By SHANNON YOUNG, Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ Low-risk and rehabilitated suspects of child abuse and neglect might soon have the opportunity to have their names removed from the state’s database under legislation being considered by the General Assembly.
The proposed bill would allow offenders on the state’s child abuse and neglect database to appeal their listing after five years if they aren’t involved in any new abuse reports or investigations.
Appeals would be granted to applicants who have rehabilitated themselves or have demonstrated other legitimate reasons for removal. Applicants would be required to submit at least two letters in support of the appeal from competent adults.
If the bill is passed, individuals would be able to begin applying for an appeal as early as July 1.
Currently, anyone identified as a suspect in Department of Children and Families investigations of child abuse and neglect is listed in a registry for such offenses, even if the individual is not convicted of a civil or criminal offense. Those listed in the registry can initially appeal the listing and can appeal it in court, if necessary.
However, if they lose the appeal, they are permanently placed in the DCF child abuse database.
The database, unlike the sex offender registry, is private and not available to the public. Employers who work with children, however, can contact DCF with a release, signed by the potential employee, to verify that the individual doesn’t present a risk to kids.
Because of this, some argue that while the registry was created to ultimately protect children, it can permanently damage the reputation of suspected offenders and subject them to unemployment.
Michael Agranoff, an attorney specializing in DCF cases, said he has been pushing the state legislature to adapt this measure. He said that while he is successful in winning appeals for some clients, Connecticut has very few DCF attorneys for adults and not every person accused can afford representation.
Agranoff said he has seen hundreds of people successfully rehabilitate themselves. He said no one should be subject to a potential lifetime of unemployment without being allowed to defend him or herself.
Thomas DeMatteo, the assistant agency legal director for DCF, said the agency supports the proposed legislation and is willing to give listed individuals a second look. Thousands of names are on the child abuse and neglect registry, he said.
“DCF works on the basis that people can rehabilitate themselves,” DeMatteo said.
He said, now, around 30 percent of all alleged offenders who appeal their listing are successful.
Despite DCF’s support, some child advocate agencies and activists have raised concerns over the bill’s lack of details and potential effects on other registries.
Mickey Kramer, with the state’s Office of the Child Advocate, said that while the bill sounds like a fair concept, she believes the proposed appeals process needs to be carefully scrutinized and, if passed, applied consistently across the state.
“The devil is in the details, which this legislation doesn’t address,” she said.
Kramer said she agrees with the concept of the legislation but thinks it needs to be more specific before she could support it outright. She said she will likely testify at the hearing.
Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, ranking member of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, also raised concerns over the bill’s lack of details, specifically what qualifies a suspected offender as “rehabilitated.” He said he’d like to see a more specific definition of the term and learn more about how a person would be evaluated.
“God forbid someone gets off of the registry and harms another child,” Kissel said.
The Judiciary Committee will hear opinions on the bill at a Wednesday morning public hearing at the Legislative Office Building.
Wallingford Republican Sen. Len Suzio said the Select Committee on Children, on which he serves as ranking member, reviewed identical legislation on the issue before ultimately removing it from the bill.
He said that among other things, the committee questioned how the process of removing a person’s name from the child abuse and neglect registry would work when a suspected offender could potentially still be listed on the state’s sex offender registry.
Like Suzio, Karen Jarmoc, the executive director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, also expressed concerns on the relation between the child abuse and sex offender registries.
Jarmoc said allowing offenders to remove their names from the child abuse and neglect database may open the door for individuals to try and get their names off of other lists, like the sex offender registry.
She said the legislature needs to be careful that it doesn’t create a precedent for this type of name removal.
Last year, similar legislation that included a section concerning parental consent for children being interviewed by DCF failed to make it to the floor for a vote in the Senate. This year, the measures are separated into two bills.
Bill supporters are optimistic that the name removal legislation could be passed this session, as DCF is once again behind the measure.
Source http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/2012/03/08/some-child-abuse-offenders-could-be-removed-from-database/
CPS corruption hurts and destroys families worldwide. Please use caution posting about CPS here or anyplace on the internet. For your protection, using your full, real name and precise location is not advised. CPS has eyes everywhere and CPS is notorious for taking what people say, twisting it, embellishing on it and then using it against them in CPS "investigations" and at court proceedings.
Showing posts with label inadequate investigations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inadequate investigations. Show all posts
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Policy violations in Colorado social-services system found amid deaths of 43 children
By Jordan Steffen
In the past five years, 43 Colorado children died from abuse or neglect after entering the child welfare program. Every one of those deaths was marked by a policy violation or sparked concern in the way the case was handled by county social workers.
Investigations completed by the Colorado Department of Human Services since 2007 indicate that social workers in 18 counties repeatedly failed to complete basic functions — such as interviews or follow-ups on assessments — in 43 cases where a child later died from abuse or neglect.
In 40 percent of those deaths — 17 children — county social workers failed to start or did not accept an assessment after a referral warranted an investigation for abuse or neglect.
The state department opens an investigation whenever a child's death is a result of abuse or neglect and there was contact with the county child welfare system during the two years before the child's death, said spokeswoman Liz McDonough.
Before 2011, an investigation was opened if a child entered the system five years before the death.
Human Services' latest investigation will be into the death of 3-year-old Caleb Pacheco, whose body was found tucked underneath a Sterling mobile home last week. His mother, Juanita Kinzie, 24, is in custody and faces one count of first-degree murder in her son's death.
In 2011, 21 child-fatality reports were launched in Colorado. Two have been completed. Reports become public after they are finished and if they show policy violations or concerns. The Denver Post obtained all 43 public reports completed in the past five years.
Most of the reports included multiple referrals and assessments.
According to The Post's findings:
There were 27 instances in which county social workers failed to contact, interview or follow up with victims, caregivers, reporting parties or other adults involved in an referral.
There were 32 instances in which social workers did not document unsafe conditions, prior incidents or other concerns in their assessments.
There were 33 occasions during which assessments were not started in a timely manner, were completed incorrectly or left open beyond the allotted time frame.
In five cases, social workers failed to account for other children or caregivers living in the home, and communication difficulties across county departments and other systems — such as law enforcement — hindered an investigation in five cases.
One of the reports was on 7-year-old Chandler Grafner, who was starved by his foster parents, Jon Phillips and Sarah Berry, in 2007.
In December, a federal judge ruled that the Denver social workers who were involved with his case were not immune from a lawsuit filed by the boy's relatives. Phillips was sentenced to life in Chandler's death and Berry to 48 years.
