© 2025
In touch with the world ... at home on the High Plains
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Our translator station serving St. Francis and Cheyenne County at 96.3 FM is off the air due to an air conditioning breakdown at its leased transmitter site, making it too hot for HPPR's equipment to operate. We are currently working to fix the situation. We apologize for the loss of service and ask listeners to tune to KZNK at 90.1 FM or listen on line through the player above or HPPR's mobile app.

Study: Oklahoma's foster-care abuse numbers are the worst in America

jeffsmallwood
/
Flickr Creative Commons

While Texas has garnered national news for its poor treatment of foster kids, Oklahoma has quietly been amassing a far more troubling record.

As The Tulsa World reports, a report has found that Oklahoma had more cases of foster-care abuse and neglect in 2015 than any other state.

The numbers come from a new study on child maltreatment by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The state had 121 more abuse and neglect cases than Texas, despite the fact that Oklahoma only has around four million people, while Texas has 27 million. Perhaps more surprising, Oklahoma had 34 more abuse cases than California, which has a population almost ten times larger than the Sooner State.

All told, there were 150 cases of abuse or neglect in Oklahoma in 2015, which works out to almost three per week.