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http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cf ... &type=UTTM
Despite fee accord, foster care fight’s not over
CHRISTINA DORAN
Daily Record Assistant Legal Editor
September 9, 2007 9:56 PM
More than 20 years after the original lawsuit was filed, the plaintiffs in L.J. v. Massinga are still fighting a battle to reform Baltimore’s foster care system.
While the defendants continue to make efforts to comply with a consent decree approved in 1988, this week the state Board of Public Works will consider a $700,000 payment of attorney’s fees and costs in the case resulting from a recent settlement.
The Department of Human Resources has asked the board to approve the fees, even though the plaintiffs’ attorneys say the case is far from over.
The class-action suit, filed in 1984 in U.S. District Court, sought to eliminate systematic deficiencies that plagued the foster system.
In a response to the department’s recent six-month compliance report, plaintiffs’ attorneys Mitchell Y. Mirviss of Venable LLP, Rhonda Lipkin of the Public Justice Center and Gary S. Posner of Whiteford, Taylor & Preston LLP claim that compliance has been less than perfect.
“The latest reports by the Defendants, unfortunately, confirm that, despite numerous promises of immediate attention to dire problems, many violations are unabated and some have spiraled dangerously out of control,” the response stated.
In a news release issued on Feb. 5, the department said that its six-month report “identified areas that indicate that children are faring better than at the last reporting. This continued progress is due to hard work by our staff.”
Using data compiled in a random study of 149 foster care cases, the 1984 lawsuit alleged that pervasive abuse existed within the Baltimore foster care system, including improper placement of children, substandard health care and sporadic caseworker visits. The lawsuit represented about 2,500 foster children in the care and custody of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services.
In February 1988, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by the federal court, which had issued an injunction against the defendants and refused to allow them to claim qualified immunity.
The parties negotiated a settlement of more than $800,000 in damages and entered into a consent decree, outlining means by which the foster system could be improved. The consent decree approved in September 1988 was modified in 1991 to extend most of the protections to children in state custody who were placed with relatives.
“I have been a judge now for 20 years,” wrote U.S. District Judge Joseph C. Howard in approving the decree. “During this time much human tragedy has passed before me; however, none has so deeply touched me as the plight of these children. I believe that vigorous enforcement of this decree is essential, and I will do all within my power to see that its provisions are fully implemented.”
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Maryland System
Moderators: family_man, LindaJM
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/ ... ?track=rss
City's foster care is faulted
Monitors' lawsuit contends Md., Baltimore not carrying out reforms ordered in 1988
By Lynn Anderson | Sun reporter
November 6, 2007
Baltimore foster children are still being sheltered at a state office building and still missing medical and dental appointments, according to lawyers charged with monitoring a long-standing court decree on care for these children.
In a more than 400-page document filed yesterday in federal court, the lawyers say the state Department of Human Resources and Baltimore's Department of Social Services have persistently failed to comply with a 1988 agreement that called for swift reform in the care of foster children.
Attorneys say that as recently as Oct. 27, a 14-year-old boy in foster care stayed overnight in a state office building on Gay Street in Baltimore and that caseworkers are still too slow to enroll children in school. They say some caseworkers fail to make regular visits to children to ensure that they are well.
Jean Marbella: Decades later, and foster kids still suffer
State to appeal preliminary injunction on child care providers union
"A generation of children, literally tens of thousands of abused and neglected children, has lived in the foster care system since [the consent decree] without receiving the court- ordered services and protections that [the state] agreed to provide," lawyers Mitchell Y. Mirviss and Rhonda Lipkin contend in the document charging the state with contempt of court. "Baltimore's abused and neglected children are entitled to better treatment than this."
State officials must respond to the contempt filing, and a federal judge is expected to consider the allegations. Mirviss and Lipkin hope the judge will appoint a full-time monitor who will follow up on the state's efforts to improve foster child welfare in Baltimore. Such a system has worked well in other states, including Alabama and Utah, they said.
Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald, who has been in the post for less than a year, said she knew the court action was coming - she had been warned in writing by Mirviss and Lipkin as required by law several months ago. Still, she said she was disappointed that they couldn't wait a bit longer to see whether her initial reform efforts could produce improvements.
Donald's agency recently joined with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to study successful foster care programs in other states and try to replicate them in Maryland. And for the first time yesterday, Donald met with leaders at Baltimore's social services headquarters, including director Samuel Chambers Jr., as part of a new effort called Baltimore ReBuild that she hopes will speed reforms. Chambers also has tried to enact changes during his nearly three years in the position, including creating community centers in several city neighborhoods to reach families in need of counseling and other services.
"This is a 19-year-old lawsuit, and I have only been here nine months," said Donald, who was appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley this year. She oversees the Baltimore social services office because it is part of the state's human resources network. "We've been making such great strides, and I think there is clear evidence that the central [DHR] office is taking Baltimore very seriously," she said. "We are bringing a large number of resources to the city."
Donald said children are staying at the state office building on Gay Street for a few hours at a time, not days on end as in the spring of 2005 when The Sun first reported that children were sleeping on floors and chairs. She said there are regular reports on the children who stay at the office - which is staffed 24 hours a day - and that those reports are shared with child advocates. In October, 45 children stayed at the office for an average of 1.9 hours, Donald said.
"I believe that the Gay Street situation has been resolved," Donald said. "Certainly, it is an overnight placement office and sometimes children come in in the middle of the night, but they are not staying there for long periods of time."
Mirviss and Lipkin acknowledge that Donald - a former deputy mayor for children, youth, families and elders in Washington - has brought new energy to the agency. However, they said they had heard too many unfulfilled promises since the lawsuit was first filed to wait any longer for evidence of improvements.
"We're at a crisis point," said Lipkin, whose position with the Public Justice Center in Baltimore is funded by legal fees paid by the state out of the consent decree. "What's unfortunate is that we've been at a crisis point for quite a while."
Lawyers used the Freedom of Information Act, which guarantees public access to certain documents, to force the state to let them examine files of numerous foster children in the city. A review enabled attorneys to document a history of unsuitable foster home placements - including an over-reliance on expensive, group home facilities - as well as failure by the state to ensure basic medical and dental care to some children.
In one case documented by the lawyers, city social services case workers allowed a 13-year-old girl to live with a family friend who "drank [alcohol] and physically abused her."
In another case, the agency moved a 14-year-old boy with psychiatric problems to 11 group homes in as many months. As a result, according to court documents, the boy's mental condition deteriorated and he had to be placed in an expensive therapeutic facility.
Mirviss, one of several Baltimore attorneys who represented foster children when the class action lawsuit was filed in the 1980s, said he believes that in some ways the city's system is in worse shape now than 20 years ago.
The attorney said he is worried about the large decrease in the number of foster families in the city - a situation that has been worsened by the agency's decision six years ago to cut day care subsidies to foster families. According to information Mirviss obtained from the state, the total number of foster families in the city has dropped by more than 55 percent - from 3,000 in 2001 to about 1,330 this year.
Donald said her department plans to reinstate day care subsidies for foster families early next year.
But in the meantime, the drop in foster families has meant that officials have had to rely more heavily on group homes, which charge the state up to $60,000 a year per child. Foster families receive a subsidy rate of $735 a month, or about $8,820 a year, Mirviss said.
Group homes often are not the best living situations for foster children, many of whom have been sexually abused or have emotional problems, Mirviss said.
"The system is not providing good outcomes for these kids," he said, adding that while reading some of the foster care files he felt heartbroken and angry. "The children who remain in care aren't getting the services they need to become independent, functioning adults."
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/ ... ?track=rss
City's foster care is faulted
Monitors' lawsuit contends Md., Baltimore not carrying out reforms ordered in 1988
By Lynn Anderson | Sun reporter
November 6, 2007
Baltimore foster children are still being sheltered at a state office building and still missing medical and dental appointments, according to lawyers charged with monitoring a long-standing court decree on care for these children.