Caleb's family members say they last saw the boy in January 2011. During the year he was missing, the boy's family said they called social services in three counties more than 70 times.
Human Services cannot release details about Caleb's case or confirm whether his family contacted county departments because the investigation into the boy's death is ongoing, and a Logan County judge issued a gag order in the case, McDonough said.
Dr. Kim Bundy-Fazioli, an associate professor at Colorado State University's School of Social Work, said the family's claims about unanswered calls for help are a concern.
"When families aren't making progress, there is a lot of chaos, and it can be overwhelming for case workers and service providers," Bundy-Fazioli said.
"You never know who to interview or who to trust, but it's not an excuse not to intervene."
Bundy-Fazioli also was concerned about decreased funding for county programs and increased caseloads for overwhelmed social workers, who often have to make judgment calls on high-priority cases and investigations.
Each of Colorado's 64 county departments are being asked to do more with less, said Becky Miller Updike, ombudsman with the Office of Colorado's Child Protection. Often, families in the most dire situations are also more transient, making it harder to track children through school systems and other county departments.
"We have to cut back dollars from our counties every year, causing us to ask them to do more with less," Miller Updike said.
Source http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_19844865
In the past five years, 43 Colorado children died from abuse or neglect after entering the child welfare program. Every one of those deaths was marked by a policy violation or sparked concern in the way the case was handled by county social workers.
Investigations completed by the Colorado Department of Human Services since 2007 indicate that social workers in 18 counties repeatedly failed to complete basic functions — such as interviews or follow-ups on assessments — in 43 cases where a child later died from abuse or neglect.
In 40 percent of those deaths — 17 children — county social workers failed to start or did not accept an assessment after a referral warranted an investigation for abuse or neglect.
The state department opens an investigation whenever a child's death is a result of abuse or neglect and there was contact with the county child welfare system during the two years before the child's death, said spokeswoman Liz McDonough.
Before 2011, an investigation was opened if a child entered the system five years before the death.
Human Services' latest investigation will be into the death of 3-year-old Caleb Pacheco, whose body was found tucked underneath a Sterling mobile home last week. His mother, Juanita Kinzie, 24, is in custody and faces one count of first-degree murder in her son's death.
In 2011, 21 child-fatality reports were launched in Colorado. Two have been completed. Reports become public after they are finished and if they show policy violations or concerns. The Denver Post obtained all 43 public reports completed in the past five years.
Most of the reports included multiple referrals and assessments.
According to The Post's findings:
There were 27 instances in which county social workers failed to contact, interview or follow up with victims, caregivers, reporting parties or other adults involved in an referral.
There were 32 instances in which social workers did not document unsafe conditions, prior incidents or other concerns in their assessments.
There were 33 occasions during which assessments were not started in a timely manner, were completed incorrectly or left open beyond the allotted time frame.
In five cases, social workers failed to account for other children or caregivers living in the home, and communication difficulties across county departments and other systems — such as law enforcement — hindered an investigation in five cases.
One of the reports was on 7-year-old Chandler Grafner, who was starved by his foster parents, Jon Phillips and Sarah Berry, in 2007.
In December, a federal judge ruled that the Denver social workers who were involved with his case were not immune from a lawsuit filed by the boy's relatives. Phillips was sentenced to life in Chandler's death and Berry to 48 years.
Caleb's family members say they last saw the boy in January 2011. During the year he was missing, the boy's family said they called social services in three counties more than 70 times.
Human Services cannot release details about Caleb's case or confirm whether his family contacted county departments because the investigation into the boy's death is ongoing, and a Logan County judge issued a gag order in the case, McDonough said.
Dr. Kim Bundy-Fazioli, an associate professor at Colorado State University's School of Social Work, said the family's claims about unanswered calls for help are a concern.
"When families aren't making progress, there is a lot of chaos, and it can be overwhelming for case workers and service providers," Bundy-Fazioli said.
"You never know who to interview or who to trust, but it's not an excuse not to intervene."
Bundy-Fazioli also was concerned about decreased funding for county programs and increased caseloads for overwhelmed social workers, who often have to make judgment calls on high-priority cases and investigations.
Each of Colorado's 64 county departments are being asked to do more with less, said Becky Miller Updike, ombudsman with the Office of Colorado's Child Protection. Often, families in the most dire situations are also more transient, making it harder to track children through school systems and other county departments.
"We have to cut back dollars from our counties every year, causing us to ask them to do more with less," Miller Updike said.
Source http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_19844865
Monday, January 23, 2012
Star Watch: Could deaths of Indiana children have been prevented?
Bogger note:
Sometimes parents are at fault in child abuse and neglect cases. In many of those cases, CPS fails the children for a number of reasons, none of which are reasonable or make any kind of sense - simply - CPS failed. It's a shame that children who are in truly abusive homes are suffering which sometimes leads to their death whild children who are not in abusive homes are kidnapped by CPS and sold to the highest bidder. Seems that CPS should stop the baby selling business and focus on the job that they were originally intended to do - protecting children. We question if CPS has any idea how to do their jobs and how they deem homes safe and etc. Seems that they fail miserably at their job.
---
Investigation raises questions about whether Department of Child Services could have done more to protect kids
Written by Tim Evans
Taylor Creech, 5 months old.
Nygell Easter, 6 months old.
Julian Hurley, 4 years old.
Devin Parsons, 12 years old.
Tramelle Sturgis, 10 years old.
Irdessa Vazquez, 6 months old.
Six Hoosier children -- white, black and Hispanic, from small towns and big cities. All dead.
Their short, disparate lives are connected by one common thread: the Indiana Department of Child Services.
Before each of these children died last year, concerns about their care and treatment were reported -- repeatedly, in some cases -- to the state agency responsible for investigating allegations of child abuse and neglect.
In some cases, DCS determined the allegations did not merit an investigation. In others, the agency opened investigations but was unable to make contact with the family or found no problems -- case closed. And in two of the deaths, DCS had open cases at the time the children were killed.
But in each case -- and despite evidence of mounting trouble -- DCS ultimately left the children with their parents.
The 2011 fatalities uncovered by The Indianapolis Star raise questions about the quality of the agency's investigations and safety assessments, as well as with the services provided to struggling families.
