When a child dies, should DCFS professionals be prosecuted?
Are criminal charges appropriate against child welfare professionals who make horrible mistakes that result in a child’s death?
Last week, felony child endangerment charges were filed against a former DCFS worker and supervisor assigned to 5-yearold AJ Freund, who died from blunt-force head trauma. In addition to the fatal head wound, the autopsy report delineated injuries over AJ’s entire body. AJ’s mother pleaded guilty to his murder and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. His father is awaiting trial on murder charges.
There’s no question that the workers failed AJ. Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had extensive prior involvement with the family, including 10 reports of abuse or neglect from police, hospital staff and neighbors. AJ was born with heroin in his system, and his parents struggled with substance abuse. When an emergency room doctor asked AJ about bruising to his hip, he said, “Maybe someone hit me with a belt. Maybe mommy didn’t mean to hurt me.”
Criminal charges against child welfare professionals in such cases are rare. From the point of view of child safety, it’s unclear whether criminal prosecutions are good policy.
On the one hand, DCFS workers who fail in their critical responsibilities to children must be held accountable. Criminal charges could be a powerful deterrent to other workers who might otherwise fail to protect children.
On the other hand, criminal prosecutions against child welfare workers — even those who make serious mistakes — could prove to be bad public policy for several reasons. First, the specter of criminal charges if a child is hurt might prevent good people from entering child welfare, a field notorious for low pay, long hours, lots of bureaucracy and high stress. As it is, it’s hard to get people to enter the profession.
In addition, throughout the day, every day, child welfare professionals must make hard decisions about child safety. While we don’t want workers leaving children at home with dangerous parents, we also don’t want workers removing every child they come in contact with out of fear of criminal — on top of civil and professional — liability if something should happen to the child.
Workers need a certain amount of leeway to make decisions and do their jobs. The public policy challenge is striking the right balance between giving child welfare professionals the discretion they need to make difficult decisions while also providing strong deterrents against malfeasance that results in death or injury to a child.
The former DCFS workers in AJ’s case have already lost their child welfare licensure, professional credentials, jobs, reputations and careers. They are being sued civilly. One of the workers said that AJ’s death is “something that I’m going to have to live with forever.” It seems doubtful that adding felony convictions and prison time would improve the balance between caseworker discretion and deterrence against malfeasance.
There’s also the concern about politicizing prosecutions in such cases. DCFS’s inspector general reported that, in DCFS’s fiscal year 2019, 123 children died despite having contact with DCFS during the prior 12 months.
There are other AJs whose deaths did not become front-page national news. Why is this the only criminal prosecution of child welfare professionals in Illinois in recent memory?
Finally, responsibility also lies with the top bureaucrats at DCFS. For decades, DCFS has been a dysfunctional mess. Since 1991, DCFS has been in violation of virtually all of the requirements of a federal consent decree, including those governing caseloads.
The workers in this case were laboring in an inept bureaucracy with caseloads that exceeded national norms and the federal court order. If DCFS’ line workers are to face criminal charges for poor casework when a child is harmed, perhaps the highlevel bureaucrats at DCFS should face criminal contempt charges for their longstanding violations of the caseload mandates of the federal court order.
We all want something meaningful to result from AJ’s tragic death. But prosecuting and jailing child welfare professionals is not the answer. A better result would be the political determination to finally instill meaningful reform at DCFS.