child abuse

Childhood trauma is the number one cause of drug addiction, suicide and incarceration. What is the lasting impact of childhood trauma? How do early experiences—even experiences had as infants—shape adults? And how is it possible to recognize that damage—to help people heal? We'll hear from Michael J. Menard author of "Greater Than Gravity: How Childhood Trauma is Pulling Down Humanity."

The death of a five-year-old Texas girl represented a dramatic failure by the system to remove a child in danger. Her abuse lives on in the memories of the people who witnessed it or were forced to adjudicate the guilt of her tormentors.

Her mother left her with strangers. Texas officials knew and didn’t act. The three-year-old died from abuse.

Texas Public Radio spent more than a year analyzing more than 1,200 deaths from abuse and neglect between 2018 and 2023. The project, funded by the Pulitzer Center, brings stories of children who died when the state of Texas failed to intervene. TPR Accountability reporter Paul Flahive uncovered a child welfare system so intent on reducing its contact with troubled families that children have routinely been left with violent, unstable, drug-abusing parents.

Despite rising deaths, Texas limited safety services and enshrined laws that made it harder to remove a child.

Hundreds of children die in Texas each year from abuse and neglect. The state has employed several policies and laws intended to reduce the number of kids entering the system — at times with deadly results. But rather than fix the problem to keep children safe, the state is changing the guidelines. A Texas Public Radio special investigation shines a light on preventable deaths of children in Texas.

Despite two child welfare investigations and child abandonment charges, Hardiquinn Hill was allowed to stay with her abusers and died.

Texas reports drop in child abuse and neglect deaths but the numbers don’t tell the whole story.

An 11-year-old living in a hotel with CPS workers was taken by a man now charged with indecency with a child and trafficking. The girl escaped hours later, but no one had noticed she was gone.

Kelsey Malone was juror number 2 in the abuse death trial of Mercedes Losoya. He reflected on the impact of five days of grisly testimony and tear-filled remembrances on the 12 people who decided Jose Angel Ruiz's fate.