In a more than 400-page document filed yesterday in federal court, the lawyers say the state Department of Human Resources and Baltimore's Department of Social Services have persistently failed to comply with a 1988 agreement that called for swift reform in the care of foster children.
Attorneys say that as recently as Oct. 27, a 14-year-old boy in foster care stayed overnight in a state office building on Gay Street in Baltimore and that caseworkers are still too slow to enroll children in school. They say some caseworkers fail to make regular visits to children to ensure that they are well.
Jean Marbella: Decades later, and foster kids still suffer
State to appeal preliminary injunction on child care providers union
"A generation of children, literally tens of thousands of abused and neglected children, has lived in the foster care system since [the consent decree] without receiving the court- ordered services and protections that [the state] agreed to provide," lawyers Mitchell Y. Mirviss and Rhonda Lipkin contend in the document charging the state with contempt of court. "Baltimore's abused and neglected children are entitled to better treatment than this."
State officials must respond to the contempt filing, and a federal judge is expected to consider the allegations. Mirviss and Lipkin hope the judge will appoint a full-time monitor who will follow up on the state's efforts to improve foster child welfare in Baltimore. Such a system has worked well in other states, including Alabama and Utah, they said.
Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald, who has been in the post for less than a year, said she knew the court action was coming - she had been warned in writing by Mirviss and Lipkin as required by law several months ago. Still, she said she was disappointed that they couldn't wait a bit longer to see whether her initial reform efforts could produce improvements.
Donald's agency recently joined with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to study successful foster care programs in other states and try to replicate them in Maryland. And for the first time yesterday, Donald met with leaders at Baltimore's social services headquarters, including director Samuel Chambers Jr., as part of a new effort called Baltimore ReBuild that she hopes will speed reforms. Chambers also has tried to enact changes during his nearly three years in the position, including creating community centers in several city neighborhoods to reach families in need of counseling and other services.
"This is a 19-year-old lawsuit, and I have only been here nine months," said Donald, who was appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley this year. She oversees the Baltimore social services office because it is part of the state's human resources network. "We've been making such great strides, and I think there is clear evidence that the central [DHR] office is taking Baltimore very seriously," she said. "We are bringing a large number of resources to the city."
Donald said children are staying at the state office building on Gay Street for a few hours at a time, not days on end as in the spring of 2005 when The Sun first reported that children were sleeping on floors and chairs. She said there are regular reports on the children who stay at the office - which is staffed 24 hours a day - and that those reports are shared with child advocates. In October, 45 children stayed at the office for an average of 1.9 hours, Donald said.
"I believe that the Gay Street situation has been resolved," Donald said. "Certainly, it is an overnight placement office and sometimes children come in in the middle of the night, but they are not staying there for long periods of time."
Mirviss and Lipkin acknowledge that Donald - a former deputy mayor for children, youth, families and elders in Washington - has brought new energy to the agency. However, they said they had heard too many unfulfilled promises since the lawsuit was first filed to wait any longer for evidence of improvements.
"We're at a crisis point," said Lipkin, whose position with the Public Justice Center in Baltimore is funded by legal fees paid by the state out of the consent decree. "What's unfortunate is that we've been at a crisis point for quite a while."
Lawyers used the Freedom of Information Act, which guarantees public access to certain documents, to force the state to let them examine files of numerous foster children in the city. A review enabled attorneys to document a history of unsuitable foster home placements - including an over-reliance on expensive, group home facilities - as well as failure by the state to ensure basic medical and dental care to some children.
In one case documented by the lawyers, city social services case workers allowed a 13-year-old girl to live with a family friend who "drank [alcohol] and physically abused her."
In another case, the agency moved a 14-year-old boy with psychiatric problems to 11 group homes in as many months. As a result, according to court documents, the boy's mental condition deteriorated and he had to be placed in an expensive therapeutic facility.
