatement’s role to identify what the law ought to be in the future, and the restatement appropriately does not attempt that task. But by critically analyzing the areas where the Restatement takes sides—and especially by critically analyzing how much, or how little, impact the Restatement’s perspective is likely to have—we can illustrate how much further the law must change. The Restatement offers nudges in the directions of greater respect for parents’ and children’s right to family integrity. But it leaves plenty of indeterminacy in the law and thus room for continued variation among states and for what I would consider harmful interventions in families. Analyzing those areas in the law helps identify areas that lawyers, policymakers (both legislative and judicial), and advocates can focus on in the coming years.
其次，《重述》同時點明瞭現有工作中未盡的範疇，以及要真正促使該法律體系轉型所需的具體變革。《重述》並未釋明法律應該如何修訂，且並未嘗試承擔這一任務。但透過對《重述》所持立場的領域進行批判性分析——尤其是透過分析《重述》觀點可能產生的具體影響——我們可以大致瞭解在多大程度上法律本身亟待被改變。《重述》助推瞭如何尊重父母和兒童之於家庭完整性權利方面的發展，但它也在法律文字中留有較多不確定性，進而對各州的實踐差異留下繼續存在的空間（筆者認為這將可能構成對家庭不利干預）。進一步分析《重述》等法律文字的內容將有助於律師、政策制定者（包括立法和司法）以及其倡導者確定在未來幾年可以關注的重點領域。
This Essay begins with a brief discussion in Part I of the Restatement’s endorsement of parental rights as an essential legal tool to protect families and serve children’s interests. That foundation drives the Restatement’s choice of legal rules that provide greater protection for parents’ and children’s rights to family integrity. Part II analyzes several of those specific areas; it identifies and describes areas where the Restatement takes sides on issues where some disagreement exists across jurisdictions. It then analyzes how each of those decisions still leaves plenty of room for discretion and thus, while representing helpful steps forward, are unlikely on their own to lead to the dramatic change that the emerging consensus rightly suggests is needed. That analysis can point the way toward some areas that require more creative thinking and dramatic change than the Restatement is positioned to provide.
本文在第一部分簡要討論了《重述》文字對父母權利的支援，並將其視為保護家庭和維護兒童利益的重要法律工具。基於此，《重述》傾向於納入了那些為父母和兒童的家庭完整性權利提供更大保護的法律規則。第二部分則就幾個具體領域進行分析；它指出並闡釋了在一些司法管轄區存在分歧問題上其所持的立場。《重述》進一步分析了這些裁判結果中所留下較大的自由裁量空間，並指出儘管這些裁判代表了具有進步性的有益探索，但它們本身仍難以直接帶來新興共識所呼喚的變革。而這種分析本身已經指明瞭在此情境下進行探索的具體進路，即人們應關注那些比《重述》文字本身所能提供的更具創造性的思考和巨大變革的具體領域。
（圖片來源於網路）
Child neglect and abuse law should change in deeper ways than the Restatement can provide. The Restatement nonetheless takes several essential steps toward a transformed legal system. First, its reaffirmation of the centrality of parental rights and family integrity are a helpful reminder when those rights are most directly at stake: when the state seeks to break up a family. Second, the Restatement takes modest steps in the direction of more strongly respecting parents’ and children’s rights to family integrity.
儘管兒童忽視和虐待法律仍需較之於《重述》進行更深層次的變革，但無可否認，《重述》已就法律體系的變革方面取得較大進展。首先，它重申了父母權利和家庭完整性的核心地位，這無疑是一個重要的提醒，尤其是在這些權利最直接受到威脅的情形下：即當國家試圖拆散一個家庭時。其次，《重述》適度採取措施，更加尊重父母和兒童的家庭完整性權利。
The Restatement, however, leaves much room for practitioners to apply these principles and for advocates to identify how to do so in a way that changes law and practice. The Restatement cannot and will not bring the change that many of us believe this legal system requires. Nor will it eliminate the state-by-state practice variations that describe this field. But it does help crystallize areas that require change. And my hope is that change comes and, many years from now, the Restatement (Second) of Children and the Law will codify it.
然而，《重述》為實踐者應用這些原則以及倡導者識別如何以改變法律和實踐的方式應用這些原則留下較大適用空間。《重述》本身不能也不會帶來公眾對該法律體系所期待的變革。它並不會消除當下在這一領域的州際實踐差異，但它確實有助於明確需要改變的領域。筆者期待這一變革將能夠實現，並希望在未來能看到《兒童與法律重述（第二版）》將其編纂入法典。
原文連結：
https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/nudging-improvements-family-regulation-system