Written By Samantha Corbin Miller
Directed By Martha Mitchell
A starving toddler found wandering the streets alone leads to a search for the neglectful mother, only to find another child in danger in the same home. After Benson questions the social worker (John Magaro), they discovered he has not visited the family's home in months and has instead been falsifying his records, leading Benson to push Barba to prosecute the social worker's supervisor (Whoopi Goldberg) for enabling her misconduct and falsifying her own records for self-advancement. When one child dies, Benson and Barba intensify their case against social services with charges of manslaughter, which is met with resistance by Deputy Chief Dodds and 1PP. Meanwhile, Dodds announces Benson's promotion to lieutenant and his choice for her new sergeant-his son Mike.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Manuela Ozuna and her husband kept nine year old Keisha beaten, starved, and locked in a dog cage to keep her from crying. Manuela explains that her young children have to "earn" the right not to be starved to death by not crying.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: When facing the detectives' hostility for her assertion that her kids need to earn the right to eat, Manuela explains that she was beaten with an electrical cable as a child and asks whether they'd like her to go back to that manner of child discipline. This does not go down well with the detectives.
- The Mole: After Benson conspires with Barba to dig into the city's complicity in the neglect case, to 1PP's dismay, Dodds foists a new detective on the squad to keep it in line: his son.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Manuela's literal reaction to having let Keisha die, after detoxing while in the hospital following her arrest (at which time she was found high as a kite and panhandling).
- Social worker Keith Musio reacts in a similar manner upon learning that if he'd actually made the home visits he falsely claimed to have done in his records, Keisha's life might have been saved (and later admits he was ordered to falsify records by his supervisors).
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The normally unflappable Barba begins to lose control emotionally as he cross-examines Whoopi's character regarding the really horrible child abuse cases she swept under the rug.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: While initially refusing to investigate child services Barba snarks to Benson and a heavily pregnant Rollins that they are getting "emotional" and he needs more than "mother's instinct" to proceed with a criminal case. Benson and Rollins glare at him silently for a beat before the camera cuts away for the next scene.
- Whoopi Epiphany Speech: Guest star Whoopi Goldberg tries to deliver a rousing one about how overworked she is and how she and every other worker is asked to do an impossible amount of work, only to be scapegoated when they can't pull it off instead of fixing the wider issue, Subverted by the fact that she has knowingly neglected actually caring for children in favor of paperwork and self-advancement, meaning that despite the message being an important one, the speech rings hollow with both the characters and the audience, as it comes across as excuse-making.