Mirviss, one of several Baltimore attorneys who represented foster children when the class action lawsuit was filed in the 1980s, said he believes that in some ways the city's system is in worse shape now than 20 years ago.
The attorney said he is worried about the large decrease in the number of foster families in the city - a situation that has been worsened by the agency's decision six years ago to cut day care subsidies to foster families. According to information Mirviss obtained from the state, the total number of foster families in the city has dropped by more than 55 percent - from 3,000 in 2001 to about 1,330 this year.
Donald said her department plans to reinstate day care subsidies for foster families early next year.
But in the meantime, the drop in foster families has meant that officials have had to rely more heavily on group homes, which charge the state up to $60,000 a year per child. Foster families receive a subsidy rate of $735 a month, or about $8,820 a year, Mirviss said.
Group homes often are not the best living situations for foster children, many of whom have been sexually abused or have emotional problems, Mirviss said.
"The system is not providing good outcomes for these kids," he said, adding that while reading some of the foster care files he felt heartbroken and angry. "The children who remain in care aren't getting the services they need to become independent, functioning adults."
.
.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/ ... ?track=rss
Foster care report documents 'fiasco'
Monitors' suit over failed state reforms details conditions at makeshift shelter
By Lynn Anderson | Sun reporter
November 8, 2007
A teenage girl developed an infection because she could not bathe.
Suicidal and aggressive teen-agers mingled with abused children and neglected toddlers.
Overworked and frightened case workers were ill-prepared to deal with youths with severe mental illnesses.
Those are some of the things that went wrong in 2005 when a downtown office building was used to house at least 168 foster children, two of them for as long as 40 nights, according to lawyers representing Baltimore's 8,000 foster children in a long-standing consent decree.
In legal documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, the lawyers requested that a federal judge appoint an independent monitor to finally force reform of the city's troubled foster care system.
State and city social services officials say conditions have significantly improved and that only a few children stay at the state office on Gay Street, and only for a few hours at a time. They say advocates should give the state's new head of social services more time to revamp the dysfunctional system.
"The number of kids that are there for more than 30 minutes or an hour have dropped dramatically," said Samuel Chambers Jr., director of the Baltimore Department of Social Services, a division of the Maryland Department of Human Resources. "That is because we took progressive steps to address that situation," he said.
The lawyers representing the foster children, Mitchell Y. Mirviss and Rhonda Lipkin, counter that at least 50 more children have stayed at the office in recent months, one as recently as Oct. 27. They say the state and the city have persistently failed to comply with the 1988 consent decree.
"It says a lot about the callousness of the system and the individuals involved that they could see children in these conditions and not do anything," said Lipkin, who with Mirviss was allowed access to detailed information about the shelter this year. "It also does not bode well for change in the system."
State officials have been reviewing the attorneys' charges - spelled out in more than 500 pages - and said they will file a response in coming weeks.
On Tuesday, they said they had responded quickly and effectively to the situation at Gay Street. They said they expect to unveil early next year a program aimed at helping psychologically fragile teenagers that should add much-needed resources to the city's foster care system.
Chambers, who has been in his position for about three years, said that he reviews reports daily on the number of children staying at the Gay Street office and that he has taken a personal interest in finding a long-term solution to helping older foster children with complex mental issues. A significant number of those who stayed at the office in 2005 were teens with a history of mental illness. Several were brought to the office directly from mental institutions.
"This has been a labor of love for me," Chambers said of the new teen program. "I had hoped to have something inked six months ago, but it is slow going when you are trying to create something that doesn't exist."
A spokesman for Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald said it is important to put the lawyers' report in context.
"This is a then-and-now story," said spokesman Norris West. "In June 2005, we looked at the reports, and the average stay for children at the Gay Street office was 5.8 hours. In October 2007, it was 1.9 hours. That change is really important to point out."
