Regulators have been forbidden to tell parents if a day-care center was investigated for child abuse. A law requiring disclosure, but not offenders' names, takes effect in January. The Department of Social Services has confirmed 730 day-care complaints since 1990, ranging from chronic lice to murder. Unregistered centers are also spreading, Driggers says. The state has discovered 94 illegal operations in the last two years.
Child advocates say the cost of minimal regulation is injuries, abuse, even death.
Most were victims of sudden infant death syndrome, but three toddlers died from accidents. Last year Gail Cutro of Irmo was sentenced to life in prison for shaking a toddler to death in 1993. Another baby also died in Cutro's day-care home, and a third was seriously injured, authorities said. They said they chose not to prosecute the second and third cases because Cutro was already in jail. That's unfair, said John Niblock, executive director of the S.C. Alliance for Children.