A Petition in Behalf of the
Forsaken Children
of Texas to the
Governor and the 76th Legislature
V. THE DECLINE OF CPS IN TEXAS
A. Child Population
Between 1985 and 1998, the Texas child population (those under 18 years of age) increased at least 16%. Chart 1 shows this growth. If anything, Chart 1 understates our population growth. The Texas State Data Center's current, best estimate is that in 1996, Texas had 5.5 million children, and that these children constituted 29% of the total state population. Of all the states, Texas has the second largest number of children and the largest percentage of children to total population.
Chart 2 shows the number of children at risk for abuse and neglect. CPS derives this number from a formula developed to determine the number of children in a given population who have an elevated risk of abuse and neglect. CPS reports just under 900,000 children at risk in 1998, and reports a 7% increase from 1992 to 1998.
B. Child Poverty
As the number of children has increased, the number of children in poverty has also increased. The U.S. Census Bureau, publishing in January 1998, but reporting for 1993, says 1.5 million children lived in poverty in Texas in 1993. The Census Bureau reports that the percentage of children in poverty increased in Texas from 25.8% in 1989 to 28.6% in 1993. According to the Census Bureau, only four states had higher child poverty rates in 1993 than Texas (Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, and New Mexico).
Considering available evidence, we have little reason to suppose that our present strong economy has changed these numbers much, but for the purposes of our analysis we need not explore this question. Bottom line--Texas has well over a million children living in poverty and the number has been increasing.
So why are the poverty numbers important? Generally speaking, just like the rest of us, the poor love and provide for their children. Indeed, love and discipline, which is what children need most after basic necessities, do not cost money. Nevertheless, while child abuse and neglect occurs at all socio-economic levels, we know that children living in poverty are subject to abuse and neglect at a greater rate.
For some decisionmakers, their misunderstanding of the nature of this link affects their response to the problem of child abuse and neglect. For those with too little compassion for the poor, if child abuse and neglect are linked to poverty, then they conclude that child abuse and neglect is too big a problem to solve and in any case just a problem of the poor. For those with too much compassion for the poor, if child abuse and neglect are linked to poverty, then they conclude that poverty is the problem to solve and the poor are not accountable for how they treat their children. Both of these misunderstandings are equally wrong and equally dangerous.
An analogy helpful to understanding the link between poverty and child abuse is the link between smoking and cancer. By far and away, most people who smoke do not get lung cancer. Some people who do not smoke get lung cancer. Yet, smoking and lung cancer are linked. Poverty and child abuse are much the same. By far and away, most parents living in poverty do not abuse or neglect their children. Some parents who do not live in poverty do abuse and neglect their children. Yet poverty and child abuse are linked.
Poverty does not "cause" child abuse or neglect, but poverty does lead to conditions in which child abuse or neglect is more likely to occur. While reducing poverty is the best way to reduce child abuse and neglect, just as eliminating smoking is the best way to reduce lung cancer, the problem of child abuse and neglect can be addressed independently, just as can the problem of lung cancer. And, just as we do not deny smokers treatment for lung cancer, we should not deny children protection from abuse or neglect, particularly since--unlike smokers--children in poverty do not in any sense choose nor can they control their fate. Finally, as will be explained in Part VII, it is very much in our self-interest to effectively address the problem of child abuse and neglect since a significant number of abused and neglected children mature into juvenile and later adult perpetrators of crime.
C. CPS Investigations
1. Background
Before you can understand how inadequately Texas is addressing the problem of child abuse and neglect, you need some background information. Under Texas Family Code § 261.101, every "person having cause to believe that a child's physical or mental health or welfare has been adversely affected by abuse or neglect by any person" must "immediately" report to the proper state authority. CPS gets approximately 6900 calls a week about children--roughly 360,000 a year. Some of these calls do not allege child abuse or neglect, so these 360,000 calls about children do not translate into 360,000 reports of child abuse and neglect.
CPS classifies a call as a "report" of child abuse or neglect when the call meets certain criteria set forth in the CPS screening guidelines. If a call is classified as a report, CPS then decides whether to assign the report for an investigation. If a report is assigned for an investigation, then it becomes a case and CPS assigns it a priority. Priority 1 is the more serious and requires CPS to see the child in less than twenty-four hours. Priority 2 is less serious and requires CPS to see the child within ten days.
After CPS assigns a priority to the case, CPS assigns an investigator. After an investigation, the investigator makes a finding regarding abuse or neglect. If an investigator finds abuse and neglect, CPS says the investigation is "confirmed." If CPS confirms abuse or neglect, CPS may offer services to the family to attempt to address the problem. Even if CPS does not confirm abuse or neglect, CPS may offer services to the family when services might prevent future abuse or neglect. In a very small number of cases, where it is dangerous for the child to remain in the home, CPS removes the child and places the child in foster care.
