Georgia’s Attorney General’s Office should be a main actor in protecting the state’s children, said the Democrat who hopes to occupy that office come January.
Greg Hecht, a former prosecutor and lawmaker, said Thursday that if he’s elected he will install 10 investigators and five lawyers in a new child protection unit to stop the rising number of children who die despite contact with state authorities.
More than 400 children in Georgia have died since 2011 despite having contact with the Department of Family and Children Services.
“This is something that should never occur in our state,” Hecht told reporters. “Children should be better safeguarded.”
Hecht said incumbent Republican Attorney General Sam Olens has done little to stem the tide of child fatalities.
Attempts to obtain comment from Olens’ campaign were unsuccessful.
Hecht believes the attorney general, as the state’s top law enforcement officer, should play a key role through training attorneys and DFCS caseworkers. He vows to investigate cases of child abuse and neglect and to appoint special investigators to comb through files of at-risk children.
His plan would also require changes to state records laws to require DFCS to release more details of closed cases where a child has died. Allowing the public to know where the agency has failed a child will spur it to work harder to prevent future cases, Hecht said.
The current system, under which DFCS routinely refuses to release case history, lacks accountability, he said.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in August that state officials recorded 180 deaths in 2013 among children whose families had attracted DFCS’ attention during the previous five years. The AJC’s reporting prompted Gov. Nathan Deal to call for hiring hundreds of additional caseworkers and to replace DFCS’ top leader.
The AJC reported last year that DFCS workers’ mistakes contributed to numerous deaths, as did pressure from agency executives to place far fewer children in foster care, even when they faced obvious danger at home.
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