Report: Arkansas seventh in nation in child-abuse deaths

Posted on 14 December 2010
By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas has the seventh highest rate in the nation of child deaths resulting from abuse or neglect, according to a report released today by the National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths.

According to the report, which calls for increased media coverage of the issue and greater involvement by the federal government, 21 children died from abuse or neglect in Arkansas in 2008, or about three out of every 100,000 children in the state.

The state with the worst rate — 4.6 deaths per 100,000 children — was Florida, followed in descending order by Nebraska, New Mexico, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas.

The national rate of 2.4 deaths per 100,000 children, or 1,740 deaths, was significantly worse than the rates of other wealthy democracies such as France, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy, which ranged from rates of 1.4 to 0.2 deaths per 100,000 children.

The report is based on 2008 data, but Julie Munsell, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said more recent data is available for the state. In the 2009-2010 federal fiscal year, 32 maltreatment-related child deaths were reported in Arkansas, she said.

Some of the deaths were of children DHS had previous contact with and some were not, Munsell said. She said a significant portion involved parents sleeping in the same bed with an infant, which DHS is working to educate parents not to do.

The coalition’s report argues that official totals of abuse-related child deaths are too low. It claims that examination of the circumstances underlying many child deaths by forensic, medical and maltreatment experts often results in the deaths being reclassified as resulting from abuse.

“There are … what we believe to be nearly 2,500 child-abuse and neglect deaths every year in the United States,” Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, said in a conference call Tuesday announcing the report’s release.

“This is staggering compared to the number of widely publicized Toyota accelerator deaths or H1N1 or even, tragically, U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. While each death is tragic and important, child-abuse deaths receive virtually no national media attention,” Burns said.

The coalition recommended that federal funding for agencies that protect children (?) be increased by between $3 billion and $5 billion, saying the economic downturn has led to cutbacks and layoffs at the agencies.

Arkansas has fared better in this respect than many other states. DHS’ budget for the current fiscal year is 0.6 percent above last year’s budget.

“We’ve put more caseworkers out in the field, upgraded some technological things with respect to our reporting system (and) put more vehicles out in the field,” Munsell said.

Teresa Huizar, director of the National Children’s Alliance, said during the conference call that confidentiality laws regarding violence to children should be revisited.

The laws “have really been misused in a way that prevents the press and policy makers from really having the opportunity to closely look at these cases to see patterns across cases and patterns across types of care,” she said.

In 2008, Arkansas lawmakers complained about delays in getting information on the deaths of four children who had been in foster care. The Legislature passed sweeping reforms in 2009, including a requirement that DHS release information promptly when a child’s death or nearly fatal injury is reported to a state police hotline.

The information initially released on a child’s death is limited to basic facts such as the child’s name and age and the county where the death occurred. More detailed information is available upon request after the resolution of the case.

http://arkansasnews.com/2010/12/14/report-arkansas-seventh-in-nation-in-child-abuse-deaths/

Well, here we are- on the receiving end of all the wonderful CPS agencies "protecting children".

From the brand new "Child Maltreatment 2010" report released 2 days ago, in the Summary Section-

During Federal fiscal year 2010, an estimated 3.3 million referrals, involving the alleged maltreatment of approximately 5.9 million children, were received by CPS agencies.....60.7 percent were screened in, with a range of 25.2 to 98.7 percent among the States and 39.3 percent were screened out...

Of the 1,793,724 reports that received an investigation, 436,321 were substantiated; 24,976 were found to be indicated; and 1,262,118 were found to be unsubstantiated.

By the time you boil all the figures down, FOUR PEOPLE OF EVERY ONE HUNDRED ACCUSED actually did something that normal people consider to be actual child abuse.

For which, MILLIONS of families are terrorized and bankrupted by the evil, insane, sociopathic CPS agencies every year in the unconstitutional courts of NO Due Process.

See the AFRa report and figures at - http://familyrights.us/news/archive/2011/dec/85_of_all_reports_are_unfounded.html