What this petition will show is that due to a lack of resources: 1) CPS classifies too few calls as reports; 2) of those calls classified as reports, CPS assigns too few for investigation and completes the assigned investigations too slowly; 3) of those investigations completed, CPS confirms too few cases; and 4) of those cases confirmed, CPS removes too few victims.
2. Numbers
a. Reports
A detailed analysis of the condition in which Texas children live tells us that Texas probably has a greater rate of child abuse and neglect than the nation. The 1998 Kids Count --A Profile of America's Children, prepared by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, ranks Texas as the thirty-seventh worst state for children determined by our standing on ten measures of the condition of Texas children in 1995, including 1) percent of low birth-weight babies, 2) infant mortality rate, 3) child death rate; 4) rate of teen death by accident, homicide, and suicide; 5) teen birth rate; 6) juvenile violent crime arrest rate; 7) percent of teens who are high school dropouts; 8) percent of teens not attending school and not working; 9) percent of children in poverty, and 10) percent of families with children headed by a single parent. By these measures, children live in worse conditions than those in Texas in only thirteen states.
Given that children in Texas live in worse conditions than children in the nation generally, if Texans report child abuse and neglect as readily as citizens in other states, Texas should have a higher rate of reports than the nation. So do Texans report as readily as citizens in other states? Texans certainly see and recognize child abuse and neglect. In the 1997 Statewide Child Survey, a poll conducted by Texas A & M for the Children's Trust Fund, one in four Texans reported that they had witnessed an incident of child abuse or neglect in the past year. Texas law requires Texans to report what they see. As already explained, Texas has a mandatory child abuse or neglect reporting law, and that law has criminal penalties for failure to report. We have no reason to think that Texans do not report as readily as the citizens of other states.
Texas should therefore have a higher rate of reports of child abuse and neglect than the nation. Texas, however, is consistently below the national rate. Look at Chart 3. The first bar shows the number of calls that CPS classified as a "report." The second bar shows an estimate of the number of children subject of those reports.
Now look at Chart 4. The upper line shows the U.S. rate of children reported as subject to abuse and neglect per 1000 child population. The lower line shows the Texas rate of children reported as subject to abuse and neglect per 1000 child population. In every year but 1994, the Texas rate is substantially below the U.S. rate.
For example, in 1996, when the Texas rate was 30 per 1000 and the U.S. rate was 46 per 1000, had Texas been at the national rate, Texas would have had 87,566 more children subject of reports. Even a small difference in rate translates into a large number of children. In 1997, when the Texas rate was 44 per 1000 and the U.S. rate was 47 per 1000, had Texas been at the national rate, Texas would have had 13,958 more children subject of reports.
When you compare Texas to the U.S., however, you have to make sure that states that are able to perform better because they are small do not skew the numbers in a way that puts Texas in a false light. To ensure that Texas is fairly compared, consider the five states with the most children. The top five states have been chosen because there is a natural break in size between the fifth and sixth state. Listed below are the largest five states by child population in 1996, each state's Kids Count national composite rank on the condition of their children in 1995, and the rate of children subject of reports of abuse and neglect per 1000 child population in 1996:
California |
8,866,413 |
Ranked 30 |
52.2 Per 1000 |
Texas |
5,452,277 |
Ranked 37 |
31.5 Per 1000 |
New York |
4,540,534 |
Ranked 36 |
52.0 Per 1000 |
Florida |
3,423,067 |
Ranked 44 |
53.9 Per 1000 |
Illinois |
3,155,905 |
Ranked 38 |
39.3 Per 1000 |
Regardless whether a state ranks a little better or a little worse in the Kids Count survey, all report children subject to abuse and neglect at a much greater rate than Texas.
Why is the Texas rate so far below the U.S. rate? Remember, Texas gets 360,000 calls a year about children. CPS decides which calls to label as allegations of abuse and neglect. A CPS intake worker makes the decision based upon CPS's screening guidelines. Those guidelines have become increasingly tighter. What has happened is that CPS has written and applied its screening guidelines to incoming calls in a way that yields a much lower rate of abuse and neglect than the national rate.
What CPS has done would be like a police department overwhelmed with an increasing number of calls to 911 reducing the number of calls to which a police officer must respond by applying an increasingly less-inclusive definition of crime so there are fewer cases or requiring an increasingly greater amount of information about an alleged crime before opening a case.
b. Investigations
Not only does CPS classify too few calls as reports, CPS assigns too few reports for investigation and completes the investigations assigned too slowly. As a comparison of Chart 3 with Chart 5 shows, in each year since 1991 there has been a substantial difference between what CPS classified as a report within the year and what CPS investigated within the year. The first bar on Chart 3 is what CPS classified as a report. The first bar on Chart 5 is what CPS actually investigated.