It is not child deaths alone, however, that suggest lingering problems. There are other troubling indicators that the system is still failing too many Hoosier children:
The rate at which children suffer repeat abuse or neglect within six months of a DCS intervention -- a telling and nationally recognized measure -- remains basically unchanged from 2004 at about 8 percent. The federal government has a target standard of 5.4 percent, which 27 states met in 2010. Twelve states had a higher re-abuse rate than Indiana.
Despite a significant increase in the number of reports made to DCS, the agency is investigating a smaller percentage of the reports it receives -- and it is substantiating a smaller percentage of the cases that are investigated.
Altogether, the issues raise serious questions about the ambitious and costly reform project initiated in 2005 by Gov. Mitch Daniels to fix Indiana's long-troubled child welfare system and protect vulnerable children.
Despite hiring nearly 800 new field workers, setting caseload limits and expanding training, it is not clear that children involved with DCS are any safer now than they were before the overhaul.
"Clearly," said state Sen. Jean Breaux, D-Indianapolis, "the system is still broken."
In a written response to questions submitted by The Star, DCS spokeswoman Ann Houseworth disagreed.
"We are providing better outcomes for kids," she said.
Houseworth cited the added caseworkers, a centralized call center that provides uniformity in response to reports of abuse and neglect, a reduction in the number of children placed outside of their homes, and a decrease in the number of children who languish in the system for years with no permanent homes.
The agency's work was honored last week by Casey Family Programs for excellence in leadership, in part because of its efforts to decrease the number of children in institutional and foster care.
The approach DCS calls "Safely Home-Families First" is a concept that is gaining acceptance in child welfare circles across the country. It is based on research that shows the trauma of being torn from family can be as devastating to a child as some forms of neglect and abuse.
The key to success in the "family preservation" approach, according to experts, is making sure that there is a thorough and accurate assessment of a family's challenges and strengths -- and that adequate services are available to ensure that the problems of parents are addressed so their children can safely remain at home.
Houseworth acknowledged "DCS is concerned" about its inability to reduce the re-abuse rate but said the agency has no control over the behavior of parents once a case is closed.
Others have an idea why the rate hasn't budged.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, is an outspoken proponent of keeping families together while working through their problems. He said the state's inability to reduce re-abuse indicates DCS is not providing adequate or appropriate services to families.
"The question is: What is DCS doing before a case is closed?" he said. "It sounds to me like DCS lacked the competence to build the programs that are needed."
Intensive services that are proven to keep children safe don't come cheap, Wexler said.
That said, DCS officials have given back $320 million since 2009 to the state treasury -- including $103 million in 2011.
That was money lawmakers earmarked to help abused and neglected children but instead was used, at the governor's urging, to help bolster the state's balance sheet during the economic downturn. And it happened as reports of abuse and neglect increased in the state.
"The money DCS 'threw away' may well have helped children and families," Wexler said, "if it had been spent for the right kinds of programs."
Houseworth said returning the money has not caused children to suffer.
"Our goal is not just to spend money on services," she said. "We're charged with providing appropriate services children need and at the same time use our dollars wisely."
How that money is spent to help families is determined by a team -- which includes DCS staff, family members and local service providers -- that works to identify the kinds of help a troubled family needs.
The bulk of the money that was returned by DCS was not the result of skimping on those types of services, Houseworth said. Rather, it was not needed because of the significant savings provided by slashing the number of children placed in residential facilities. The cost for such services can run as high as $100,000 a year per child.
But state Rep. William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, said common sense makes him think some of the cases in which children died -- and many others across the state where children suffered repeat abuse and neglect -- might have turned out differently if DCS had used more of the money to better monitor and help those families.
"Their mantra is that they are doing more with less," he said, "but that doesn't appear to be working for the children."
Crawford has filed legislation to create a Commission on Improving the Status of Children, which would monitor and review state services and programs -- including those of DCS -- and produce an annual report detailing the state's successes and shortcomings.
"You have to wonder," said Crawford, "if (DCS) didn't put vulnerable children in jeopardy just so the governor could say 'look at what the state has in the bank' when he leaves office."
Breaux also questioned whether the agency's budget decisions have been in the best interest of children and families.
"It just breaks my heart when I hear those stories about children dying," she said. "It seems to me that DCS would want to keep as many dollars as it could to protect and help children."
How were concerns handled?
Each of the six deaths investigated by The Star highlights one or more continuing concerns about the agency's work.
There are likely many other victims. The Star's investigation has found at least 17 other deaths over the past five years -- DCS says that's not something the agency tracks -- including many that revealed the same problems that showed up in the 2011 cases.
Clearly, DCS is not solely responsible for the deaths; it was the abuse and neglect that killed the children. But there had been desperate cries for help calling these very children and adults to the attention of DCS.
The death of Devin Parsons, a Greensburg boy who had just completed the fourth grade, raises questions about the agency's increasing push to leave children with troubled parents and the quality of services DCS provides to those families.
Devin's mother had been investigated for allegations of abuse or neglect at least 18 times since Devin was born in 1999, including nine reports in the last year of his life. The agency repeatedly ordered Tasha Parsons to participate in counseling and other services but never removed Devin or his siblings -- even after the Greensburg boy told a caseworker in April that he was afraid to go back home.
A little more than one month later, police say, Devin was savagely beaten to death by his mother and her boyfriend.
The death of Nygell Easter in Indianapolis raises questions about the sufficiency of DCS investigations at a time when the agency is citing parents in a smaller percentage of the reports it investigates.
Nygell was 3 months old when he ended up at an Indianapolis hospital in December 2010. Medical personnel suspected abuse and called DCS. The agency opened an investigation. But it was closed with an "unsubstantiated" finding in January 2011 after the family blamed Nygell's older brother for the injury.
Less than two months later, Nygell was dead. Once again, his family tried to blame Nygell's fatal head injury on his 1-year-old brother. An investigation by police and the coroner, however, determined the injury could not have happened the way the family described, and his father -- who was convicted one year earlier for sexual misconduct with a minor -- faces murder charges.
The death of Taylor Creech in Columbia City raises questions about the urgency and tenacity with which DCS investigates reports, and also the agency's collaboration with law enforcement.
Before Taylor was born, family members said DCS had removed two of Janele Creech's other children because of her drug use. In November 2010, Janele's sisters turned to Janele's probation officer and DCS, reporting Taylor was in danger because their sister was making and using methamphetamine around her new baby.
