In 2022, there were 12,473 anonymous calls to the state and about 1,000 of those calls resulted in a substantiated finding of abuse or neglect, said Kate Murphy, director of child protection policy with the advocacy group Texans Care for Children. . . .
“Unfortunately, the DFPS and Child Protective Services can often be used as a weapon. A lot of times we see this in divorce cases. We probably all know of a circumstance where a family was needlessly traumatized because of an anonymous tip that was ultimately found to be false,” said [Sen. Kevin Sparks, R-Midland]. . . .
Stephen Simpson, “Texas bill barring anonymous reporting of child abuse heads to Gov. Greg Abbott,” The Texas Tribune, May 18, 2023.
For those worried about people using the legal system to be vindictive or to harm innocent people, the extremely high false accusation rate here should be a concern. For those concerned about Red Flag laws being abused, this is something to take note. In addition, while it is possible that some cases that are unsubstantiated might involve real cases, it is also possible that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services will see cases of abuse where none exist. Like most government agencies, they are more likely to err on the side of thinking that their services are needed, so it is possible that this error rate might be even higher than 92%.
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