Still, the details of what happened at the office when it was serving as an illegal shelter are chilling. Mirviss and Lipkin used the state's Public Information Act to gain access to the files of dozens of foster children who stayed at the office in 2005 and also reviewed staff memos and e-mails.
The office operates 24 hours a day but was never intended to house children. A lawyer for the state acknowledged that the agency was breaking the law by keeping children there, Mirviss and Lipkin said.
"The Gay Street fiasco was, for me, the worst moment I have ever experienced in this particular case," said Mirviss. "I had great hopes that the state would use that disaster as a springboard for real reform. It is very disappointing that they have done so little since then to cure the underlying problems."
Mirviss said his stomach churned when he read staff reports that detailed daily life at the shelter.
At a social services department meeting in May 2005, staff members ticked off the many "safety and liability" issues the shelter presented, Mirviss said, including "children who fight with each other, children who do not comply with staff instructions, children on medication and children who walk out of the facility to smoke or sell drugs."
Staff members also expressed concern that they had too much work to do during the night to keep an eye on teens who might be sexually active. That was of particular concern during a three-day period in May 2005 when there were 11 youths staying at the office building, including three teenage girls and two teenage boys.
"Their behavior placed the younger children and staff at risk for harm," a staff member later wrote in a report reviewed by Mirviss and Lipkin. "The girls continue to argue and want to fight each other. The police were called to help control the situation, but they never arrived," the staff report said.
A few days later, in April, a girl with severe psychiatric problems became agitated and threatened a worker, court documents say. Police were called, and the girl was taken to a local hospital for evaluation. She returned later that same night and once again became abusive. Early the next morning, she left the office and did not return. She was reported as a runaway, the documents said.
Hygiene was also a problem at the shelter, according to the report. There are no shower facilities at the office, and some children went days without bathing. In one case, a young woman developed an infection as a result of not being able to wash herself, the lawyers reported. The infection was so bad that she had to be taken to a local hospital to receive antibiotics, they said.
"Some of the young ladies go 2-3 days without taking a bath or a shower," a staff member wrote in a memo. "They do not smell fresh - they stink. The room at Gay Street stinks."
Many of the children who stayed at the Gay Street office also missed school, according to the lawyers' report. One young woman missed two weeks of school while her caseworker tried to find her a new place to stay. Chambers noted that a 14-year-old girl who was staying there had not been in school for several days.
"We had an opportunity to meet the mentor that had been assigned to supervise this young lady," Chambers wrote in a June 7, 2005, memo to a superior. It goes on to say that the mentor had been "driving this young lady and approximately three others around town for the day to occupy them. None of them were in school, which is particularly troubling."
[email protected]
.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/ ... ?track=rss
Foster care report documents 'fiasco'
Monitors' suit over failed state reforms details conditions at makeshift shelter
By Lynn Anderson | Sun reporter
November 8, 2007
A teenage girl developed an infection because she could not bathe.
Suicidal and aggressive teen-agers mingled with abused children and neglected toddlers.
Overworked and frightened case workers were ill-prepared to deal with youths with severe mental illnesses.
Those are some of the things that went wrong in 2005 when a downtown office building was used to house at least 168 foster children, two of them for as long as 40 nights, according to lawyers representing Baltimore's 8,000 foster children in a long-standing consent decree.
In legal documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, the lawyers requested that a federal judge appoint an independent monitor to finally force reform of the city's troubled foster care system.
State and city social services officials say conditions have significantly improved and that only a few children stay at the state office on Gay Street, and only for a few hours at a time. They say advocates should give the state's new head of social services more time to revamp the dysfunctional system.
"The number of kids that are there for more than 30 minutes or an hour have dropped dramatically," said Samuel Chambers Jr., director of the Baltimore Department of Social Services, a division of the Maryland Department of Human Resources. "That is because we took progressive steps to address that situation," he said.
The lawyers representing the foster children, Mitchell Y. Mirviss and Rhonda Lipkin, counter that at least 50 more children have stayed at the office in recent months, one as recently as Oct. 27. They say the state and the city have persistently failed to comply with the 1988 consent decree.
