$1.4 Million OKd to Add Officers to Fight Child Abuse

The Los Angeles Police Commission unanimously approved the money Tuesday for a yearlong pilot project, much of it concentrated on the San Fernando Valley, that will nearly triple the number of police investigating child abuse.

The $1.4-million experiment, which still requires City Council approval, will add 25 officers to the 14 now assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department’s child-abuse division. As many as 18 of the new officers will be assigned to the Valley, where four detectives now work on child-abuse cases, and the rest will be assigned to South Los Angeles, Lt. Mike Bostic said.

The plan comes in response to a report last year from Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who stated that police are having a hard time keeping up with child-abuse cases in Los Angeles. Such cases in the city increased more than 260% from 1974 to 1984, Detective Jim Brown said, and last year police handled 3,855 reports of child abuse--about one-quarter of them from the Valley.

‘Can’t Keep Up’

“We’re really at a breaking point. We literally can’t keep up with the number of cases that are reported,” said Brown, a member of the task force that recommended the “Child Abuse Prevention and Education Program” to the commission.

The increase in reported child abuse is largely a result of publicity about child molestation, Brown said.

The new officers will primarily handle child “injury reports,” a time-consuming task that often does not lead to criminal charges and keeps investigators from devoting their time to critical cases such as incest and child pornography, Brown said.

“Let’s say 3-year-old Sally shows up for nursery school with a bump on her head, and the teacher reports it to us,” Brown said. “We may spend a couple days checking it out, and what we find is that the mother slapped the kid accidentally because Johnny, her 17-year-old incorrigible son, was raising hell in the house. Well, the problem there is Johnny, and we can refer the family to a counselor. That’s fine, but we’ve spent a lot of time on a matter that does not have all that much to do with child abuse.”

Delay in Response

On the other hand, Brown said, an injury report--typically involving a parent who uses excessive discipline--is often the first sign of child abuse and must be investigated. But, because of their workload, investigators often cannot respond for several days, and, by that time, “everybody’s got their story worked out,” he said.

Members of the new unit will also join patrol officers in responding to reports of child abuse to determine if the incidents require further evaluation and to make a record of households that have recurring reports of child abuse. The new officers will also be in charge of referring children and their parents to public and private counseling and treatment agencies, Bostic said.

Depending on the success of the pilot project and the availability of funds, more officers may be added next year to expand the program to all of Los Angeles, he said.

Police officials said the Valley was not picked for the project because of any special child-abuse problems there.