Harris County ranks No. 1 in child deaths from abuse, neglect

09:16 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 22, 2004

By Terri Langford / The Dallas Morning News

AP

More than a fourth of the Texas children who died of abuse and neglect since 2001 involved households previously investigated by Texas Child Protective Services, according to records obtained by The Dallas Morning News. The agency, responding to the newspaper’s public information request, released child abuse and neglect fatality data from Sept. 1, 2001 to May 31, 2004, the most current figures available.

Of the 509 abuse and neglect deaths by Texas county, 137 involved children who were visited by CPS investigators at least once before they died to determine whether an abuse claim was true.

Agency caseworkers, however, were able only to confirm the abuse and neglect allegations in 57 of those 137 children who had a previous CPS investigation before the same children died of abuse and neglect. While it is not known whether the children died of the same type of abuse and neglect CPS workers first investigated, these statistics provide the public its first snapshot as to how often CPS workers know a child may be in danger before that same child dies of abuse and neglect. While child advocates were saddened by the news, they say it points, yet again to the agency’s overwhelming caseload and lack of adequate funding. “It is significant. It’s disturbing,” said state Rep. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, who also serves as chairman of the Texas House Committee on Human Services. “It’s too many kids.”

True enough, said Scott McCowan, director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a Texas research group that advocates for policies to help children and the poor. But the statistics pose even bigger questions. “Would it better if children were dying, that our system had never identified as being at risk or would it better if the system is at least identifying them at risk and doing something even though it turns out to be ineffective?” he said. “I don’t know the answer.” Mr. McCowan said it will take more data to flesh out this initial first glance.

“I don’t know if it’s reassuring that the department at least knew about these families, or whether it’s troubling,” he said. What is known so far is that of the 509 child abuse deaths, which occurred in 99 of the state’s 254 counties, 17 children died from abuse or neglect on the same day they were born. Those who died ranged in age from those newborn infants to a child living in Houston’s Harris County who was one month shy of an 18th birthday.

Houston’s Harris County - the state's most populous - ranked No. 1 in child deaths for this time period, with 106 child abuse deaths. Dallas County, ranked a distant second with 42 child abuse deaths. Fort Worth’s Tarrant County placed third with 27, followed by Edinburg’s Hidalgo County, one of the state’s poorest, with 24 deaths.

Coming in fifth place, were San Antonio’s Bexar County with 23. CPS spokesman Geoffrey Wool was quick to point out that caseworkers can only confirm allegations with the evidence presented to them. If a child denies the abuse and there’s no physical evidence to supports the abuse tip received by the agency, an investigator has no choice but to mark the case as one that is unsubstantiated.

“But whether it’s 137 or one death, one is too many,” Mr. Wool admitted. “We’re in the business of protecting children and if we have even one child who has died of abuse or neglect, we’ve been aware of something in the past that would have been an indicator we need to tighten up our work and do what we can to ensure those children are protected.” While Texas officials release a range of figures each year about all child fatalities, including accidents, illness and homicides and how many abuse investigations are completed and confirmed each year, it has never been made public how many children who die of abuse or neglect who were visited by CPS before they died as the result of a previous abuse or neglect allegation. One problem, Mr. McCowan said, is that the number of confirmed abuse allegations has dropped significantly in Texas and nationwide. In 1985, he said, 56 percent of all abuse allegations in Texas were confirmed. In 2003, that number dropped to 25 percent. Why? Today, abuse investigators confirm only the most serious cases, because there are now too many to see overall.

That leaves less serious abuse cases by the wayside, making the fact that 137 child abuse deaths occurred after the same children were brought to the attention of CPS, less mysterious and more realistic. “If your radio is stolen in New York City, you don’t even report it,” Mr. McCowan said. “If a detective has more work than he can do, he’s going to give the most attention to the most serious cases. He’s not able to confirm crime except where crime undoubtedly occurred. And as a result his clearance rate is going to drop and that’s exactly what you see with the department (CPS).”

So, he said he’s not surprised by the statistics.

“We rank 48th in the country in the number of children per 1,000 that we bring into foster care,” he said. “So we’re leaving a lot of children in homes other states wouldn’t leave them in, so of course from time to time those kids are going to die.”