Abuse And Neglect

Young victims and perpetrators of violent crime in Baltimore are more likely to skip school, be abused or neglected or have a history of contact with the juvenile criminal system, a city Health Department report found. The study, released Friday and based on data from 2002 to 2007, sheds light on the intractable problem of youth violence in Baltimore and is part of the agency's effort to devise ways to intervene before young people get into trouble. The statistics show that children who were crime victims had roughly the same struggles with truancy and rates of abuse as youths who committed violence, making the two groups practically indistinguishable, said Jacquelyn Duval-Harvey, a Health Department deputy commissioner.

By the first of the year, volunteers will join county social serviceworkers, police officers and juvenile court judges in the effort to help abused and neglected children.Voices For Children, a private, non-profit organization, is training its first group of volunteers to serve as advocates for children in abuse and neglect cases that reach the court system.Acting as an independent fact-finder, a court-appointed, trained volunteer will investigate and gather information on individual abusecases.

In the wake of the highly publicized starvation death of 9-year-old Rita Fisher, reports of child abuse and neglect have increased dramatically in Baltimore County, and social workers are straining to keep up with the workload.The rush of cases -- up nearly 40 percent from July through September -- has triggered fears that overworked, stressed social workers will not be able to pay enough attention to cases that lack clear indications of physical danger."We're pretty worried about it," said Camille Wheeler, county social services director.

For Susan Glorioso, the low point came late one Friday night when she had to drop off a young, abused girl at a children's hospital, all alone. "Leaving her there at 10 p.m. It just doesn't shut off," the veteran Howard County child protective services social worker said of her emotional connection to her cases. Her co-worker Iona Lewis reached the edge of her professional aplomb rushing to the hospital with a 3-month-old boy who had been shaken violently by a parent angered by the child's colicky crying.

Disturbed that child protective services failed to prevent the death of a 2-year-old city girl despite previous investigations of her mother for child abuse and neglect, Baltimore lawmakers said yesterday that immediate legislation is needed to better track such cases. The calls to monitor abusive women for new pregnancies came amid an investigation by Maryland's Department of Human Resources into the agency's handling of Bryanna Harris, who police say died in June after ingesting methadone and being dealt a blow to her abdomen.

A boy sets a dog on fire. Twenty-two stray cats are found running loose in a street. A German shepherd has a heavy chain collar wrapped so tightly around its neck that it bleeds and becomes badly infected.Every day, Baltimore's Animal Control Bureau receives about 20 cruelty reports that pets are being beaten, starved, tied up with tight chains or left to fend for themselves.But animal rights activists say the complaints routinely go ignored in a city where cruelty cases fall by the wayside and no citation has been issued in years.

Child abuse and neglect cases soared to record numbers in Anne Arundel County in the first five months of this year, straining child protective services almost to the breaking point and leading to stress-related illnesses among social workers.Social workers say the complaints dropped off some in June and July, but they don't expect the reprieve to last. Complaints of suspected child abuse and neglect typically decrease in the summer while school is out because a large number come from teachers and guidance counselors, said Pamela Smelser, supervisor of Child Protective Services (CPS)

I walked away from Aunt Hattie's Place the other day convinced that the answer to Baltimore's mess lies behind its doors. We wouldn't have a backlog of criminal cases without a backlog of criminals. And we wouldn't have a backlog of criminals if children, particularly boys born into poverty, were protected from abuse, neglect, violence and ignorance.``I have been a judge for more than 26 years and have unfortunately observed that in so many cases the defendants that appear today as youthful violent offenders were yesterday's abused and neglected children,'' says Judge Paul E. Alpert, retired from the bench but specially assigned to Baltimore Circuit Court.

Child abuse is a serious matter. As the economy has deteriorated and families find themselves besieged, the incidence of abuse increases. There are now about 300 to 350 cases of alleged child abuse and neglect reported annually to the Carroll County Department of Social Services (DSS). In about 90 to 120 of those cases, DSS finds sufficient evidence of abuse or neglect to intervene to protect the child.Considering the importance of its mission -- to protect children -- and the scarcity of its resources, it is distressing to see DSS expending time and money in lawsuits over its record-keeping procedures.

Columbia lawyer starts elderly abuse hot lineCOLUMBIA -- A new hot line has opened to take reports of suspected abuse and neglect of the elderly.The hot line is a project of Columbia resident and lawyer Charles Jerome Ware, and the Reverend John L. Wright, of the First Baptist Church of Guilford.Mr. Ware said he became interested in the issue of abuse of the elderly through his work as legal counsel for the Maryland State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which develops leadership and political programs.