Crusader Forces Overhaul of State Child Abuse Index

She was a professional woman, cruising along in mid-career. She was making a living, raising a teenage daughter in Los Angeles, alone, and doing just fine. Wanting to do more with her life, she decided to teach children to read, to become a volunteer.

But for the woman now known in public only as Jane Coe, that goal foundered three years ago. Instead, she would be caught in the shadow of an obscure but silently ubiquitous state-run computer system. She would never teach a single reading class. She would not even bother to apply.

Instead, Coe would confront the Child Abuse Central Index, and force state and local officials to overhaul the way that child abuse allegations are reported to the state Department of Justice.

The case of Jane Coe vs. City of Los Angeles, et al has mushroomed over three years into a forum for balancing two of society’s most compelling values--the protection of children and due process for the accused. Coe’s dogged attempts to clear her own name have spurred child care licensing authorities, the attorney general’s office and the state Legislature to reassess whether a computer designed to protect children can taint adults unfairly with the stigma of child abuse.

Earlier this month, Coe lost a round in her legal battle. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that the use of the state computer in screening adults for child custody, adoptions and day care jobs does not violate privacy or due process rights.

The decision came as Judge Charles W. McCoy Jr. and the state attorney general’s office acknowledged that Coe’s lawsuit has forced substantial limitations on the release of the 1.75 million names in the computer, and as state lawmakers said that more reforms may be in order.

“I am delighted that they are finally trying to make some improvements,” Coe said, vowing to appeal McCoy’s ruling. “But people still should be told when they are on this list, and they still should have a right to a hearing [to clear their names]. Because there is still no way out.”

Before applying for the volunteer teaching position three years ago, Coe learned that she would be subjected to a background check. A Los Angeles Police Department employee told her that she had a listing on CACI. She decided not to apply.

The lawsuit does not provide specific evidence that Coe or anyone else has wrongly suffered monetary or job losses because their names are listed. But the plaintiff said she believes such damage has occurred because of the “the enormous stigma that is attached when you are labeled a child abuser. . . . If you are just named an abuser, you are one in people’s minds.”

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The Child Abuse Central Index was created in 1965 by the Legislature, which intended the listing to help police and county social workers conduct investigations by identifying adults who had been the target of abuse allegations and children who had been victimized.

Over three decades--as the state increasingly expanded the list of teachers, therapists and others required to report suspicions of abuse--CACI (pronounced like “khaki”) has grown into a wide-ranging catalog of allegations.

Access to names in the system, maintained by the state Department of Justice, also has been broadened. In the beginning, only police and social workers were allowed to use the computer. But it was later opened to state bureaucrats who license child care workers, public and private adoption agencies, out-of-state child welfare workers and county agencies that place foster children.

The index lists 788,000 child abuse suspects and 971,000 victims. Victims have been included since the inception of the system, in part, to see how many victims eventually became abusers themselves--a tracking system that was stopped by the Coe lawsuit.

Users tap into CACI about 110,000 times a year, mostly to clear individuals to work in day care centers, group homes and schools, and to pave the way for adults to adopt children. About 3,300 times a year, the justice department finds a “possible match” that is supposed to prompt further review of child abuse records.

The file is not open to the public. People can learn if they have a record by sending a written request to the Department of Justice.

Proponents have long argued for CACI’s continued expansion, saying only the widest possible listing of suspected child abuse cases can adequately protect children and help officials ferret out repeat offenders.

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But then came Jane Coe. The case is not an easy one to describe. Coe’s anonymity is protected by that pseudonym. Most of the facts of her case and revelations about CACI are hidden in a file that the court has sealed. The judge’s ruling--which describes the essence of the case--was made public.

Coe and her daughter, now an adult, said in an interview with The Times that divulging their real names or details of the incident that led to their placement on the registry could compromise their right to privacy and trigger the very public censure that the lawsuit has sought to prevent.

Coe and her daughter said their entire interaction with the justice system stemmed from a single mistaken incident. The daughter says she told police at the time that she was not abused.

“My mother never abused me, and this particular incident was never child abuse. It was an accident,” said the daughter, a graduate student. “I think it’s absolutely clear that we don’t belong on this list. The fact that someone could look in there and see that I was an abused child is just totally preposterous.”

