“Who’s the baby?” Terry Latham, the director of the shelter, recalled asking.
“I’m no baby,” the girl shouted, her ribs visible in her emaciated body. “I’m 4.”
The girl, identified as Olivia Y., who suffered from profound malnourishment and possibly sexual abuse, would become one of 13 children whose experiences formed a class-action lawsuit in 2004 against the state’s Division of Family and Children’s Services for “failing in its duty” to protect its own children.
More than a decade later, after a 2008 settlement and an admission by the state in July that it had never complied with the requirements, Mississippi is now trying to avoid becoming the first state to have its child welfare system put in receivership and an outside group hired to run it.
And at a time when 19 states are facing systemwide lawsuits that claim high rates of abuse and neglect of children and serious foster home shortages, Mississippi has become a case study in just how long and egregiously a state system meant to protect children can continue with substandard care that is out of compliance with a court order.
