CONTACT: Rich Gehrman, Executive Director, Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota
(651) 303-3209; gehrm001@umn.edu
Report documents system failures in cases
Of Minnesota Children Killed due to Maltreatment
(read the report and child stories here)
short (KSTP video)
8 YEAR OLD AUTUMN HALLOW’S MURDER
A study of child fatalities that occurred in Minnesota between 2014 and 2022 due to neglect and abuse indicates multiple failures in the state’s child protection system, including the inappropriate assignment of serious cases to low-risk categories, inaction on cases of chronic maltreatment and the return of children to abusive parents before the parents had made meaningful changes.
The study, undertaken by Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota, examined 88 child fatalities using data from court records, county child fatality reports, and news media reports. Rich Gehrman, Safe Passage executive director, said the results of the study portray a system that continues to give priority to the rights of parents over the safety of children.
“The core mission of child welfare is to protect children, but the system frequently left them in situations where they experienced life-altering neglect, repeated physical and sexual abuse, and even torture, often over long periods of time,” Gehrman said. “In many cases, individuals in multiple institutions knew about ongoing maltreatment but failed to act.”
Other patterns identified in the study including the failure by medical providers to recognize “red flags” when treating injured children, children killed in kinship foster placements, an alarming incidence of torture, and inconsistent mandates and protocols among the state’s courts.
The report spotlights the stories of eleven abused children. Those stories, Gehrman said, portray a system that “appeared to have become inured to dangerous levels of abuse and neglect of children,” most of whom were infants and toddlers.
It is critical, Gehrman added, to focus on protecting the youngest children, because trauma to infants and toddlers often has serious lifelong consequences.
“These stories illustrate the role played by institutions directly responsible for child welfare, which include the state Department of Human Services, county social services agencies, Juvenile Court, county prosecutors, and local law enforcement agencies.”
The study also provides statistics that reveal important new insights into perpetrators and victims. For example nearly half of children were killed by someone other than a biological parents.
The report, Gehrman said, illustrates how leaders in all human services sectors need to make child maltreatment a part of their programs because many of them touch these families before they get to child protection. The Minnesota Legislature, he said, “also needs to fully fund the system.”
Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota is a citizens’ group that advocates for improvements in Minnesota’s child welfare system.
Additional information is available at https://safepassageforchildren.org.
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