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This story is part of "When Home is the Danger," a multi-part series on how Texas is leaving families without ongoing support or monitoring and children in dangerous homes.
Texas released another in a series of reports charting a precipitous decline in child fatalities from abuse and neglect in March. The Child Maltreatment Annual Fatality Report showed a 60% decline in tragic deaths in less than five years. This came, paradoxically, as the state reduced services to troubled families as well as the number of children it removes from dangerous homes.
The Texas Department of Family & Protective Services (DFPS) dramatically reduced how often it gave services to families accused of abusing or neglecting their children between 2018 and 2023. DFPS provided no services or ongoing monitoring to 63% of all families where it found abuse or neglect in 2023, an increase of 20% from six years prior.
Simultaneously, the state reduced the number of children it removed from homes where it found abuse and neglect — 40% fewer children between 2021 and 2023 without a similar reduction in maltreatment findings.
Experts said the drop in deaths coupled with reduction in services was so logically incongruous that it left them wondering if the numbers were too good to be true.
“That does not feel right. It just doesn't feel right. It doesn't look right,” said Melinda Gushwa, a visiting professor of social work at Simmons University in Boston, who spent more than two dozen years working in U.S. child welfare and juvenile justice state agencies.
The plunging numbers coincided with changes in law and policy on what counts as a neglect death and when the department even investigates deaths for abuse and neglect.
Under 2021’s House Bill 567, the legislature raised the legal threshold, driving down two of the largest categories of neglect deaths, drownings and asphyxiation due to unsafe sleep accommodations, often involving the accidental smothering by parents impaired by drugs or alcohol.
These two death types still lead the number of neglect deaths, according to DFPS.
In a statement, DFPS pointed to drops in physical abuse deaths — the lowest since 2017 — which would have been unaffected by the definitional change.
The state acknowledged in its latest Child Maltreatment Annual Fatality Report that the decline in neglect deaths — the largest share of maltreatment deaths nationally — was due to the 2021 law.
But the state has conducted no analysis on how the HB 567’s passage impacts child safety, and state data reflected that children continue to die in homes that are abusive and neglectful.
While the state’s fatality numbers showed a significant drop in verified child abuse and neglect fatalities since 2018, there was a sharp rise in other categories of child deaths recorded by DFPS.
They are not being counted as fatalities because they've gutted the neglect definition. Lori Duke
One growing category included times abuse and neglect was found in the home, but the department ruled it out as causing the death.
Another growing category included deaths within a family with a history of abuse and neglect allegations — where abuse and neglect were again found in the home at the time of the death — but was not considered responsible for the fatality.
Advocates argued the state was very likely simply recategorizing the deaths it once counted as neglect.
“They are not being counted as fatalities because they've gutted the neglect definition,” said Lori Duke, co-director of the Children’s Rights Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin. “If fewer children are dying from neglect, it's only because you've redefined neglect to essentially not be neglect.”
The state declined to answer TPR’s question about recategorizing deaths — likely the ones it once counted as neglect.
“I mean, you can only compare what you can compare like if your metrics are different, if you have apples and oranges. But maybe that's part of the reason for changing this so that you can’t compare,” Gushwa said.
Investigating fewer deaths, leads to finding fewer deaths
The state then took more action that resulted in abuse and neglect deaths falling, potentially only on paper.
In 2023, the state changed its policy on when it investigates a child fatality for abuse and neglect. Now the department only investigates when “explicit concern” for abuse and neglect exists at the time of death. If it does not, first responders are asked to contact the department if something comes up. This change resulted in DFPS investigating 30% fewer child abuse and neglect fatalities, in 2023, the year the policy changed, according to state numbers on fatalities assigned for investigation.
“They are deliberately under-counting,” Duke said.
DFPS declined to comment to TPR on what impact this policy change had on identifying abuse and neglect deaths. It also declined to describe what, if any analysis it did on the impacts of the policy change.
One major impact when a death is not counted as neglect is that DFPS’ role ends right then at that determination. It frees the department of responsibility for offering families ongoing services, of investigating further or of possibly sheltering remaining siblings. Often in child fatality cases, siblings are removed — at least temporarily — while the investigation continues or while the parents use services that will keep their remaining children safe, Duke explained.
All these things are very costly for the agency with a $3 billion biennium budget.
