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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.