The Los Angeles Police Department investigated the case, but charges were never filed and county social workers never removed the teenager from her mother’s home, a law enforcement source said.

Representatives of the city attorney’s office continue to insist that a police officer acted appropriately in investigating the case and reporting Coe to the Child Abuse Central Index.

“There is no doubt that the facts known to the detective who investigated this incident put it squarely within the reporting requirements of state law,” said Annette Keller, an assistant city attorney who has defended the city. Keller said LAPD officers had abided by state law and regulations--which require listing any incident in which they find “some credible evidence” of child abuse.

But the level of proof required to list someone on the CACI computer is one of the central issues of the lawsuit and of ongoing debate in the Legislature. CACI includes far more than the names of convicted child abusers.

It records individuals, like Coe, against whom a police officer “substantiated” a finding of child abuse or neglect. To make such a finding, state law requires that an investigator find only “some credible evidence” of mistreatment. And the state allows investigators to enter into CACI even “unsubstantiated” cases--those in which insufficient evidence exists to determine whether a child has been victimized.

Only cases determined to be entirely “unfounded”--including accidental injuries, false reports or inherently improbable accusations--are not to be compiled on the computer.

Supporters of CACI say the liberal reporting requirements allow the public to make educated decisions that help keep children out of dangerous settings. The state law that created CACI never intended it to be a final and definitive arbiter of character.

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Instead, the law requires adoption agencies, state Department of Social Services licensing officials and others who use the information to conduct additional investigation--including contacting the police or others who initiated the child abuse complaint.

Through this double-checking, CACI users are supposed to confirm whether a computer “match” is indeed the same person and then learn the underlying facts of the case. Only then are they supposed to use the information, say, to deny employment or adoption opportunities.

Coe’s attorney, Esther G. Boynton, said a child abuse computer can serve a valid public purpose. But she said its use has been marred by haphazard regulations, poor record keeping and questionable follow-up by the system’s users.

“In this system, a single police officer or social worker is given complete control over whether a person may be indelibly branded with a child abuse record,” Boynton said.

Through her lawsuit, Coe seeks to create immediate notification and an appeal process for listees, who now are not told that they have been entered in the system.

In an initial court defeat, Judge McCoy ruled Nov. 12 that Coe had not proven that the index led to a tangible loss such as employment or family integrity. He found that the required follow-up investigations by the agencies using the system ensure that adoptions, child placements and employment are not denied improperly.

McCoy added: “The fact that a given Index disclosure . . . might somehow prove embarrassing to an individual must, in these circumstances, give way to the government’s overriding legitimate interests in protecting children and apprehending child abusers.”

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But the lawsuit has prompted the Justice Department to thoroughly examine the system. The department issued a plan for several changes, and this year it:

* Began releasing computer information only after confirming that original abuse records still exist and investigators said the allegation still fit in the unsubstantiated or substantiated categories.

* Started informing applicants for adoptions, child care licenses or employment if their names had triggered a match in the child abuse computer. It still does not notify individuals when they are listed.

* Designed a formal procedure to keep a record of all agencies given access to an individual’s computer files.

* Stopped releasing, to state licensing officials, the names of child abuse victims who apply to work with children.

And in one controversial change, the Justice Department ceased answering the about 1,000 queries a month from social workers in California screening proposed caretakers for children removed from problem homes. Although the department said the checks were still important, it said they had to end because they were not specifically authorized by state law. That final change has caused a backlash from users.

“The more you know about the placement, the better off the child will be,” said Renee Powers, a deputy director with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. “They have taken away one tool.”

Spurred in part by the debate involving the Coe case, the Legislature argued into the final night of its session Sept. 1 about reforming CACI.

Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles) argued for the widest possible listing of suspected child abusers. But Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) argued that too broad a listing could stigmatize some touched by mere suspicion.

Other legislators’ plans are unclear, but Polanco promises to carry on his fight to preserve and even expand use of the child abuse registry. “The child is the underdog, the unrepresented one in these cases,” he said. “To have an attorney argue, ‘Don’t tap the computer because a few adults might not properly be in there’ is just unacceptable.”