Whatever the motivation, the state is no longer counting the same things.
They have not somehow cracked the code of reducing child abuse and neglect fatalities, said Emily Douglas, professor of social work at Montclair State University.
“You're not decreasing the number of deaths. The overall death rate remains the same. But, guess I'm not really sure what the motivation is behind that,” she said.
DFPS declined to answer TPR’s question on whether the state was making apples to oranges comparisons with current fatality data vs past data.
This isn’t the first time that policy changes resulted in wild swings recorded in Texas child abuse and neglect fatalities. In the late 1990s, the state required that any child who died under the age of 6 receive an autopsy.
Douglas pointed to an incredible jump the following year.
In 1997, Texas’ child abuse and neglect fatality rate was slightly above the national average. By 1998, that number had surged by 75%.
“It seems highly unlikely that 75% more children died in Texas from abuse and neglect in 1998 as compared to 1997, especially as the overall child death rate declined during that time,” read a policy brief from the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
It also said other states were undercounting abuse and neglect deaths.
But it isn’t always just data abnormalities accounting for Texas’ numbers. The Austin-American Statesman found the state undercounted child abuse and neglect fatalities in 2015.
One of the big problems around this issue was that there is no national standard for what counts as an abuse and neglect death. Many states count these deaths in various ways resulting in a messy situation, Douglas explained.
Despite questions around how Texas has gone about its counting, Douglas did think their attempt to standardize the count was positive. “I applaud their efforts to really try to nail down exactly what they are going to consider abuse and neglect related death.” she said.
A report from the American Enterprise Institute published in 2024 highlighted the many differences in how states’ definitions could impact their numbers. For example, a child who drowns in a bathtub might be classified as a neglectful death in one state but as an accident in another.
As states like Texas change standards, deaths may have been counted as neglect one year and not the following year.
An estimated 2,000 children died in 2023 from abuse and neglect, according to the latest federal Child Maltreatment report.
“We've seen child deaths increase [nationally],” said Frank Vandevort, a clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan Child Advocacy Law Clinic. “We know that our official numbers are undercounts of the number of children who are dying from abuse and neglect, and so agencies don't want that made public. Political leaders don't want that made public.”
Undercounting deaths
A cursory review of media reports in Texas turned up at least a half dozen deaths the state failed to note in its fatality reports, despite caregivers being prosecuted for the crimes.
Between 2018 and 2023, Texas reported to the legislature 1,242 deaths from abuse and neglect. When TPR requested the names and public fatality release reports from those deaths, it received documentation for a little more than 1,200.
When TPR asked about the year with the largest discrepancy, a state employee said it may have to do with overturned cases — or cases where an alleged perpetrator appealed to DFPS’s administrative review process, and the determination was changed from abuse and neglect. But the state couldn’t confirm.
“I’m still waiting for a final determination from our records folks on these numbers,” said Marissa Gonzales, director of communications for DFPS.
Five months later, the agency still has not provided an explanation.
Texas may cause less abuse and neglect incidents to be reported as well. The legislature has taken action to reduce the number of calls alleging abuse and neglect. In 2023, House Bill 63 made it impossible to anonymously report abuse and neglect. These calls are now immediately ruled out. The stated goal of HB 63 was to eliminate false reports from misunderstanding bystanders or vengeful family members.
The state receives hundreds of thousands of abuse and neglect allegations each year, with the vast majority being ruled out.
Several lawmakers have commented on the need to help focus investigators on the reports that matter, which is why they targeted anonymous reporters.
A 9% drop in total reporters occurred after the law passed between 2023 and 2024, according to the state’s databook website. The total number went from more than 13,000 reporters who insisted on being anonymous to intake workers down to around 300.
Some conservative lawmakers are currently pushing to drive the numbers down further as well. A Senate bill proposed in the 2025 session would create new and, some argue, onerous rules around when doctors and other health care workers report abuse and neglect.
Senate Bill 128 would require doctors to inform the parents that they believe the child was abused, to inform them they can get a second opinion and fill out an affidavit of how the doctor determined abuse, neglect or exploitation. The hospital then must generate a report for the state and can be penalized and fined if it doesn’t.
Advocates worry the rules, added paperwork and modest financial penalties will disincentivize doctors, who are some of the strongest safeguards for children, from reporting all instances of suspected abuse and neglect.
This series was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship.
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