License Revocations Linked to Child Abuse Accent Day Care Woes

Who’s watching your children? Most of San Diego County’s children who re cared for while their parents work are in day care homes. many child care experts say such homes can be enriching experiences for children, thbut there are many problems locally.

Today, in the third of a four-part series, the process of revoaction of a day care license is explained.

A San Diego woman operating a licensed day care home is reported “on more than one occasion” and acting in consort with a male companion to have sexually molested a child.

Prior to her arrest on a string of child abuse counts, she cared for a maximum of six children in the home.

In another case, a La Mesa woman yanked and twisted the arm of a child under the age of 5. Such abuse resulted in a fracture, not only of the child’s arm but also of the woman’s day care license. Without commenting on her guilt or innocence, she failed to challenge the revocation.

In still another case, a Poway man petitioned for and received a day care license despite the fact that four years earlier he had been convicted in Arizona of attempted sexual abuse. The arrest was overlooked for a reason. A year after his conviction, the decision was reversed and the man’s record was expunged from Arizona police files.

Eight months after getting the day care license, the man was arrested in San Diego for having sexual contact with a girl of 14. He and his wife (who shared the license) failed to challenge the revocation, and as far as the state knows, they no longer run a day care home.

These are just three cases, but they are the three most recent “revocation” cases in San Diego County, according to the state Department of Social Services, which oversees the licensing of day care homes. These were three “right off the top,” as one administrator put it, and all are related to abuse.

Many Questions Arise

Why were such people granted licenses in the first place? Why were they drawn to children? And why is no agency actively making sure that none of these people practices day care after the license is taken away?

Walt Proffitt oversees the licensing of day care homes in San Diego. He’s an administrator with the county Department of Social Services, which works on a contract basis with the state. Asked whose job it is--that of police or the county--to make sure a revoked licensee isn’t practicing day care, Proffitt said quietly, “Neither.”

He explained, “Once we’ve closed a home, we assume it’s no longer doing day care . . . unless we get a complaint. Once we revoke a license, we don’t check to see if they’re back in business.” Such a practice would, of course, be highly illegal--which isn’t to say, Proffitt noted, that it isn’t done.

The fact that some licensed day care providers end up as child abusers is, in the words of Cindy Zook, “Appalling.” Zook is senior social work supervisor of the 24-hour Child Abuse Hotline (560-2191 in San Diego, ZEnith 7-2191 in North County). The hot line was set up in 1980 as part of a state and federal mandate ordering such a service in virtually every city in the country.

Zook said no current data measures the number of child abuse cases occurring in day care homes. She noted, however, that licensed professionals who come in contact with children--psychologists, police officers, doctors and nurses --are required to report evidence of child abuse. Of 26,200 cases in San Diego County in 1983, only 83, Zook said, were reported by day care personnel--a figure she called alarmingly low. (She added that statistics breaking down who reports the abuse have since been dropped.)

Kathleen Norris, spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services, said the problem of child abuse in day care homes had become “much more dramatic” with the recent wave of publicity about abuse, including the ongoing McMartin Preschool case in the Los Angeles area.

All seven revocations of day care licenses in San Diego County in 1984 were tied to child abuse, she said.

Waiting for the Crime

“The problem with having this happen in day care facilities is a difficult one to address in advance,” she said. “You can’t close a place down before it happens. The fact that it comes to light after it happens is just the way it is. If there was a way to prevent it before it happened, great. The best way is still education--of parents, day care providers and staff and, of course, of society in general.”

Harry Elias, head of the new child abuse unit of the San Diego County district attorney’s office, said it is “just common sense” that a child abuser could end up in a day care home.

“If that’s what they want to do, they’re gonna locate where they have the availability,” he said. “It’s like a con man working his way into a bank, or a commodities market.”

Elias said that reported cases “tend to make people aware. Awareness breeds efficiency and concern, the main thing we’re in business to accomplish.”

Some critics charge that law enforcement, historically, has been lax on the problem of child abuse. The cases are difficult to prove, they contend, so they’re not pursued. Child abuse also is not seen as being as much of a “macho” crime as robbery or murder, so it is less appealing to “macho” law enforcement types.

Elias disagrees.