"It says a lot about the callousness of the system and the individuals involved that they could see children in these conditions and not do anything," said Lipkin, who with Mirviss was allowed access to detailed information about the shelter this year. "It also does not bode well for change in the system."
State officials have been reviewing the attorneys' charges - spelled out in more than 500 pages - and said they will file a response in coming weeks.
On Tuesday, they said they had responded quickly and effectively to the situation at Gay Street. They said they expect to unveil early next year a program aimed at helping psychologically fragile teenagers that should add much-needed resources to the city's foster care system.
Chambers, who has been in his position for about three years, said that he reviews reports daily on the number of children staying at the Gay Street office and that he has taken a personal interest in finding a long-term solution to helping older foster children with complex mental issues. A significant number of those who stayed at the office in 2005 were teens with a history of mental illness. Several were brought to the office directly from mental institutions.
"This has been a labor of love for me," Chambers said of the new teen program. "I had hoped to have something inked six months ago, but it is slow going when you are trying to create something that doesn't exist."
A spokesman for Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald said it is important to put the lawyers' report in context.
"This is a then-and-now story," said spokesman Norris West. "In June 2005, we looked at the reports, and the average stay for children at the Gay Street office was 5.8 hours. In October 2007, it was 1.9 hours. That change is really important to point out."
Still, the details of what happened at the office when it was serving as an illegal shelter are chilling. Mirviss and Lipkin used the state's Public Information Act to gain access to the files of dozens of foster children who stayed at the office in 2005 and also reviewed staff memos and e-mails.
The office operates 24 hours a day but was never intended to house children. A lawyer for the state acknowledged that the agency was breaking the law by keeping children there, Mirviss and Lipkin said.
"The Gay Street fiasco was, for me, the worst moment I have ever experienced in this particular case," said Mirviss. "I had great hopes that the state would use that disaster as a springboard for real reform. It is very disappointing that they have done so little since then to cure the underlying problems."
Mirviss said his stomach churned when he read staff reports that detailed daily life at the shelter.
At a social services department meeting in May 2005, staff members ticked off the many "safety and liability" issues the shelter presented, Mirviss said, including "children who fight with each other, children who do not comply with staff instructions, children on medication and children who walk out of the facility to smoke or sell drugs."
Staff members also expressed concern that they had too much work to do during the night to keep an eye on teens who might be sexually active. That was of particular concern during a three-day period in May 2005 when there were 11 youths staying at the office building, including three teenage girls and two teenage boys.
"Their behavior placed the younger children and staff at risk for harm," a staff member later wrote in a report reviewed by Mirviss and Lipkin. "The girls continue to argue and want to fight each other. The police were called to help control the situation, but they never arrived," the staff report said.
A few days later, in April, a girl with severe psychiatric problems became agitated and threatened a worker, court documents say. Police were called, and the girl was taken to a local hospital for evaluation. She returned later that same night and once again became abusive. Early the next morning, she left the office and did not return. She was reported as a runaway, the documents said.
Hygiene was also a problem at the shelter, according to the report. There are no shower facilities at the office, and some children went days without bathing. In one case, a young woman developed an infection as a result of not being able to wash herself, the lawyers reported. The infection was so bad that she had to be taken to a local hospital to receive antibiotics, they said.
"Some of the young ladies go 2-3 days without taking a bath or a shower," a staff member wrote in a memo. "They do not smell fresh - they stink. The room at Gay Street stinks."
Many of the children who stayed at the Gay Street office also missed school, according to the lawyers' report. One young woman missed two weeks of school while her caseworker tried to find her a new place to stay. Chambers noted that a 14-year-old girl who was staying there had not been in school for several days.
"We had an opportunity to meet the mentor that had been assigned to supervise this young lady," Chambers wrote in a June 7, 2005, memo to a superior. It goes on to say that the mentor had been "driving this young lady and approximately three others around town for the day to occupy them. None of them were in school, which is particularly troubling."
