https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/02/16/prosecutors-legal-guardians-pulled-10-year-old-out-school-despite-teacher-opposition/
In this case a foster child was murdered slowly starved to death and the school, the neighborhood parents, and her biological parents where all calling and asking DHS to do a safety check.
Why are the state employees who refused to check on her not being charged with any crime? Also their names have not been released.
She was literally never checked on once she was put into foster care.
In: Other
The answer is a mix. First, it’s an incredibly high bar to make someone liable for something they could have done but didn’t. Just like the police aren’t criminally liable for not investigating and preventing a reported crime, not preventing a tragedy like this doesn’t make a DHS agent criminally liable unless very specific requirements are met. If the main issue is that nobody ever checked on the kid, the requirements to meet any form of criminal negligence certainly won’t be met, because you can’t be significantly negligent about an issue you were not aware of.
Second, these social services are typically incredibly underfunded and understaffed. The jobs suck, they’re mentally brutal, they pay poorly, and the case load per person is massive, to the point where it’s often impossible to adequately handle everything that is assigned. This often results in long delays in investigating reports or handing current caseloads. It’s a sad fact that if you call Child Protective Services about an issue less serious than someone being physically beaten or sexually assaulted by a guardian, it can take a very long time for them to have someone available to follow up, if it even happens.
Changing this would require significantly increasing the funding and staffing of the department in question, both to hire more agents, and add more oversight to make sure nothing gets missed.
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