“There are difficult aspects in proving a case,” he said. “That I won’t argue with. You have to talk children into testifying in court, and children are not adults. They aren’t specific, like adults. They don’t remember like adults. They’re not as verbally intelligent.

“I don’t know that it’s not a ‘macho’ crime, but it is a highly emotional crime. Looking into a crime like this can be very emotional, very difficult. In some cases, it affects the work of the officer, or the attorney, looking into it. It can do so in a deleterious way.”

Elias, who is assembling a four-person staff, said the county is paying more attention to the problem and, because of the McMartin case, will look further into the day care world.

Evidence of renewed involvement is the 12-person unit now in place with the San Diego Police Department. Sgt. Jorge Guevara is part of that group, which works closely, he said, with Child Protective Services and its 24-hour hot line.

Double Investigation

The process for detecting child abuse, in or out of a day care home, works something like this:

A call coming in to the hot line is forwarded to police. It’s investigated and shared with the county Department of Social Services. At that point two investigations happen simultaneously. Police evaluate the criminal allegations. If the matter is worthy of prosecution, it becomes the concern of the district attorney’s office (Elias’ division). Prosecutors and law enforcement officials have to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The Department of Social Services, acting solely on the question of day care licensing, works in a different way.

It must show only “a preponderance” of evidence in taking away a license--that is, enough indication that a suspect with a day care permit is a risk, regardless of legally proved guilt or innocence. Once a license is revoked, a person cannot obtain one, under any circumstances, for a minimum of two years. After that, provided they’re not convicted, they’re free to reapply.

Proffitt said a person convicted of a crime against someone else is almost never granted a license. However, he said people sometimes fail to list a previous offense in applying for a license. Because of this, checking of references and records has tightened in recent years.

Still, in a recent one-year period in San Diego County, 44 criminal exemptions were granted. The figure seems high to some, but Proffitt said it can be misleading.

“The form asks the question: ‘Have you ever been convicted of a crime other than a traffic ticket of $50 or less?’ If it’s speeding with a fine of $51, they answer yes to that question,” he said. “We have granted exemptions to people involved in burglaries, say, but in a case such as that, a lot of different things come into play. We consider the rehabilitation, the time served, whether they were pardoned--we consider mainly the person’s present circumstances.”

Proffitt said he has heard of “incredible” reasons for people wanting to get day care licenses. One favorite used to be getting a license in order to have privileges in The Price Club, a commercial discount house.

“We found out later they had no intention of ever running a day care home,” he said. “They just wanted the discounts.”

Proffitt said that, in the case of an abused child, evidence is turned over to state attorneys in Sacramento. One of those is Duane Phillips with the Department of Social Services. His department reviews cases for “preponderance of evidence,” turning them over to an administrative law judge, who hears the case in the manner of a non-jury civil trial. His decision to revoke the license or not--is usually adopted.

Spanking Not Allowed

Phillips said two-thirds of all proposed revocations are child abuse cases. He noted that some cases involve corporal punishment--a provider paddling or spanking a child. This isn’t allowed, he said, with or without the parents’ permission, and under the law qualifies as child abuse.

In the face of a “serious ongoing hazard,” Phillips’ department can issue a temporary suspension order (TSO), putting the licensee’s day care practice in limbo.

“Let’s say a licensee is thought to be engaging in the sexual abuse of children,” he said. “If they’re in a facility, they pose an apparent, immediate danger to kids. We don’t want them even thinking of doing day care while out on bail, or something of that nature.”

Most revocations are, he said, preceded by a TSO. That was true in each of the three cases highlighted at the beginning of this story.

Phillips agreed with Elias that detecting and going after child abusers often means running the gamut of emotions. He also said he believes that society has reached a turning point on child abuse, particularly that practiced in day care outlets. He thinks the country is “finally waking up” to the problem.

The hardest part to face, said Guevara of the San Diego Police Department, is the grim reality of the act itself. That such a thing could occur in a day care home for children--a supposed haven--only makes the crime all the more reprehensible, he said.

“Some policemen, dealing with this crime, come to view it as the most horrible thing they encounter,” he said. “Overcoming that is one of the first steps toward fighting it. Crimes against children --sexual molestation, intercourse --this is really serious, disgusting stuff. The investigation of it is horrible. The prosecution is often terribly difficult. But the awareness that it even happened may be the hardest of all.”