Child abuse remains high in Adair County

Adair County has one of the highest rates of child abuse and neglect out of 114 counties in Missouri, according to a recent report released by Citizens for Missouri's Children, a non-governmental advocacy organization that acts as a watchdog for the rights and well-being of children. 

The Kids Count in Missouri 2009 Data Book, a comprehensive report by CMC and 30 other public and private organizations, evaluated the status of children using 10 indicators that gauge the well-being of all citizens under the age of 19.

According to the report, about 48 out of every 1,000 children in Adair County were either neglected or abused in 2008, making it one of the worst ranking counties in Missouri. 

County ranks are based on the number of reported cases of child abuse and neglect and county population. Adair County is 95th out of 114 counties and the City of St Louis.

Matthew Holt, juvenile services administrator at the Adair County Judicial Circuit Juvenile Division, said his department has been working on several initiatives to improve the living conditions of children and has taken 94 children into protective custody out of 1,571 child abuse referrals.

"Cases of abuse have remained pretty consistent, and we are working very closely with social service agencies to keep families intact," Holt said.

Adair rates improve

In Adair County, substantiated cases of child abuse decreased by more than 9 percent since 2004, according to the CMC. The number of reported child abuse cases has dropped 26 percent nationally from 2004-09, according to a report commissioned by Congress.

CMC attributes the high prevalence of child abuse and neglect cases to high levels of poverty, a lack of affordable health care and a decrease in the availability of high quality educational opportunities.

"A lot of this has to do with unemployment and the economic status of families," said Scott Gee, executive director of CMC. "The availability of jobs is a huge contributing factor.

"For children in the state of Missouri to improve their standards, we [at] CMC want to make sure that children are the forefront of every discussion. Growing up as a child in Missouri is becoming very difficult due to the economic climate."

Gee said CMC is looking forward to the enactment of Senate Bill 1425 and Senate Bill 625 by the Missouri State Government. Bill 1425 seeks to establish the number of uninsured children in Missouri and obtain more information from parents on the status of child insurance.

Senate Bill 625 seeks to protect families from falling into hardship when they cross the bridge between state supplementary benefits and self-sustenance.

"We might see [Bill] 1425 being assigned to Senate this week," Gee said. "There is always room for people to put children first so we don't end up with a situation in which children are disadvantaged. We ask regulators to put children first."  

Legal roadblocks hamper prosecutions

Adair County Prosecutor Mark Williams said cases of child abuse and neglect are under-reported and a number of legal impediments stand in the way of prosecuting child abuse and neglect suspects.

"We are really at the mercy of the family members or the children themselves reporting the cases of abuse," Williams said. "There are a number of roadblocks that prevent the state from effectively prosecuting these cases, some legally created and others created by the real world."

The Supreme Court made a ruling in Crawford v. Washington that sets precedent giving defendants the right to be confronted by the witnesses against them. This means children who are victims of abuse have to take the witness box and testify against their parents or assailants for a successful prosecution to go through.

"Putting children on the witness stand makes the prosecution very complicated," Williams said. "It makes cases tough. Some people refuse to cooperate and cite legal roadblocks like spousal privileges to avoid testifying [against their husbands or wives]."

Optimism in the figures

Although Adair County ranks at 95th on child abuse and neglect, the number of abused children has declined from 246 cases in 2004 to 226 in 2008, and the county ranks among the best with a low number of teenage births between the age of 15 and 19 and violent deaths of teens in the same age group.

Tracy Greever-Rice, associate director in the Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis, is one of the brains behind the Kids Count project. She said Adair seems to have a problem but added that the county's ranking could be a result of more cases having been reported due to community awareness of children's rights.

"The rank of 95 is very low," Greever-Rice said. "That's an indicator that there is a real problem, but Adair is relatively populated and it has been going down progressively since 2002. Everyone is improving, but Adair has had a bigger problem with the issue of child abuse. It has not been improving as fast as others."

Greever-Rice said the slow rate of prosecutions also could be explained in the context of institutional culture, because social service agencies and the Division of Social Services try to keep families together. 

Authorities therefore are confronted with two challenges, either to push ahead with often damaging prosecutions or solve the root causes of abuse and neglect and provide families with resources and parenting education. 

The Adair County Judicial Circuit Juvenile Division will offer parenting classes starting Feb. 17. The classes are aimed at helping parents to take better care of their children and keep them in the home. At least 12 parents already have confirmed attendance, Holt said.