A 9-month-old female child nearly died on March 1, 2024, as a result of physical abuse. Luzerne County Children and Youth Agency indicated the report on May 24, 2024, naming the victim child’s mother’s paramour as the perpetrator. On the date of the incident, it was reported that the victim became unresponsive, and emergency medical services were contacted. The child presented to the hospital and was found to have abusive ...

Last month, the Baltimore Banner reported on an alarming rise in the number of child fatalities due to maltreatment in Maryland, as shown by a federal report. The number of child abuse and neglect deaths reported by Maryland to the federal Children’s Bureau was 83 for Fiscal Year 2023, up from 27 a decade before, a rate higher than any state but Mississippi. After initially responding with confusion, the Maryland Department of ...

One of the most important things a state can do to ensure transparency about child maltreatment fatalities, near fatalities and egregious incidents is to notify the public when such an incident is reported. Without such notifications, legislators, advocates, and the general public will know if an incident has occurred only if it is covered in the press. Press coverage is usually triggered when criminal charges are filed in court. But ...

Born in 2022, “B.B.” died of fentanyl poisoning in March 2023. During the ten years before B.B.’s death, the Department of Children, Youth and Families had received 30 reports about B.B.’s family (many before B.B. was born) for issues including use of heroin, marijuana and alcohol in the home; lack of supervision of the children; domestic violence; an unsafe caregiver living with the family; an unsafe and unclean living environment; ...

In a press release, announcing the publication of data on child maltreatment in Federal Fiscal Year 2023, the U.S. Administration on Children and Families reported that the number of child maltreatment deaths decreased slightly in Federal Fiscal Year 2023 versus 2022.  But the reality is we don’t know how many children died of maltreatment – in either year. Because of restrictive definitions, failure to consult all available sources, and the ...

In February 2021, residents of Racine learned that 17-year-old Shavale J. Powell was facing homicide charges in the death of his 1-month-old son. The child suffered blunt force trauma to the head, chest and extremities. The Racine Journal Times reported on the case and noted that there was also a “1-year-old child with a bruised, injured eye.” Powell was arrested and the children’s mother, Javian Clark, was named as a co-defendant in court documents. ...

On January 17, 2020, eight-year-old Thomas Valva died of hypothermia in the freezing garage at the home of his father and his father’s live-in fiancée. It soon came out that school staff had made multiple calls to the  state child abuse hotline during the 16 months before Thomas’ death, describing how he and his brother were starved, beaten and forced to sleep in a garage and urinate upon themselves. Almost ...

On October 6, 2024, police found five-year-old DeAndre Pettus nude and unconscious in a squalid, trash-filled apartment in the Northwest section of the District of Columbia. Paramedics tried to revive him before he was declared dead at the scene. There were bruises and abrasions on his body. A witness reported that the boy’s father, also named DeAndre Pettus, admitted that he had been punching his son at full force in ...

On October 10, the Utah Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) finally released a statement summarizing its involvement with Gavin Peterson, who died on July 9, 2024 at the age of 12.  Gavin’s father, stepmother, and older brother are awaiting trial on reckless child abuse homicide, among other charges.  The much-awaited “CAPTA statement” from DCFS (named for the federal law requiring that states have a policy to disclose “information ...

The Kansas State Child Death Review Board (SCDRB) has issued its 2024 Annual Report.  The report examines the circumstances surrounding the deaths of all Kansans aged birth to 17 years old, as well as non-resident children, who died in Kansas in 2022. The inclusion of all 2022 child fatalities, as well as use of data from the previous four years to allow for more granular analyses, make this report exemplary ...

At least 1,800 children die from abuse and neglect every year, and the total is probably considerably greater. Between a third and a half of these deaths may involve families that were already known to Child Protective Services through previous reports of maltreatment. In addition, an unknown number of children are severely injured due to maltreatment every year. Legislators, advocates, and the public need timely information about the circumstances leading ...

Jahmeik Modlin was found in a skeletal condition in a Harlem apartment stocked with food. He died the next day, and his three older siblings were hospitalized with severe malnutrition. The family had been on the radar of the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) since 2019, before Jahmeik was born. But the agency closed its last case with the family in 2022 after determining that the children were safe, a ...

The CDC calls the infant mortality rate — which measures how often children die before their first birthday — “an important marker of the overall health of a society.” So when the rate increased in 2022 for the first time in 20 years, national media and the public took note. Increases in child and adolescent deaths due to drug use, suicide and gun violence have also received significant attention and ...