Children’s Protective Agency Hit

San Diego County’s child-protective system is “out of control, with few checks and little balance,” according to a blistering grand jury report that accused system officials of seeing abuse and neglect everywhere, and too frequently tearing families apart unnecessarily.

The report, issued Thursday, calls for “profound change” and urges prompt “corrective action.”

The first of 86 changes, the grand jury said, should be to create a agency to replace the one charged with investigating abuse. The current agency sometimes “cannot distinguish real abuse from fabrication, abuse from neglect and neglect from poverty or cultural differences,” the report said.

In many cases involving allegations of sexual molestation, it is “almost impossible to prove that (molestation) happened,” the panel said. But in the child-protective system, “the burden of proof, contrary to every other area of judicial system, is on the alleged perpetrator to prove his innocence.”

The system, characterized “by confidential files, closed courts, gag orders and statutory immunity, has isolated itself to a degree unprecedented in our system of jurisprudence and ordered liberties,” the grand jury said. It also resists external criticism, the report said.

Virtually every aspect of the system--designed to identify and safeguard abused or neglected children--must share the blame, the report said. The social service agency is too bureaucratic, it said; county lawyers fail to screen cases carefully and Juvenile Court is too chaotic.

The county’s social service manager said Thursday that he welcomed the report but disputed certain charges. He said he could not comment on most allegations because he had not yet read the 55-page report.

“Our social workers can tell the difference between fabrication and child abuse,” said Richard W. (Jake) Jacobsen, director of the county Department of Social Services.

Most social workers, the grand jury said, do an outstanding job. But they are overworked and have too much stress, and the agency has too many managers, the report said.