They said the report prompted DCS to send a caseworker to Creech's home. But when no one answered the door, the worker left a card with a note asking Creech to call the agency. She didn't. Instead, Creech basically went into hiding, avoiding contact with her family.
Creech subsequently failed a mandatory probation department drug test on Dec. 23, 2010, but a warrant for her arrest was not issued for an additional week -- and probation officials apparently did not notify DCS.
Three days after a judge issued the warrant for Creech's arrest, she still had not been picked up for the probation violation or contacted by DCS -- and Taylor was dead.
The coroner told her aunts the baby died after a case of bronchitis. Creech had allowed it to go untreated while trying to avoid authorities, and it developed into sepsis. That condition pushed poisons into Taylor's bloodstream, contributing to her suffocation as she slept on a sofa with Creech's boyfriend.
"You hear all the time that if you suspect abuse or neglect, you need to report it," said Taylor's aunt, Michele Freewalt, who went to the Whitley County DCS office to report her fears for the baby.
"But it didn't do us any good. That's what makes me the most angry: We did exactly what we were supposed to do, and they dropped the ball."
The death of Tramelle Sturgis in South Bend also raises questions about the quality of DCS assessments.
A caseworker investigated a report in May that Tramelle's father and grandmother were beating children in the home with a wooden club -- a very specific allegation. But the DCS investigator reported on June 20 that there was no evidence of abuse.
Five months later, Tramelle, 10, was dead. A police investigation revealed the boy "suffered from numerous injuries, both old and new," according to court documents.
The final, fatal beating, investigators allege, was administered by his father. Tramelle was beaten to death with a wooden club.
Source http://www.indystar.com/article/20120122/LOCAL/201220337/Star-Watch-Could-deaths-Indiana-children-been-prevented-?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CIndyStar.com
Sometimes parents are at fault in child abuse and neglect cases. In many of those cases, CPS fails the children for a number of reasons, none of which are reasonable or make any kind of sense - simply - CPS failed. It's a shame that children who are in truly abusive homes are suffering which sometimes leads to their death whild children who are not in abusive homes are kidnapped by CPS and sold to the highest bidder. Seems that CPS should stop the baby selling business and focus on the job that they were originally intended to do - protecting children. We question if CPS has any idea how to do their jobs and how they deem homes safe and etc. Seems that they fail miserably at their job.
---
Investigation raises questions about whether Department of Child Services could have done more to protect kids
Written by Tim Evans
Taylor Creech, 5 months old.
Nygell Easter, 6 months old.
Julian Hurley, 4 years old.
Devin Parsons, 12 years old.
Tramelle Sturgis, 10 years old.
Irdessa Vazquez, 6 months old.
Six Hoosier children -- white, black and Hispanic, from small towns and big cities. All dead.
Their short, disparate lives are connected by one common thread: the Indiana Department of Child Services.
Before each of these children died last year, concerns about their care and treatment were reported -- repeatedly, in some cases -- to the state agency responsible for investigating allegations of child abuse and neglect.
In some cases, DCS determined the allegations did not merit an investigation. In others, the agency opened investigations but was unable to make contact with the family or found no problems -- case closed. And in two of the deaths, DCS had open cases at the time the children were killed.
But in each case -- and despite evidence of mounting trouble -- DCS ultimately left the children with their parents.
The 2011 fatalities uncovered by The Indianapolis Star raise questions about the quality of the agency's investigations and safety assessments, as well as with the services provided to struggling families.
It is not child deaths alone, however, that suggest lingering problems. There are other troubling indicators that the system is still failing too many Hoosier children:
The rate at which children suffer repeat abuse or neglect within six months of a DCS intervention -- a telling and nationally recognized measure -- remains basically unchanged from 2004 at about 8 percent. The federal government has a target standard of 5.4 percent, which 27 states met in 2010. Twelve states had a higher re-abuse rate than Indiana.
Despite a significant increase in the number of reports made to DCS, the agency is investigating a smaller percentage of the reports it receives -- and it is substantiating a smaller percentage of the cases that are investigated.
Altogether, the issues raise serious questions about the ambitious and costly reform project initiated in 2005 by Gov. Mitch Daniels to fix Indiana's long-troubled child welfare system and protect vulnerable children.
Despite hiring nearly 800 new field workers, setting caseload limits and expanding training, it is not clear that children involved with DCS are any safer now than they were before the overhaul.
"Clearly," said state Sen. Jean Breaux, D-Indianapolis, "the system is still broken."
In a written response to questions submitted by The Star, DCS spokeswoman Ann Houseworth disagreed.
"We are providing better outcomes for kids," she said.
Houseworth cited the added caseworkers, a centralized call center that provides uniformity in response to reports of abuse and neglect, a reduction in the number of children placed outside of their homes, and a decrease in the number of children who languish in the system for years with no permanent homes.
The agency's work was honored last week by Casey Family Programs for excellence in leadership, in part because of its efforts to decrease the number of children in institutional and foster care.
The approach DCS calls "Safely Home-Families First" is a concept that is gaining acceptance in child welfare circles across the country. It is based on research that shows the trauma of being torn from family can be as devastating to a child as some forms of neglect and abuse.
The key to success in the "family preservation" approach, according to experts, is making sure that there is a thorough and accurate assessment of a family's challenges and strengths -- and that adequate services are available to ensure that the problems of parents are addressed so their children can safely remain at home.
Houseworth acknowledged "DCS is concerned" about its inability to reduce the re-abuse rate but said the agency has no control over the behavior of parents once a case is closed.
Others have an idea why the rate hasn't budged.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, is an outspoken proponent of keeping families together while working through their problems. He said the state's inability to reduce re-abuse indicates DCS is not providing adequate or appropriate services to families.
"The question is: What is DCS doing before a case is closed?" he said. "It sounds to me like DCS lacked the competence to build the programs that are needed."
Intensive services that are proven to keep children safe don't come cheap, Wexler said.
That said, DCS officials have given back $320 million since 2009 to the state treasury -- including $103 million in 2011.
That was money lawmakers earmarked to help abused and neglected children but instead was used, at the governor's urging, to help bolster the state's balance sheet during the economic downturn. And it happened as reports of abuse and neglect increased in the state.
"The money DCS 'threw away' may well have helped children and families," Wexler said, "if it had been spent for the right kinds of programs."
Houseworth said returning the money has not caused children to suffer.
"Our goal is not just to spend money on services," she said. "We're charged with providing appropriate services children need and at the same time use our dollars wisely."
