DFCS begins criminal background checks in suspected abuse cases

<p>The state Division of Family and Children Services has started criminal background checks on adults who live in homes where child abuse or neglect is suspected.</p><p>The policy, which includes obtaining fingerprints, is particularly aimed at live-in boyfriends who may watch children while their mothers work, officials said.</p><p>"There is no biological bond, and the boyfriend does not have the parenting skills to handle a child who is upset and crying. Then the child sustains an injury," DFCS director Janet Oliva said.</p><p>"There have been numerous cases where the person who hurts the child is not the natural parent," she said. "It's better to know about the adults and know what's in their past."</p><p>The policy also could help uncover people with a history of sexual abuse of children, Oliva said.</p><p>In the past, DFCS has performed some criminal screens on parents, including checks with the state Department of Corrections, a statewide registry of sexual offenders and the state parole board.</p><p>In 2002, 5,660 of the 41,206 cases of child abuse in Georgia were attributed to people other than the biological parents, according to the most recent available DFCS data.</p><p>The policy on background checks was adopted a month ago and is just starting to be put into practice. It provides caseworkers the discretion to decide who will be fingerprinted.</p><p>DFCS expects to do checks on 50,000 people in the first year, at a cost of $1.2 million, said the DFCS acting director of social services, Sarah Brownlee.</p><p>A person who refuses to cooperate could be asked to leave the house. DFCS could, in some cases, ask a judge to remove the child, officials said.</p><p>Criminal records uncovered by the checks will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the danger the person may present to a child, officials said.</p><p>"If someone is playing a significant role in a child's life, staying over for a significant amount of time, baby-sitting them, they need to be fingerprinted," said Oliva, a former GBI agent who took over the agency in October. "It's putting them on notice. They need to know we're looking at them."</p><p>Some caseworkers say that seeking fingerprints might hurt their relationship with a family.</p><p>"I think it's an invasion of privacy," said U'Lawnda Lewis, a Clayton County caseworker. Families, she said, will come to see DFCS as "a policing agency _ not about building relationships."</p><p>Laughlin McDonald, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the policy was "more intrusive, and like Big Brother."</p><p>"To have sanctions like this, it is not really voluntary," McDonald said. "People will be coerced."</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x2865470)</p>

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