At last count, the state had 1,600 children in foster care and only 732 foster homes. Andrea Lenway, a children's lawyer in Alamogordo, said only two custody cases were filed in a recent five-month period in Otero County. At the time, she said, all seven foster homes in the county were full. Albuquerque lawyer William S. Dixon said a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling provides a disincentive for CYFD to take children into state custody. The court ruled that social workers can't be held liable for damages for failing to remove a child from an abusive biological home.
Liability attaches once a child is placed in state custody.
Wilson and other CYFD officials dismissed that as a reason for fewer removals. They said they hadn't even heard of the ruling. Children's advocates say they have seen cases in which CYFD received from seven to 10 reports of child abuse or neglect before removing a child. Some families have had up to 20 abuse and neglect complaints over the span of a decade before CYFD has taken the children into custody. Briggs said it's better to remove a child at a younger age and before the abusive parents have other children.