How that money is spent to help families is determined by a team -- which includes DCS staff, family members and local service providers -- that works to identify the kinds of help a troubled family needs.
The bulk of the money that was returned by DCS was not the result of skimping on those types of services, Houseworth said. Rather, it was not needed because of the significant savings provided by slashing the number of children placed in residential facilities. The cost for such services can run as high as $100,000 a year per child.
But state Rep. William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, said common sense makes him think some of the cases in which children died -- and many others across the state where children suffered repeat abuse and neglect -- might have turned out differently if DCS had used more of the money to better monitor and help those families.
"Their mantra is that they are doing more with less," he said, "but that doesn't appear to be working for the children."
Crawford has filed legislation to create a Commission on Improving the Status of Children, which would monitor and review state services and programs -- including those of DCS -- and produce an annual report detailing the state's successes and shortcomings.
"You have to wonder," said Crawford, "if (DCS) didn't put vulnerable children in jeopardy just so the governor could say 'look at what the state has in the bank' when he leaves office."
Breaux also questioned whether the agency's budget decisions have been in the best interest of children and families.
"It just breaks my heart when I hear those stories about children dying," she said. "It seems to me that DCS would want to keep as many dollars as it could to protect and help children."
How were concerns handled?
Each of the six deaths investigated by The Star highlights one or more continuing concerns about the agency's work.
There are likely many other victims. The Star's investigation has found at least 17 other deaths over the past five years -- DCS says that's not something the agency tracks -- including many that revealed the same problems that showed up in the 2011 cases.
Clearly, DCS is not solely responsible for the deaths; it was the abuse and neglect that killed the children. But there had been desperate cries for help calling these very children and adults to the attention of DCS.
The death of Devin Parsons, a Greensburg boy who had just completed the fourth grade, raises questions about the agency's increasing push to leave children with troubled parents and the quality of services DCS provides to those families.
Devin's mother had been investigated for allegations of abuse or neglect at least 18 times since Devin was born in 1999, including nine reports in the last year of his life. The agency repeatedly ordered Tasha Parsons to participate in counseling and other services but never removed Devin or his siblings -- even after the Greensburg boy told a caseworker in April that he was afraid to go back home.
A little more than one month later, police say, Devin was savagely beaten to death by his mother and her boyfriend.
The death of Nygell Easter in Indianapolis raises questions about the sufficiency of DCS investigations at a time when the agency is citing parents in a smaller percentage of the reports it investigates.
Nygell was 3 months old when he ended up at an Indianapolis hospital in December 2010. Medical personnel suspected abuse and called DCS. The agency opened an investigation. But it was closed with an "unsubstantiated" finding in January 2011 after the family blamed Nygell's older brother for the injury.
Less than two months later, Nygell was dead. Once again, his family tried to blame Nygell's fatal head injury on his 1-year-old brother. An investigation by police and the coroner, however, determined the injury could not have happened the way the family described, and his father -- who was convicted one year earlier for sexual misconduct with a minor -- faces murder charges.
The death of Taylor Creech in Columbia City raises questions about the urgency and tenacity with which DCS investigates reports, and also the agency's collaboration with law enforcement.
Before Taylor was born, family members said DCS had removed two of Janele Creech's other children because of her drug use. In November 2010, Janele's sisters turned to Janele's probation officer and DCS, reporting Taylor was in danger because their sister was making and using methamphetamine around her new baby.
They said the report prompted DCS to send a caseworker to Creech's home. But when no one answered the door, the worker left a card with a note asking Creech to call the agency. She didn't. Instead, Creech basically went into hiding, avoiding contact with her family.
Creech subsequently failed a mandatory probation department drug test on Dec. 23, 2010, but a warrant for her arrest was not issued for an additional week -- and probation officials apparently did not notify DCS.
Three days after a judge issued the warrant for Creech's arrest, she still had not been picked up for the probation violation or contacted by DCS -- and Taylor was dead.
The coroner told her aunts the baby died after a case of bronchitis. Creech had allowed it to go untreated while trying to avoid authorities, and it developed into sepsis. That condition pushed poisons into Taylor's bloodstream, contributing to her suffocation as she slept on a sofa with Creech's boyfriend.
"You hear all the time that if you suspect abuse or neglect, you need to report it," said Taylor's aunt, Michele Freewalt, who went to the Whitley County DCS office to report her fears for the baby.
"But it didn't do us any good. That's what makes me the most angry: We did exactly what we were supposed to do, and they dropped the ball."
The death of Tramelle Sturgis in South Bend also raises questions about the quality of DCS assessments.
A caseworker investigated a report in May that Tramelle's father and grandmother were beating children in the home with a wooden club -- a very specific allegation. But the DCS investigator reported on June 20 that there was no evidence of abuse.
Five months later, Tramelle, 10, was dead. A police investigation revealed the boy "suffered from numerous injuries, both old and new," according to court documents.
The final, fatal beating, investigators allege, was administered by his father. Tramelle was beaten to death with a wooden club.
Source http://www.indystar.com/article/20120122/LOCAL/201220337/Star-Watch-Could-deaths-Indiana-children-been-prevented-?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CIndyStar.com
Monday, December 5, 2011
Critics: ‘Tough’ sheriff botched sex-crime cases - Arizona
Jacques Billeaud, Associated Press
The 13-year-old girl opened the door of her home in this small city on the edge of Phoenix to encounter a man who said that his car had broken down and he needed to use the phone. Once inside, the man pummeled the teen from behind, knocking her unconscious and sexually assaulting her.
Seven months before, in an apartment two miles away, another 13-year-old girl was fondled in the middle of the night by her mother’s live-in boyfriend. She woke up in her room at least twice a week to find him standing over her, claiming to be looking for her mother’s cell phone.
Both cases were among more than 400 sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office during a three-year period ending in 2007 — including dozens of alleged child molestations — that were inadequately investigated and in some instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police officers familiar with the cases.
In El Mirage alone, where Arpaio’s office was providing contract police services, officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations — with victims as young as 2 years old — where the sheriff’s office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases.
Many of the victims, said a retired El Mirage police official who reviewed the files, were children of illegal immigrants.
The botched sex-crimes investigations have served as an embarrassment to a department whose sheriff is the self-described “America’s Toughest Sheriff’’ and a national hero to conservatives on the immigration issue.
Arpaio’s office refused several requests over a period of months to answer questions about the investigations and declined a public records request for an internal affairs report, citing potential disciplinary actions.