Chart 9 shows the percentage of reports investigated since 1991. To assess CPS for 1997 and 1998, the two years have to be averaged because of a delay in data entry due to the conversion to an automated system in 1997. In other words (and this will be true of all the performance numbers for 1997 and 1998), the number for 1997 is too low and the number for 1998 is too high. To get a fair number for each year, you have to average the two years. The average annual percentage of total reports investigated for 1997-98 is 60%, which is the low point for the eight years.
The percentage of total reports investigated in a given year will never be-and should not be-100%. Some reports are not assigned for investigation for good reason. For example, one report may duplicate another, or the child may have turned eighteen. But right now the number assigned is too low. Of the 153,283 reports in 1997, CPS assigned 112,766 for investigation. Of the 151,349 reports in 1998, CPS assigned 119,801 for investigation.
If some reports are appropriately not assigned, then how can one say that the number assigned is too low? Two ways. First, reviewing many records in individual cases and seeing why previous reports were not investigated shows that reports that should have been investigated were not. Look at the record regarding Nakia. Of the ten referrals before Nakia's death, four reports were not investigated.
The second way one knows that too few reports are assigned for an investigation is the pattern in the numbers. In 1994, 1997, and 1998, when reports topped 150,000, the percentage investigated fell to 72% in 1994 and 60% for 1997-98. The only year above 90% is 1996. The percentage completed is at its high in 1996, however, only because the number of reports is at its low in 1996. In 1996, CPS classified only 106,618 calls as reports. CPS completed 85% in 1995, but classified only 125,613 calls as reports. This pattern tells us that CPS's capacity to investigate is exhausted as the number of reports moves beyond 100,000.
As the number of reports grows, CPS must cull the reports and drop those it makes most administrative sense to drop. When the remaining pool is still larger than CPS's capacity, however, CPS necessarily takes longer to complete the investigations. In other words, a backlog develops. The percentage of reports within the year investigated within the year drops accordingly.
A long look back to 1985 shows that the ability of CPS to investigate has been steadily eroding. While the number of children living in Texas has gone up since 1985, and the number of children living in Texas in poverty has gone up since 1985, the number of investigations of child abuse and neglect has declined significantly.
Chart 5 shows the numbers, which are dramatic. The first bar shows that investigations have steadily fallen from their high point of 112,119 in 1993. The average for 1997-98 is 93,445, which continues the steady drop. Completed investigations are at their lowest number in five years.
After accounting for population growth, the numbers look even worse. Chart 6 converts the numbers to a rate for every 1000 children in the population. The top line shows that the rate has fallen from 21.91 cases investigated per 1000 in 1993 to 18.47 in 1996. The average for 1997-98 is 16.93, which is the lowest in eight years.
These numbers represent real children. Chart 7 takes us from the number of cases to the number of children. As the first bar shows, the number of children subject of an investigation has steadily fallen from the high point of 178,146 in 1993. Again, adjusting for population makes the numbers look worse. Chart 8 shows the rate. As the top line shows, investigations have fallen from 34.8 children per 1000 in 1993 to 27.3 as the average for 1997-98, which is the lowest point in seven years.
c. Confirmations
Even more troubling is the drop in the number of confirmed investigations. Chart 5 shows the numbers. In 1985, CPS confirmed 38,623 reports; in 1997-98, CPS confirmed an average of 26,184. This is a drop of 12,447. Chart 6 converts the number into a rate. As the bottom line shows, the rate has dropped from 8.11 confirmed cases per 1000 in 1985 to 4.74 in 1997-98.
Again these numbers represent real children, as Chart 7 shows: In 1985, CPS confirmed the abuse and neglect of 62,233 children. In 1997-98, with both increasing numbers of children and increasing numbers of children in poverty, CPS confirmed an average of only 41,749--a drop of 20,484 children. This is the lowest number confirmed in fourteen years. Chart 8 converts the numbers to a rate per 1000 child population. Confirmations have fallen from 13.1 children per 1000 in 1985 to an average of 7.1 children per 1000 in 1997-98, which is also the lowest point in fourteen years.
But the numbers get even worse. Even though the number of total investigations is going down, the number of investigations confirmed as a percentage of total investigations is also going down and going down significantly. Chart 10 shows the percentage of total investigations confirmed each year since 1985. The number confirmed has fallen from 56.4% to something like 28.3% as an average for 1997-98. Even though CPS is doing fewer investigations than ever, CPS is confirming a smaller percentage of those investigations.
