Crimes against children up in Ector County
May 13—The number of children being abused in Ector County is increasing and not just because there was a dip due to COVID-19, said Carrie Bronaugh, executive director of Harmony Home Children's Advocacy Center.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services indicate the number of abuse cases investigated by Child Protective Services in Ector County dropped 10% from 2019 to 2020, but surged nearly 18% between 2020 and 2021. In looking at the difference between 2019, which was a typical year, and 2021, there was a 5% increase.
The number of cases are actually even higher, Bronaugh said. CPS doesn't track law enforcement investigations involving non-family members.
Bronaugh said the number of children reporting sexual abuse accounts for anywhere from 45 to 65% of the cases reported monthly. The remaining cases involve physical abuse or neglect.
While child advocates expected to see a post-COVID surge once schools opened back up and teachers began making reports again, Bronaugh said she believes the numbers are rising for other reasons as well.
"Social media has played a huge role, like the (#MeToo) movement and the sexual assaults that happened with all the gymnasts. That really has opened up the world to it's not acceptable any longer, and I think it's helped. We have also started child safety matters in all the schools."
In 2019, Harmony Home employees began visiting students in K-5 to teach them about body safety, Bronaugh said. Just under 2,400 kids received the training in 2019, but that number shot up to more than 16,000 last year.
About a month ago, a little girl who went through the program went to school officials and told them that as a result of the program she realized what her father was doing to her was not OK, Bronaugh said.
"The father was arrested and she's now receiving therapy services with us. It starts with that education piece, and you can see that full 360. So hopefully that girl is an elementary now, when she hits adolescence, she's going to have the tools in her box that she she's going to be able to cope as she develops into a young lady and know that it's not her fault and that's what this is all about," she said.
Bronaugh also believes the number of children and families reporting abuse is on the rise because of the efforts of the Ector County District Attorney's Office.
"I think it also ties back to the convictions. When people are seeing that alleged perpetrators are being found guilty, and they're getting sentenced, or they're having a significant consequence to their action. It allows the community to understand that there's no tolerance for that kind of behavior. It sets like a standard, you know, in my opinion that if you're going to do this, you need to be aware that there are some major consequences. It's not going to be a slap on the hand, and I feel like that has has increased and it's been a good thing."
Under reported
Unfortunately, the number of cases being reported doesn't truly reflect the number of children being abused, Bronaugh said. She estimates roughly 15-20% of parents either don't believe their children or fail to report the abuse for a variety of reasons. Parents often fear the financial implications of an arrest, are reluctant to turn in a family member or simply would rather address the issue inside the home.
Thirty percent of children are abused in the home and another 60% are abused by someone else they know, Bronaugh said.
Families often don't realize Harmony Home can help them obtain social services and will provide counseling, she said.
"We work with these families to help them with referrals, crime victims compensation, all of the information that they need, so that hopefully they can focus on the most important thing, their family becoming whole again and healed," Bronaugh said. "Not all the time does that work. I would love to stay in this world that we live in, everybody becomes healed, but it's just not the world we live in, unfortunately."
It saddens her that so many single parents feel compelled to invite a new boyfriend or girlfriend into their homes, whether it's for financial or any other reason because it often doesn't occur to them the risk they are taking with their children, she said.
"We had a case like that not too long ago, that gentleman who got six life sentences. Mom had moved into the community to have a better relationship with her parents. She was a single mom. She couldn't afford daycare. Family friend was watching her. So like you know, just in reading that and understanding the concept. Did the community fail her? Did the community fail that little girl? Yeah. So it's one of those questions that keeps me up at night. It does," Bronaugh said.
Harmony Home is doing its best to educate people on the dangers.
Since 2012, Harmony Home has been offering a two-hour training called Darkness 2 Light. A trained facilitator teaches groups how to prevent, recognize and report child sexual abuse. So far, more than 7,000 adults have gone through the program.
Criminal justice system
Naturally, the Ector County District Attorney's Office is seeing a commensurate number of cases being presented to their office for possible prosecution. However, First Assistant District Attorney Greg Barber said sexual abuse cases are amongst the hardest to prosecute for a number of reasons. Many children don't report the incident until years after all traces of physical evidence have disappeared because they were too young or they didn't realize they were being abused or they were pressured by their families not to report because of finances or familial ties to the perpetrator, he said.
"Getting DNA evidence from something that happened five years ago is probably not going to happen...If you have a girl 14 years old who says 'Five years ago, my neighbor did this,' try to get people to remember where and what they were doing five years ago... If that (suspect) started saying 'I was in college, I wasn't even around then,' are we able to verify that? Do they have some documentation of it? The burden's on us. Are we able to put that person in proximity to our victim during that time frame?"
Prosecuting relatively fresh cases can also be problematic, too, he said.
"It can be difficult when you're talking to a four or five year old. How do they look at time? You have to look at it through their eyes. Do they say it was the end of December around Christmas? Or do they just remember that it was cold out and they were at their uncle's house?" Barber said. "You have to try and find some corroboration if there's not a physical injury that's indicative of sexual assault. You have to obviously research how can I corroborate this? Are there are other witnesses or other other victims out there?"
Investigators often times have problems locating those witnesses, too, Barber said. Sexual assault nurse examiners, neighbors, teachers and other potential witnesses move over time, especially in an oilfield town.
Even when prosecutors think they might have a chance to get a guilty verdict, they often have another major obstacle to overcome, Barber said.
Testifying
"The biggest (problem) is you have parents in some cases that do not want their children or that child to testify. They do not want them re-traumatized. A lot of times they want you to go forward with the case, but they do not want their child to have to testify sometimes and in a very, very large percentage of them, the child would have to testify to get the evidence you needed for conviction," Barber said. "So what happens is, you have to weigh the victim's and parents' wishes with the ability to succeed at trial and sometimes in between there you're looking for what's an acceptable justice among the parties."
In other words, that's when prosecutors starts to think about offering a plea agreement. But even then, there can be issues, he said.
If a defendant doesn't have a criminal history and they're looking at 25, 50, 75 years in prison, they have no incentive to enter a plea agreement, he said.
"A lot of times they're like, 'You're giving me pretty much a life sentence anyway so I will take my chances at trial,'" Barber said.
As a result, there's often a backlog of cases waiting to go to trial, he said.
One thing remains certain — the prosecutors take crimes against children seriously and always keep the lines of communication open with the victims and their families, he said.
"Our ears are very tuned into their sentiments and concerns," Barber said.
Number of CPS Investigations*
Ector County
2019 — 1,186
2020 — 1,060
2021 — 1,246
Midland County
2019 — 803
2021 — 940
2020 — 922
Statewide
2019 — 163,029
2020 — 154,593
2021 — 157,519
Source: Texas Department of Family and Protective Services
*Numbers exclude law enforcement cases involving non-family members
Cases by Defendant
2019
2020
2021
Total
Aggravated Sex Assault
13
12
10
35
Sexual Assault
4
7
11
22
Continuous sexual abuse
7
10
2
19
Child pornography
4
2
5
11
Indecency with a child, exposes
4
0
0
4
Indecency with a child, contact
1
8
11
20
Defendants 111
Total charges 221
Source: Ector County District Clerk's Office
For more information on Darkness 2 Light, visit https://ohhcac.org/darkness-to-light
