PROVIDENCE — Children in state foster care are being neglected, molested, beaten, burned with cigarettes and, in one high-profile case, killed, according to a sweeping civil rights lawsuit filed in federal court by the state child advocate, backed by a national watchdog group.

Alston

Child Advocate Jametta O. Alston is pursuing class-action status on behalf of the 3,000 children now in state custody, aiming for nothing less than an overhaul of Rhode Island’s child-welfare system, which the suit portrays as overburdened and mismanaged.

“It’s beyond broken,” Alston said of the system. “It’s demolished. It doesn’t work.”

Rhode Island was the worst in the nation in the number of children abused and neglected while in state foster care in five of the six years between 2000 and 2005, according to the suit. “We beat Mississippi and Alabama,” Alston said. “Think about that.”

The suit claims state caseworkers are laboring under “excessive caseloads”; the state places too many children in institutions, group homes and emergency shelters; and children are being “reunited” with parents who have abused them.

Rhode Island has known about the systemic problems for years, the suit claims, citing critical reports dating to 2003.

For example, Alston issued a report in 2005 saying the state Department of Children Youth and Families missed at least five opportunities to rescue Thomas J. “T.J.” Wright, a 3-year-old boy who was beaten to death by his foster parents in Woonsocket. Alston issued another report in 2006, saying the state had failed to make some of the most important changes that a review panel called for following T.J.’s death. Mostly notably, the state had not held caseloads to recommended levels.

“This, to me, is a last resort,” Alston said of the suit. “But I hope, I pray, we will change the system of how we protect our children, and not just put on a Band-Aid.”

In the past, the state has faced court orders aimed at eliminating “night-to-night placements,” in which children in state care don’t know from one night to the next where they will sleep. But this suit addresses the entire system. “Let’s not look at a symptom of the problem,” Alston said. “Let’s look at the whole disease.”

This suit is similar to one the American Civil Liberties Union filed years ago over conditions in state prisons, she said.

Alston is suing the governor who appointed her child advocate in 2005. “That’s the strength of the office of child advocate,” she said. “I may be appointed by the governor, but I’m not in his cabinet. The only loyalty I have is one I gladly embrace — the children.”

Governor Carcieri was not available yesterday to talk about the allegations, spokesman Jeff Neal said. The governor introduced President Bush at a speech yesterday at the Naval War College, and then met with Republican political donors at a Republican Governors’ Association event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Goat Island in Newport. After that, he had a clambake at Fort Adams State Park.

“We haven’t had an opportunity to review the complaint so I can’t comment on specific allegations but I can say this: Governor Carcieri is dedicated to protecting Rhode Island’s children, especially those in state custody,” Neal said. “The governor takes these allegations very seriously. He shares the child advocate’s desire to make sure we are doing everything possible for Rhode Island’s children. Ultimately, we are all working toward the same goal.”

Neal said Carcieri has “made progress” at DCYF, such as resolving long-standing complaints about children shuffled between night-to-night placements.

What hurts progress, according to Neal, is that “DCYF does not unilaterally control how DCYF operates. The courts play a role. The state employee unions play a role. The budget plays a significant role. As a result, we haven’t always made progress as quickly as we would have liked. That said, progress has been made.”

The governor will be briefed this morning on the lawsuit, Neal said. “We need to review the allegations, and if any of them turn out to be true, we need to take corrective action immediately. There is no doubt that the allegations that I have read in the suit, if true, are very disturbing.”

In a conference call late yesterday afternoon, Jane Hayward, secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, and Patricia Martinez, the DCYF director, said they had only received copies of the lawsuit yesterday.

“Neither Patricia nor I have had the time to read it,” said Hayward. “It’s about a hundred pages. We’ve been doing other things today and just haven’t had the chance to look at it. I’m sure we’ll look at it later today.

“As you know, the governor appointed Patricia because he was interested in instituting a series of reforms here at the department,” Hayward said. “That is what Patricia is doing, and she has been working very closely with the child advocate. I’m somewhat disappointed, given the regular meetings with the child advocate and the effort on a number of issues, that the child advocate felt that she had to file suit.

“True system change takes time to do.”

Martinez said, “Are we working toward improving the system? Of course. I think we have a decent relationship with the child advocate and the Family Court, and those are the types of relationships you need in any system to help you move forward.”

Alston said she meets regularly with Martinez, but necessary changes have not been made by the executive branch. In addition, she said, “The legislative will is not there, so that leaves only the judicial branch — to take it to court.”

Alston said she contacted Children’s Rights, a nonprofit New York City organization with experience in child-welfare class actions, in December. At first, she was just seeking advice. But now Children’s Rights is assisting in the litigation along with Rhode Island lawyer John W. Dineen and the international law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which has experience in complex civil litigation, and an office in Providence.

Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children’s Rights, said the organization has filed class-action lawsuits over child-welfare systems in 14 other states, and 6 of those systems are now following “remedial plans” under court jurisdiction. In all six of those states, the percentage of adopted children has gone up, the frequency of night-to-night placements has gone down, and the amount of funding has increased, she said.

Children’s Rights has eyed Rhode Island for a while, Lowry said. “We don’t know why the Rhode Island system is as bad as it is, but we are going to find out,” she said. “Typically, in other states, the reasons are a lack of accountability and an absence of leadership.”

The goal is not just to establish that children have been abused and neglected under state care, Lowry said. “It’s to document how and why and what needs to be done to correct it,” she said. “We want a reform plan to make this system serve children, instead of damage children.”

The lawsuit uses pseudonyms for 10 children in foster care who claim they’ve been damaged by the state system.

For example, the suit traces the path of brothers “Sam and Tony M.,” saying: “Over the past eight years, DCYF has repeatedly failed in its most basic obligation to keep these children safe. Instead, these boys have been subject to physical and sexual abuse, moved at least 10 times each to unstable and inappropriate placements, returned several times to abusive parents who further maltreated them, and denied critically needed medical evaluations and mental health services.”

Sam and Tony first entered foster care in May 1999, when Sam was 4 and Tony an infant. DCYF removed them from their parents’ home knowing that their father had a domestic assault record and their mother had substance abuse and mental health issues.

Her second suicide attempt prompted their removal. DCYF initially placed Sam and Tony in a home with a family friend, and while there, one of the boys was found with cigarette burns on his body.

In June 1999, Sam revealed his father had sexually abused him, but DCYF failed to arrange for Sam to undergo a sexual-abuse evaluation. In January 2000, DCYF returned Sam and Tony to their parents, and the next month, the agency received a report that the boys were again being abused; one had a quarter-sized mark on his neck, the other had a bruise around one eye, the suit says.

Their father left the family, their mother remarried, and in July 2002, their stepfather “brutally sexually and physically abused Tony,” the suit says.

Today, Sam, 13, and Tony, 9, “remain separated and institutionalized,” the suit says. “As a result of defendants’ actions and inactions, Sam and Tony have been and continue to be irreparably harmed.”

—With reports from Scott MacKay

marsenau@projo.com