Why They Do This: The Institutional Logic of Harm

SWANK Black Paper Series

Why They Do This: The Institutional Logic of Harm

Filed Under: Bureaucratic Exploitation / Systemic Abuse / State Immunity

Author: Noelle Bonnee Annee Simlett

I. Introduction: Asking the Forbidden Question

“Why would they do this?”

It’s the question that halts most conversations about systemic abuse.

Because if we admit that social workers, public agencies, and legal actors knowingly allow—or even facilitate—child sexual exploitation, the entire mythology of public welfare collapses.

But the evidence is clear.

So we must ask:

Why are they doing this?

II. Because Power Preserves Itself

Every institution prioritizes its own image, funding, and survival above the people it claims to serve.

To admit wrongdoing at this scale would mean:

1. Lawsuits
2. Mass resignations
3. Loss of control over child welfare policy
4. Collapse of public trust

So instead, they:

1. Ignore abuse
2. Silence whistleblowers
3. Retaliate against families
4. Shift blame through “multi-agency reviews”

The child becomes a sacrificial buffer protecting the system’s reputation.

III. Because the System Is Financially Incentivized to Remove Children

Each step of harm generates income:

1. Removal = thousands in government payments
2. Placement = ongoing care contracts (public and private)
3. “Support” services = therapy, assessments, legal professionals
4. Repeat interventions = justification for more staff, more reviews, more money

Even when the child is abused in placement, the harm is converted into more funding requests, not red flags.

Harmed children are profitable. Safe families are not.

IV. Because Children in Care Are Legally Disappearable

Once removed, a child:

1. Has no media access
2. Cannot speak publicly
3. Is surveilled, silenced, and controlled
4. Is often moved far from home and kin
5. Becomes a ward of a system with no meaningful checks

There is no visibility.

No press.

No jury.

Just sealed courts and administrative discretion.

This makes children in care ideal targets for trafficking and experimentation, because the law makes them disappear.

V. Because the Bureaucracy Is Designed to Shield Itself

Structural protections include:

1. Family court secrecy
2. Redacted records
3. “Professional judgment” clauses
4. Ambiguous safeguarding language
5. Multi-agency diffusion of responsibility

No one ever “decides” to let harm happen.

So no one is ever held responsible.

What looks like chaos is actually a distributed immunity mechanism.

VI. Because Public Myth Protects the Perpetrators

Social workers are cast as saints.

Parents who resist are cast as unstable.

Children are labeled unreliable.

And institutions are presumed ethical by default.

This narrative armor ensures that when a child is raped under state supervision, the public blames:

1. The child
2. The parent
3. “Miscommunication”
4. “Limited resources”

Never the structure. Never the mask.

VII. Because Some Know—and Participate

This is not universal ignorance.

Some actors know:

1. That they’re lying in assessments
2. That they’re placing children in danger
3. That they’re protecting abusers
4. That they’re weaponizing paperwork and power

And they continue, because they are rewarded with promotions, legal insulation, and bureaucratic praise.

When harm is normalized and dissent is punished, complicity becomes culture.

VIII. Conclusion: This Is Not Broken. This Is Designed.

They do this not by mistake, but because the system:

1. Makes it easy
2. Makes it profitable
3. Makes it invisible
4. And protects them when they’re caught

The institutional logic of harm is not chaos.

It is strategic silence backed by law, language, and legacy.

And that’s why they do it.