Dozens In CPS Have Criminal Records

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Dozens In CPS Have Criminal Records
Published on 03-23-2009 Email To Friend Print Version


Source: Sacramento Bee


Drug possession, domestic violence, repeatedly driving drunk, assault with a deadly weapon – any one of these charges or convictions could lead child protective services workers to remove children from a home or force a parent into counseling.

But all of those crimes and many others appear in the backgrounds of employees of Sacramento County's Child Protective Services, a Bee investigation has found.

A review of the agency's 969 workers employed as of Oct. 1 found that at least 68 individuals – 7 percent of the work force – have criminal records in Sacramento County alone. The number is likely to be even higher because some names were too common to retrieve all criminal complaints linked to them, and records in other counties were not searched.

Although the county child protection agency has a policy to perform criminal background checks on prospective employees – and says it is alerted by the state if a current employee is arrested – the ranks at CPS include offenders convicted of such crimes as possession of heroin for sale, theft, embezzlement, spousal abuse, obstructing an officer, prostitution and identity theft.

One county worker who was a receptionist at two CPS offices is a registered sex offender. One social worker has a pending court case over claims that she harassed her neighbors with laser beams and obscene tirades. A family service worker was charged in August with stealing gas from a county pump.

CPS Director Laura Coulthard and her boss at the county, Lynn Frank, declined to be interviewed. But The Bee's examination prompted Coulthard to issue two memos to agency employees in the past month, warning that their names and criminal histories might be published.

Neither she nor other top county officials would discuss their policies for deciding what kind of criminal background would preclude someone from being hired or when and why exceptions are made.

CPS workers are entrusted with Sacramento's most vulnerable residents: abused and neglected children, living in broken families. These workers are charged with passing judgment on parents' fitness. They testify under oath, serving as the eyes and ears of the juvenile court system.

"Just because they don't carry a gun doesn't mean they don't exercise extraordinary power over children and families," said William Grimm, an attorney at the Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law. "Forcing them to adhere to the highest level of conduct seems legitimate to me."

Some Sacramento CPS employees' arrests date back years, while others are current. Some committed serious crimes while working for the agency but remained on the job for months and even years – sometimes on paid leave.

Among The Bee's findings:

• Six CPS family service workers who go into people's homes to help families have been convicted or face charges of drug possession, theft, embezzlement or possession of heroin for sale.

• Many of the convictions are for driving under the influence and reckless driving, including 15 workers who have close contact with children and families. Some of their jobs require them to transport children to safe locations, often in the middle of the night. Three CPS social workers have multiple DUI convictions, including one arrested three times between 1999 and 2005.

• At least 17 CPS office assistants who handle sensitive case files have faced some of the most serious charges, including spousal abuse, illegal weapons possession, witness tampering, failure to provide for a child, identity theft, grand theft, embezzlement of county resources, welfare fraud, injury to a spouse and obstructing an officer.

• Repeated arrests – even for violence – do not appear to be an automatic impediment to CPS employment. One office worker employed since 2001 faces spousal abuse charges in a pending case and has previous arrests for DUI, gambling, spousal abuse and witness tampering, court documents state. A police report taken in that worker's 1993 spousal abuse case states that "he admitted association with the Sacramento Blood Brothers, which is a violent gang."