Brian Sands, a top sheriff’s official who is in charge of the potential discipline of any responsible employees, was later made available to talk about the cases. He declined to say why they weren’t investigated. “There are policy violations that have occurred here,’’ Sands said. “It’s obvious, but I can’t comment on who or what.’’
Sands said officers had subsequently moved to clear up inadequately investigated sex-crimes in El Mirage and elsewhere in the county. He said leads were worked if they existed and cases were closed if there was no further evidence to pursue.
Arpaio’s office was under contract to provide police services in El Mirage as the city struggled with its then dysfunctional department. After the contract ended and El Mirage was re-establishing its own police operation, the city spent a year sifting through layers of disturbingly incomplete casework.
El Mirage Detective Jerry Laird, who reviewed some the investigations, learned from a sheriff’s summary of 50 to 75 cases files he picked up from Arpaio’s office that an overwhelming majority of them hadn’t been worked.
That meant there were no follow-up reports, no collection of additional forensic evidence and zero effort made after the initial report of the crime was taken.
“I think that at some point prior to the contract (for police services) running out, they put their feet on the desk, and that was that,’’ Laird said.
Arpaio acknowledged his office had completed an internal probe into the inadequate investigations, but said, “I don’t think it’s right to get into it until we get to the bottom of this and see if there’s disciplinary action against any employees.’’
A small number of cases from El Mirage were handed over to prosecutors, but the El Mirage Police Department said most were no longer viable — evidence dating as far back as 2006 had grown cold or wasn’t collected in the first place, victims had either moved away or otherwise moved on.
Bill Louis, then-assistant El Mirage police chief who reviewed the files after the sheriff’s contract ended, believes the decision to ignore the cases was made deliberately by supervisors in Arpaio’s office — and not by individual investigators.
“I know the investigators. I just cannot believe they would wholesale discount these cases. No way,’’ Louis said. “The direction had to come (from) up the food chain.’’
Louis said he believes whoever made the decision knew that illegal immigrants — who are often transient and fear the police — were unlikely to complain about the quality of investigations. He said some cases also involved families here legally.
El Mirage paid the sheriff’s office $2.7 million for a wide range of police protection from 2005 through mid-October 2007, after the city’s police department had been criticized in an audit as poorly organized, loosely supervised and mismanaged.
Although a small number of El Mirage officers continued working there during the period, Arpaio brought in patrol officers and detectives and managers who ran the department.
El Mirage police files obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests establish a pattern of sex-crimes not actually being investigated after the crimes were reported to Arpaio’s office.
In April 2007, a 3-year-old girl was reported molested by her father, an illegal immigrant who cared for the child while her mother was at work. When the mother confronted her husband about the abuse, he cried and swore he’d never do it again.
Yet a few days later, the mother noticed more signs of sexual abuse on her daughter and called for help. After the initial report, that help didn’t come.
The string of unresolved cases left Elizabeth Ditlevson, deputy director for the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, shaking her head. “My impressions were anger at the system and concern for the people whose cases weren’t addressed,’’ she said.
According to both Sands and Scott Freeman, a sheriff’s official who heard complaints from then-El Mirage Police Chief Mike Frazier about the quality of the sex-crimes investigations, more than 400 cases countywide had to be reopened. Freeman told outside investigators examining alleged managerial misconduct at Arpaio’s office that a number of arrests were made in the reopened cases.
The April 2011 report on alleged managerial misconduct said the sheriff’s internal effort to determine what had gone wrong with the sex-crimes investigations was twice derailed.
One delay occurred when the male sheriff’s official leading the inquiry was accused of sexual harassment — this by a female supervisor whose portfolio included some of the mishandled cases, according to the report.
Another internal affairs investigation, launched in May 2008, was stopped after the investigator was pulled away at the direction of David Hendershott, then the top aide to Arpaio, to help with another matter. The internal probe was reopened in December 2010 while Hendershott was on medical leave, according to the 2011 summary.
Hendershott’s account conflicted with others.
Hendershott, who has since resigned amid separate misconduct allegations and declined a request by the AP to comment, told investigators the internal affairs inquiry was still in progress when he went on medical leave in 2010.
Still, Hendershott told investigators that the El Mirage Police Department had good reason to be upset about the sex-crimes handled by the sheriff’s office.
The report of the 13-year-old who had been inappropriately touched by her mother’s live-in boyfriend had been faxed to one of Arpaio’s investigators. El Mirage police, who were given back the case about 11 months later, learned that it hadn’t been worked.
When El Mirage police finally tracked down the mother, she said her boyfriend had moved out and that she no longer had contact with him. She and her daughter were in counseling and didn’t want to bring the case to court.
In their follow-up on the case of the 13-year-old attacked by the man claiming to have a broken car, El Mirage police discovered Arpaio’s office hadn’t interviewed the victim.
An El Mirage detective went to the girl’s home just off the city’s main drag. The girl’s uncle said she and her mother weren’t around and took the investigator’s card with a promise to ask them to call.
The mother never called back. She and her daughter’s whereabouts are unknown.
The case of the molested 3-year-old was returned to El Mirage police unworked five months after the initial report. The family’s beige tract home was deserted, the phone disconnected.
Source http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-04/news/30475413_1_child-molestations-crimes-police-officers
The 13-year-old girl opened the door of her home in this small city on the edge of Phoenix to encounter a man who said that his car had broken down and he needed to use the phone. Once inside, the man pummeled the teen from behind, knocking her unconscious and sexually assaulting her.
Seven months before, in an apartment two miles away, another 13-year-old girl was fondled in the middle of the night by her mother’s live-in boyfriend. She woke up in her room at least twice a week to find him standing over her, claiming to be looking for her mother’s cell phone.
Both cases were among more than 400 sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office during a three-year period ending in 2007 — including dozens of alleged child molestations — that were inadequately investigated and in some instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police officers familiar with the cases.
In El Mirage alone, where Arpaio’s office was providing contract police services, officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations — with victims as young as 2 years old — where the sheriff’s office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases.
Many of the victims, said a retired El Mirage police official who reviewed the files, were children of illegal immigrants.
The botched sex-crimes investigations have served as an embarrassment to a department whose sheriff is the self-described “America’s Toughest Sheriff’’ and a national hero to conservatives on the immigration issue.
Arpaio’s office refused several requests over a period of months to answer questions about the investigations and declined a public records request for an internal affairs report, citing potential disciplinary actions.