When Texas is compared to the nation, the results are astounding. Between 1990 and 1996, the U.S. had an 18% increase in confirmed cases. Texas had a 27% decrease in confirmed cases. Even compared to the other large states, Texas failed its children. Shown below are the five states with the most children in 1996, their Kids Count national composite rank on the condition of their children in 1995, and the percentage of total investigations confirmed in 1996:
California |
8,866,413 |
Ranked 30 |
NA % Confirmed |
Texas |
5,452,277 |
Ranked 37 |
28.6% Confirmed |
New York |
4,540,534 |
Ranked 36 |
32.5% Confirmed |
Florida |
3,423,067 |
Ranked 44 |
43.8% Confirmed |
Illinois |
3,155,905 |
Ranked 38 |
34.4% Confirmed |
One small national statistic is particularly telling: In the U.S. reports from professionals (law enforcement, medicine, education, and social services) are confirmed at the rate of 66.66%. If Texas had just confirmed reports from professionals--police officers, doctors, teachers, social workers--at the national rate, it would have increased the number of confirmed cases in 1996 by 5,694.
d. Removals
Perhaps most disturbing of all is the conclusion that Texas removes too few children from dangerous circumstances. Reliable annual data regarding CPS removals does not exist, so a long timeline from CPS data cannot be shown. Comparing recent data with national data, however, we can say with assurance that Texas removes children from abusive or neglectful homes at one of the lowest rates in the country.
Of course, as Mark Twain said, there are three kinds of liars--lairs, damn liars, and statistics. With regard to removal rates, to avoid being fooled, you have to be careful. Are you comparing removals against the number of children in the population, the number of children in poverty, the number of children subject of a report, the number of children subject of an investigation, or the number of children subject of a confirmed investigation? Depending on the number you choose, things can look very different. For example, the Texas removal rate looks great when compared against the number of children subject of a confirmed investigation, but that is because Texas confirms so few children as subject to abuse or neglect.
The most recent national data available is from 1996. Chart 11 ranks the states from the highest removal rate to the lowest as a percentage of children subject of reports, for which thirty-five states give a number. Texas ranks thirtieth. The national average is .061%. The national median is .052%. Texas is .022%. If Texas had removed at the average rate, it would have removed 5,897 more children--a total of 9,227. If Texas had removed at the median rate, it would have removed 4,536 more children--a total of 7,866.
To be fair, the 1996 number of removals reported by Texas in this national study seem low compared to other recent years. But what we do know with certainty--at least in round numbers--is that in 1994, 1995, and 1996, CPS removed less than 7000 children, which is still far below what it would have taken Texas to reach the national average or median for 1996.
In 1997, the year for which we have a reliable number, CPS removed 7723 children. If the 1997 number is used for Texas and compared to the 1996 data for the U.S., Texas would move to the average--.061, but remember that the average here is based upon the number of children who were subject of a report. As was discussed above, the number of children subject of a report is depressed in Texas by CPS classifying too few calls as reports. Compared to the rest of the states in the 1996 study, Texas improves its position markedly by starting the calculation with a rate of children subject of reports that is substantially below the national rate.
A more reliable assessment measure, therefore, is our only unmediated measure--total child population. Again, compare the five biggest states in 1996, and their Kids Count rank from 1995, and give Texas a break by using its high number of removals in 1997:
California |
8,866,413 |
Ranked 30 |
26,987 Removals |
3.0 Per 1000 Children |
Texas |
5,452,277 |
Ranked 37 |
7,723 Removals |
1.4 Per 1000 Children |
New York |
4,540,534 |
Ranked 37 |
11,889 Removals |
2.6 Per 1000 Children |
Florida |
3,423,067 |
Ranked 44 |
8,721 Removals |
Children 2.5 Per 1000 |
Illinois |
3,155,905 |
Ranked 38 |
7,048 Removals |
2.2 Per 1000 Children |
The average of the four states other than Texas is 2.6. If Texas had removed at the average rate, it would have removed approximately 14,040 children.
One measure of the meaning and reliability of statistics is how they "feel." Does it feel right that in a population of 5.4 million children, of which 1.5 million live in poverty, that 14,040 children (.0026%) may have needed to be removed from an abusive or neglectful home?
Of course, fewer removals might be evidence of better prevention or intervention strategies that make removals less necessary. Indeed, we will shortly discuss the importance of strategies designed to reduce removals. An eyewitness to the present situation in Texas, however, knows that our removal rate is not good news.
