West Virginia State Police to implement new child abuse program

The West Virginia State Police is starting a new pilot program to combat the increase in child abuse incidents in relation to incidents of prescription drug abuse.

Over the past few months, the state police has seen a rise in incidents of prescription drug abuse directly correlating with incidents of child abuse/neglect in West Virginia.

Due to the increase of these acts, the West Virginia State Police, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, and the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department will be participating in a pilot program named the Drug Endangered Children Tracking System (DECSYS) beginning July 1.

The program is merely a system designed to share intelligence information between law enforcement and child protection services.

In the program, each felony drug arrest in Putnam and Kanawha Counties of West Virginia will be entered into the secure pointer index system in hopes that child protection services will better be able to identify situations where children are being either neglected or abused.

West Virginia becomes one of only five states currently participating in the DECSYS. The hope is that the program will be implemented across the entire state at some point in the near future.