From Early Childhood Focus

Child care loopholes enable predators

Posted in: Indiana

By Sheila Holland
June 26, 2007

The state has in recent years passed laws that make it tougher than ever for sexual predators to operate a day care home, but loopholes in the licensing system still exist.

Two day care homes in Vanderburgh and Gibson counties were closed after men who operated the businesses with their wives were charged with sex-related crimes.

Thomas Bulich, 67, of Evansville was accused in August of molesting a 3-year-old girl at Sunshine Daycare. He later pleaded guilty.

Raymond E. Delong, 61, of Haubstadt, Ind., was arrested June 8 after police say he showed pornographic images to children at Kiddie Kat Korner.

Cases such as those are rare, said Debbie Sampson, child care home licensing manager for the state Bureau of Child Care. Since 2002, 928 child care homes have had licenses revoked, suspended or denied by the state, according to Dennis Rosebrough, spokesman for the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. Of those cases, 130 were related to abuse or neglect of a child.

Bulich and his wife cared for fewer than five children. Child care homes in Indiana with fewer than five children can operate legally without a state license. Operators of those homes avoid extensive background checks and yearly inspections that licensed day care homes receive. The state investigates the home only if a complaint has been filed. The Delongs' business, which cared for more than five children, was a state-licensed facility. Child care homes with more than five children are required to have a license. The operators are given a criminal history check, and their homes are inspected annually.

The state recently passed a law that requires operators, volunteers and anyone in the home over 18 to provide fingerprint samples that are entered into a national database. The educational requirements have been increased as well.

Those changes, while beneficial to licensed facilities, haven't done anything to close the loopholes sexual predators use to work in unlicensed facilities, said Erin Ramsey, executive director of 4C of Southern Indiana, a nonprofit child care referral agency.

"Every time you try to push the envelope for better care, they always have this legally exempt population that they can fall back on," Ramsey said. "It's like an out. So it's just eternally flawed, super frustrating. It's not to say all legally exempt homes aren't OK, because that's not true either. But this is how those perverts get by."

Full text available at the Evansville Courier Press