[email protected]
.
.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sectio ... ryID=72796
Senate to consider child endangerment measure
Originally published March 22, 2008
By Meg Bernhardt
News-Post Staff
ANNAPOLIS -- Adults who fail to look after children in their care could be guilty of a misdemeanor under a bill passed by Maryland's House of Delegates this week.
The measure, sponsored by Frederick County Delegate Galen Clagett, is now being considered by the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. It passed the House on Wednesday 131-3.
The bill would allow prosecutors to charge parents or guardians for creating a dangerous situation by not caring for children.
Current law allows the child protective services division of the county Department of Social Services to conduct an investigation and remove a child from a home because of neglect, but does not establish criminal penalties. Maryland's child abuse laws deal with action, rather than inaction.
The state Department of Human Resources investigated 14,413 child neglect cases in fiscal 2005, the last year for which information is available. More than 3,600 were closed with indications of neglect and 3,526 were closed as unsubstantiated.
From Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2005, 29 deaths in which child abuse or neglect was determined to be a contributing factor were reported to the state.
Clagett, a Democrat, introduced the bill making child neglect a felony if the child is harmed or killed, and a misdemeanor with punishment of as much as five years in prison or a fine of $2,500, if the neglect only created risk of harm.
It was changed by the House Judiciary Committee to a misdemeanor for endangering a child, with a penalty of as much as one year in prison or a fine of as much as $1,000.
The bill was supported by members of the Frederick County State's Attorney office, who said they have been unable to prosecute parents who have been neglectful. That included one set of parents whose 6-year-old child was found outside in six-degree weather in a T-shirt.
Clagett said he was not happy about the change from a felony to a misdemeanor, but plans to introduce further legislation in the future to make it stronger. He is happy he was able to make some progress, though he noted 49 other states already have child neglect laws.
"Maryland has a law that protects animals and seniors, but not children," Clagett said. "So I went in to get one that would protect children from neglect."
The measure awaits approval from the Senate.
.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sectio ... ryID=72796
Senate to consider child endangerment measure
Originally published March 22, 2008
By Meg Bernhardt
News-Post Staff
ANNAPOLIS -- Adults who fail to look after children in their care could be guilty of a misdemeanor under a bill passed by Maryland's House of Delegates this week.
The measure, sponsored by Frederick County Delegate Galen Clagett, is now being considered by the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. It passed the House on Wednesday 131-3.
The bill would allow prosecutors to charge parents or guardians for creating a dangerous situation by not caring for children.
Current law allows the child protective services division of the county Department of Social Services to conduct an investigation and remove a child from a home because of neglect, but does not establish criminal penalties. Maryland's child abuse laws deal with action, rather than inaction.
The state Department of Human Resources investigated 14,413 child neglect cases in fiscal 2005, the last year for which information is available. More than 3,600 were closed with indications of neglect and 3,526 were closed as unsubstantiated.
From Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2005, 29 deaths in which child abuse or neglect was determined to be a contributing factor were reported to the state.
Clagett, a Democrat, introduced the bill making child neglect a felony if the child is harmed or killed, and a misdemeanor with punishment of as much as five years in prison or a fine of $2,500, if the neglect only created risk of harm.
It was changed by the House Judiciary Committee to a misdemeanor for endangering a child, with a penalty of as much as one year in prison or a fine of as much as $1,000.
The bill was supported by members of the Frederick County State's Attorney office, who said they have been unable to prosecute parents who have been neglectful. That included one set of parents whose 6-year-old child was found outside in six-degree weather in a T-shirt.
Clagett said he was not happy about the change from a felony to a misdemeanor, but plans to introduce further legislation in the future to make it stronger. He is happy he was able to make some progress, though he noted 49 other states already have child neglect laws.
"Maryland has a law that protects animals and seniors, but not children," Clagett said. "So I went in to get one that would protect children from neglect."
The measure awaits approval from the Senate.
.
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