Brian Sands, a top sheriff’s official who is in charge of the potential discipline of any responsible employees, was later made available to talk about the cases. He declined to say why they weren’t investigated. “There are policy violations that have occurred here,’’ Sands said. “It’s obvious, but I can’t comment on who or what.’’
Sands said officers had subsequently moved to clear up inadequately investigated sex-crimes in El Mirage and elsewhere in the county. He said leads were worked if they existed and cases were closed if there was no further evidence to pursue.
Arpaio’s office was under contract to provide police services in El Mirage as the city struggled with its then dysfunctional department. After the contract ended and El Mirage was re-establishing its own police operation, the city spent a year sifting through layers of disturbingly incomplete casework.
El Mirage Detective Jerry Laird, who reviewed some the investigations, learned from a sheriff’s summary of 50 to 75 cases files he picked up from Arpaio’s office that an overwhelming majority of them hadn’t been worked.
That meant there were no follow-up reports, no collection of additional forensic evidence and zero effort made after the initial report of the crime was taken.
“I think that at some point prior to the contract (for police services) running out, they put their feet on the desk, and that was that,’’ Laird said.
Arpaio acknowledged his office had completed an internal probe into the inadequate investigations, but said, “I don’t think it’s right to get into it until we get to the bottom of this and see if there’s disciplinary action against any employees.’’
A small number of cases from El Mirage were handed over to prosecutors, but the El Mirage Police Department said most were no longer viable — evidence dating as far back as 2006 had grown cold or wasn’t collected in the first place, victims had either moved away or otherwise moved on.
Bill Louis, then-assistant El Mirage police chief who reviewed the files after the sheriff’s contract ended, believes the decision to ignore the cases was made deliberately by supervisors in Arpaio’s office — and not by individual investigators.
“I know the investigators. I just cannot believe they would wholesale discount these cases. No way,’’ Louis said. “The direction had to come (from) up the food chain.’’
Louis said he believes whoever made the decision knew that illegal immigrants — who are often transient and fear the police — were unlikely to complain about the quality of investigations. He said some cases also involved families here legally.
El Mirage paid the sheriff’s office $2.7 million for a wide range of police protection from 2005 through mid-October 2007, after the city’s police department had been criticized in an audit as poorly organized, loosely supervised and mismanaged.
Although a small number of El Mirage officers continued working there during the period, Arpaio brought in patrol officers and detectives and managers who ran the department.
El Mirage police files obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests establish a pattern of sex-crimes not actually being investigated after the crimes were reported to Arpaio’s office.
In April 2007, a 3-year-old girl was reported molested by her father, an illegal immigrant who cared for the child while her mother was at work. When the mother confronted her husband about the abuse, he cried and swore he’d never do it again.
Yet a few days later, the mother noticed more signs of sexual abuse on her daughter and called for help. After the initial report, that help didn’t come.
The string of unresolved cases left Elizabeth Ditlevson, deputy director for the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, shaking her head. “My impressions were anger at the system and concern for the people whose cases weren’t addressed,’’ she said.
According to both Sands and Scott Freeman, a sheriff’s official who heard complaints from then-El Mirage Police Chief Mike Frazier about the quality of the sex-crimes investigations, more than 400 cases countywide had to be reopened. Freeman told outside investigators examining alleged managerial misconduct at Arpaio’s office that a number of arrests were made in the reopened cases.
The April 2011 report on alleged managerial misconduct said the sheriff’s internal effort to determine what had gone wrong with the sex-crimes investigations was twice derailed.
One delay occurred when the male sheriff’s official leading the inquiry was accused of sexual harassment — this by a female supervisor whose portfolio included some of the mishandled cases, according to the report.
Another internal affairs investigation, launched in May 2008, was stopped after the investigator was pulled away at the direction of David Hendershott, then the top aide to Arpaio, to help with another matter. The internal probe was reopened in December 2010 while Hendershott was on medical leave, according to the 2011 summary.
Hendershott’s account conflicted with others.
Hendershott, who has since resigned amid separate misconduct allegations and declined a request by the AP to comment, told investigators the internal affairs inquiry was still in progress when he went on medical leave in 2010.
Still, Hendershott told investigators that the El Mirage Police Department had good reason to be upset about the sex-crimes handled by the sheriff’s office.
The report of the 13-year-old who had been inappropriately touched by her mother’s live-in boyfriend had been faxed to one of Arpaio’s investigators. El Mirage police, who were given back the case about 11 months later, learned that it hadn’t been worked.
When El Mirage police finally tracked down the mother, she said her boyfriend had moved out and that she no longer had contact with him. She and her daughter were in counseling and didn’t want to bring the case to court.
In their follow-up on the case of the 13-year-old attacked by the man claiming to have a broken car, El Mirage police discovered Arpaio’s office hadn’t interviewed the victim.
An El Mirage detective went to the girl’s home just off the city’s main drag. The girl’s uncle said she and her mother weren’t around and took the investigator’s card with a promise to ask them to call.
The mother never called back. She and her daughter’s whereabouts are unknown.
The case of the molested 3-year-old was returned to El Mirage police unworked five months after the initial report. The family’s beige tract home was deserted, the phone disconnected.
Source http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-04/news/30475413_1_child-molestations-crimes-police-officers
Friday, December 2, 2011
Judge rules two of three civil rights claims lacking in foster care case - Oklahoma
By DAVID HARPER
A Tulsa federal judge threw out two of three civil rights claims on Thursday in a class-action lawsuit that seeks changes in Oklahoma's foster-care system.
The plaintiffs, however, claimed to be happy with the decision because their "core claim" is still alive.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell allowed a cause of action dealing with foster children's due process rights to be free from harm - and risk of harm - to survive, but he granted the defense's motions for summary judgment on two other constitutional claims.
The lawsuit was filed against various Oklahoma Department of Human Services officials in February 2008 by Children's Rights, a national child-advocacy group based in New York, and five law firms.
The original plaintiffs were nine children who allegedly had suffered in DHS placements. The case has since become a class-action lawsuit, with thousands of children in DHS custody as plaintiffs.
"This decision is a huge victory for Children's Rights as well as the abused and neglected children in Oklahoma's DHS," Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights, said Thursday evening. "The federal court in Oklahoma has sustained our core claim in today's decision, that children are either being subject to harm or at risk of harm while in state custody."
