{"id":22918,"date":"2017-01-27T11:08:55","date_gmt":"2017-01-27T16:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=22918"},"modified":"2017-01-27T11:08:58","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T16:08:58","slug":"da-expands-child-abuse-unit-as-reports-spike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=22918","title":{"rendered":"DA expands Child Abuse Unit as reports spike"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

From left, Megan King, Emily Provencher, Christine Bleiler, and Oscar Rosado are part of a growing team to deal with a spike in child abuse complaints in the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.<\/p><\/div>\n

WEST CHESTER \u2014 Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan announced Friday that child abuse reports are continuing to increase in volume\u00a0in Chester County \u2014 in part because of new state reporting requirements \u2014 as his office is moving to add resources to handle the additional investigative load.<\/p>\n

“With the change in Pennsylvania laws regarding mandatory reporting of child abuse after the Sandusky case, we expected to see an increase <\/span>in child abuse reports,” Hogan said. “This spike <\/span>mirrors increases across the Commonwealth. More cases are being reported and the District Attorney’s Ch<\/span>i<\/span>ld <\/span>Abuse Unit has grown in size and sophistication in or<\/span>der to address the new case load.”<\/p>\n

The District Attorney’s Child Abuse Unit receives child abuse reports from multi<\/span>ple agencies, including the <\/span>Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare and the Chester County Department of Children, Youth and Families.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to figures from the DA’s office, complaints have grown from 291\u00a0in 2013 to 1,681 in 2016. Just in one year \u2014 from 2015 to 2016 \u2014 the county saw a rise in complaints from 1,306 to 1,681.<\/p>\n

The increase in reports has resulted\u00a0 <\/span>in\u00a0 <\/span>a corresponding\u00a0 <\/span>increased\u00a0 <\/span>workload for the Child Abuse Unit and the local\u00a0 <\/span>police departments. \u00a0 <\/span>When there is a report \u00a0 <\/span>of serious child abuse, the child victims usually are interviewed at the Children’s Advocacy Center in the District Attorney’s Office, a safe location specifically designed to be kid-friendly.\u00a0 <\/span>The\u00a0 <\/span>interviews\u00a0 <\/span>are\u00a0 <\/span>conducted\u00a0 <\/span>by\u00a0 <\/span>forensic interviewers, detectives\u00a0 <\/span>who are specially trained to deal with\u00a0 children.<\/p>\n

In order to address the additional work, the District Attorney’s Office has prioritized child abuse resources. In 2013, these were two prosecutors and two detectives (one investigator and one supervisor) assigned to the DA’s Child Abuse Unit. As of 2017, the Child Abuse Unit has four prosecutors and four detectives\u00a0 <\/span>(three investigators and one supervisor) assigned, effectively doubling in size.<\/p>\n

The Chester County Commissioners previously authorized hiring an extra detective specifically to address child abuse cases.<\/p>\n

“As the District Attorney has noted, we expected to see an increase in reports of child abuse because of the change in state laws, but those expectations don’t make it any easier when we see the actual numbers,”\u00a0Michele Kichline, Chair of the Chester County Commissioners, said. “<\/span>One of the main priorities of the Board of Commissioners is public safety, especially the safety of our ch<\/span>i<\/span>ldren<\/span>. <\/span>I thank the DA and <\/span>his staff <\/span>for prioritizing their <\/span>resources and doing everything that they can to protect the children during the grueling <\/span>and emotional – <\/span>but necessary – process of investigation and prosecution.”<\/p>\n

The rise in <\/span>number of reports also has led to <\/span>a rise in the number <\/span>of child abuse cases being <\/span>prosecuted. These cases <\/span>are often complex, leading <\/span>to an increased<\/span> burden on prosecutors and the courts. The case<\/span>s<\/span> are always traumatic<\/span> for the child victims, who are forced to re-live<\/span> their abuse in<\/span> court.<\/span><\/p>\n

“In<\/span> Chester County, we are fortunate to<\/span> have the resources <\/span>to deal with the complex issue of child abuse,” Hogan said. “In addition, we are surrounded by elected officials and civic le<\/span>aders\u00a0<\/span>who<\/span> understand the importance<\/span> of protecting our children. However, talking to colleagues around Pennsylvania who already are overwhelmed by the heroin and opioid epidemic, it is <\/span>clear that many rural counties <\/span>and urban centers lack the <\/span>resources to address the spike in <\/span>child abuse cases. More resources need to be devoted to the investigation and prosecution of these cases. Even one child being hurt is one too many and no child predator should be<\/span> allowed to roam the streets.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WEST CHESTER \u2014 Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan announced Friday that child abuse reports are continuing to increase in volume\u00a0in Chester County \u2014 in part because of new state reporting requirements \u2014 as his office is moving to add resources to handle the additional investigative load. “With the change in Pennsylvania laws regarding mandatory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2056,4991,8481,6518],"class_list":["post-22918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chester-county-district-attorneys-office","tag-child-abuse","tag-child-abuse-unit","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22919,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22918\/revisions\/22919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}