FRANKFORT, Ky. — On his second day on the job, new Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron made Kentucky's children a priority.
"Child abuse exploits the innocence of youths and robs our children of the security and safety they desperately need and deserve," Cameron said. "We can no longer accept that the Commonwealth leads the nation in child abuse, and we must do all we can to end this injustice for Kentucky's children."
According to Cameron, Kentucky not only ranks first in the country when it comes to having the highest rate of child victims of abuse and neglect, but it more than doubles the national rate.
Cameron gathered a group of people ranging from prosecutors, medical experts, child advocates and others who are involved with fighting child abuse, including Kentucky Youth Advocates and Kosair Charities Face It Movement. They had a round-table discussion on ways to protect Kentucky's children. The goal was to discuss ways of increasing communication and sharing of resources among the players in the field on the local, state and federal level.
Cameron said the discussion goes beyond just talk but aims to create tangible change. One change Cameron pledged to create as soon as possible is a manual or "tool kit" for prosecutors that will present better ways to prosecute child abuse cases.
"That is a tangible step we can take in the coming months that will help our Commonwealth's Attorneys better understand how to prosecute child abuse cases moving forward," Cameron said.
"I'm really encouraged that an issue like how do we effectively prosecute sexual abuse cases, that's not going to be solved in a week or a month," Terry Brooks, the executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said. "It's going to take a long conversation and I believe that hard kind of conversation has begun today."
Cameron and others hope this change will help law enforcement bring to justice more of these child abuse and neglect cases that may otherwise not see their days in court.
"Unfortunately, I think a lot of these cases, they're not successfully prosecuted or they never reach the courtroom to begin with," Dr. Christina Howard, the chief of the Division of Pediatric Forensic Medicine at Kentucky Children's Hospital, said. "That is because they are complex cases. They are hard to deal with."
"It is difficult to talk about kids who are hurt, but the beauty of it is this is what we can do to change that, to stop that from happening and to help the kids in our sate have a better future and a brighter life," Pam Darnall, the CEO of Family and Children's Place, said.
The group is also planning on working with state lawmakers to push through legislation that will help protect children. Members of Face It said they are optimistic that changes will continue to happen after seeing several points of their legislative agenda pushed through in previous years.
This year's police priorities include removing the clergy-penitent privilege exemption, which would require a member of the clergy to report the abuse to the proper authorities. Brooks said he understands there would need to be nuanced legislation that would fit in with religious obligations of clergy, but that it has garnered some support already.
"We've received nothing but affirmation from faith leaders that they believe it's appropriate that they're involved in stemming the tide of abuse and neglect," he said.
Face It is also seeking to modify the mandatory reporting law to eliminate "chain of command" procedures within public and private agencies that would otherwise only hold people responsible for reporting cases of child abuse and neglect to their immediate superiors. Brooks mentioned the push for this change was aided in part by the LMPD Explorer sex abuse cases.
"I don't get off the hook if I am a teacher telling the principal, if I'm a patrol officer by telling an officer," Brooks said.
Other priorities include:
- ensuring appropriate reporting of child abuse and neglect is communicated across agencies when abuse or neglect is suspected by employees of a reporting agency
- strengthening the current statute of limitations timeframes for misdemeanor physical and sexual abuse offenses to accommodate for delayed abuse disclosures
- closing the gap in fingerprint background checks by requiring foster care agencies to screen their employees
According to Darnall, who has worked in the field for 35 years, one of the contributing factors to the rise in abuse and neglect cases in Kentucky is the opioid crisis that has gripped the state in recent years.
"Kids are maybe living with adults who not only can't but won't take care of them because they're investing the few resources, they have into their drug use," she said.
But Darnall said if there is some silver lining to the troubling statistic, it does show Kentucky has improved in another area - reporting.
"Part of that really is a positive in that more people are reporting child abuse and neglect, which we need to happen so we can identify and help those families," she said.
►Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.