Survivors have fought courageously for these settlements, not only for their own justice but to force institutions to change and to prevent others from experiencing the same abuse. As crucial as these settlements are, however, they cannot be the only answer to this crisis. Lasting protection for children requires investment in prevention — not just remediation.
Without that commitment, states will remain locked in the same cycle: devastating harm, billion-dollar settlements and mounting fiscal strain. Those financial pressures will leave states with fewer resources to invest in the programs that help keep children safe and support families. Justice for the past and prevention for the future must go hand in hand.
Fiscal pressure from settlements is already reshaping policy. In Maryland, lawmakers capped the damages survivors can collect in lawsuits against institutions, citing fears that claims could overwhelm state finances. In New Hampshire, policymakers have begun backtracking on claims settled by their predecessors.
With pandemic-era relief funds now gone, many states are cutting back across the board. Too often, this pits funding for survivors' justice against other priorities like supporting schools, mental health or child welfare. That framing undermines public support for settlements. Communities end up blaming them for cuts in services, rather than the policy choices that created the shortfalls in the first place.
Compensating survivors of child abuse is essential; there is no substitute for justice. But relying on settlements alone — no matter how deserved — cannot create the safer future that survivors themselves demand. Governments are spending vast sums to address past harm while neglecting the cost-effective, morally urgent work of preventing abuse in the first place. For comparison, Los Angeles County's $4 billion settlement amounts to more than a third of what the entire state of California spends on child welfare annually.
That imbalance must change. Child maltreatment costs the United States an estimated $428 billion annually across our criminal justice, health care, welfare and education systems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the broader annual economic toll of child abuse and neglect could be as high as $2 trillion.
Every dollar spent on prevention saves $7 down the line — savings that could go toward training detectives to investigate child exploitation, keeping social workers in communities and stopping families from falling through the cracks. Fiscally, child abuse prevention is one of the smartest public investments states can make. States should treat it as a core component of public safety — much like fire protection and disaster preparedness — rather than a discretionary budget item.
Proven models exist across the country. Specialized training for teachers, doctors and social workers helps adults recognize when a child might be at risk of abuse. In Oregon, adults who underwent such a training were three times more likely to look for warning signs of abuse.
School-based initiatives are just as powerful. In 38 states with Erin’s Law, sexual abuse prevention education helps children recognize unsafe situations and makes them more likely to report abuse. In a Florida study of 1,100 kindergarteners, those who participated in such a curriculum demonstrated a 77 percent increase in knowledge of safety risks and self-protection behaviors.
But education alone is not enough. Preventing institutional abuse in juvenile justice facilities, group homes, K-12 schools and state-run universities requires strong safeguards like clear codes of conduct and accountability measures that put children's right to safety first. "Gold standard" approaches, like those advanced by Child USA, include evidence-based tactics for protecting children, such as limiting one-on-one contact between adults and children, robust background check procedures and independent reporting mechanisms that make it safe for children and staff to come forward without fear of retaliation.
Justice for past harm and protection for today's children are not competing goals. They are one responsibility. In fact, the survivors who have fought hardest to hold institutions accountable are often among the strongest voices calling for investment in prevention, so that no child suffers as they did.
States that focus only on settlements will remain trapped in ever-growing payouts, shrinking resources and, most importantly, continued harm to children. States that invest in prevention can break that cycle.
Teresa Huizar is the CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based National Children's Alliance, the nation's network of nearly 1,000 children's advocacy centers.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
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