However, Donald Bingham, an attorney for the defense, said it is important to note that Frizzell did not rule on the merits of the case, finding only that the plaintiffs' side had introduced enough evidence that will "entitle it to its day in court" in February.
Frizzell wrote: "The court concludes plaintiffs have presented proof sufficient to create a genuine dispute of material fact whether defendants' policies, practices and procedures violate plaintiffs' substantive due process right to be reasonably safe from harm."
Frizzell found that the "plaintiffs have presented evidence - albeit disputed - that defendants' oversight of the DHS foster program is so inadequate as to give rise to a question of material fact whether defendants have abdicated their professional judgment."
Also, the judge wrote that experts on both sides of the case, as well as senior DHS managers, "all agree that excessive caseloads, missed visits between case workers and children and inadequate investigations of abuse and neglect pose a threat to the safety of foster children and that inadequate placement options, excessive use of shelters and frequent placement moves threaten the psychological and emotional health of children."
Frizzell wrote that plaintiffs had presented evidence that from 2002 through 2008, the reported rate of abuse or neglect of Oklahoma foster children has been 1.54 to 3.97 times greater than the national rate.
Oklahoma had one of the five highest reported rates in the country during that time, Frizzell wrote.
The judge threw out the plaintiffs' claim that the defendants' policies, practices and procedures interfere with the children's First, Ninth and 14th Amendment liberty and privacy rights.
The plaintiffs asserted that, while DHS policy requires visits between parents and children as well as placement of siblings together whenever possible, the agency's records from 2008 to 2010 reflected that less than 15 percent of visits due between foster children and their biological parents were completed. The plaintiffs also alleged that DHS has a routine practice of separating siblings in custody.
Frizzell wrote that granting the defense's motion for summary judgment on the claim was appropriate because, while individual children can establish acts by DHS workers that have violated their right of familial association, a class-wide deprivation cannot be proven.
The judge noted that the DHS officials sued in the case do not deal with foster children directly. He wrote that, at most, the evidence might support a conclusion that the defendants failed to adequately supervise workers who were charged with the responsibility of ensuring that parent-child visitation occurred.
Frizzell also ruled for the defense on a claim alleging violations of Oklahoma statutes pertaining to the procedural rights of foster children.
The judge wrote that it is impossible for the class as a whole to establish a key element of such a claim because most children's procedural due process rights have not been violated.
Frizzell noted that while the plaintiffs argue that all members are "at risk," they cited no legal authority that such a status meets the requirements for establishing a violation of relevant Fifth and 14th Amendment rights.
The trial, which won't involve a jury, is set for Feb. 21 and is expected to last about four weeks.
Neither side plans to appeal Thursday's mixed ruling.
Source http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=14&articleid=20111202_14_A1_CUTLIN528313
A Tulsa federal judge threw out two of three civil rights claims on Thursday in a class-action lawsuit that seeks changes in Oklahoma's foster-care system.
The plaintiffs, however, claimed to be happy with the decision because their "core claim" is still alive.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell allowed a cause of action dealing with foster children's due process rights to be free from harm - and risk of harm - to survive, but he granted the defense's motions for summary judgment on two other constitutional claims.
The lawsuit was filed against various Oklahoma Department of Human Services officials in February 2008 by Children's Rights, a national child-advocacy group based in New York, and five law firms.
The original plaintiffs were nine children who allegedly had suffered in DHS placements. The case has since become a class-action lawsuit, with thousands of children in DHS custody as plaintiffs.
"This decision is a huge victory for Children's Rights as well as the abused and neglected children in Oklahoma's DHS," Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights, said Thursday evening. "The federal court in Oklahoma has sustained our core claim in today's decision, that children are either being subject to harm or at risk of harm while in state custody."
However, Donald Bingham, an attorney for the defense, said it is important to note that Frizzell did not rule on the merits of the case, finding only that the plaintiffs' side had introduced enough evidence that will "entitle it to its day in court" in February.
Frizzell wrote: "The court concludes plaintiffs have presented proof sufficient to create a genuine dispute of material fact whether defendants' policies, practices and procedures violate plaintiffs' substantive due process right to be reasonably safe from harm."
Frizzell found that the "plaintiffs have presented evidence - albeit disputed - that defendants' oversight of the DHS foster program is so inadequate as to give rise to a question of material fact whether defendants have abdicated their professional judgment."
Also, the judge wrote that experts on both sides of the case, as well as senior DHS managers, "all agree that excessive caseloads, missed visits between case workers and children and inadequate investigations of abuse and neglect pose a threat to the safety of foster children and that inadequate placement options, excessive use of shelters and frequent placement moves threaten the psychological and emotional health of children."
Frizzell wrote that plaintiffs had presented evidence that from 2002 through 2008, the reported rate of abuse or neglect of Oklahoma foster children has been 1.54 to 3.97 times greater than the national rate.
Oklahoma had one of the five highest reported rates in the country during that time, Frizzell wrote.
The judge threw out the plaintiffs' claim that the defendants' policies, practices and procedures interfere with the children's First, Ninth and 14th Amendment liberty and privacy rights.
The plaintiffs asserted that, while DHS policy requires visits between parents and children as well as placement of siblings together whenever possible, the agency's records from 2008 to 2010 reflected that less than 15 percent of visits due between foster children and their biological parents were completed. The plaintiffs also alleged that DHS has a routine practice of separating siblings in custody.
Frizzell wrote that granting the defense's motion for summary judgment on the claim was appropriate because, while individual children can establish acts by DHS workers that have violated their right of familial association, a class-wide deprivation cannot be proven.
The judge noted that the DHS officials sued in the case do not deal with foster children directly. He wrote that, at most, the evidence might support a conclusion that the defendants failed to adequately supervise workers who were charged with the responsibility of ensuring that parent-child visitation occurred.
Frizzell also ruled for the defense on a claim alleging violations of Oklahoma statutes pertaining to the procedural rights of foster children.
The judge wrote that it is impossible for the class as a whole to establish a key element of such a claim because most children's procedural due process rights have not been violated.
Frizzell noted that while the plaintiffs argue that all members are "at risk," they cited no legal authority that such a status meets the requirements for establishing a violation of relevant Fifth and 14th Amendment rights.
The trial, which won't involve a jury, is set for Feb. 21 and is expected to last about four weeks.
Neither side plans to appeal Thursday's mixed ruling.
Source http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=14&articleid=20111202_14_A1_CUTLIN528313
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