Arkansas State Police: hotline calls rising, unit reports 33% substantiation rate for July–Sept

Major Jeff Drew of the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children unit presented the July–September report to the Senate Children and Youth Committee, detailing hotline activity, case processing and prosecution referrals.

Drew said, “If you look at page 2, the hotline received 15,912 calls, 8,063 of those calls were accepted. CCD handled 1,482 of those accepted calls. DCFS handled 5,131 while 1,450 were differential responses.” He told the committee that within those three months 1,470 cases were opened and 1,391 closed; “Out of that, 463 of those were found true, which gave us a substantiation rate of 33 percent.” He added that 2,455 cases were active at report time, with 203 older than 45 days.

Drew reviewed prosecutorial outcomes shown in the report: 627 cases were submitted to prosecutors, 325 were filed (about 52 percent), 223 remained pending (about 35 percent) and 79 were declined.

During questioning, Senator Clark asked whether hotline calls were higher than last year. Drew said that last year the hotline total was about 60,636 and year‑to‑date through November sat at about 62,893, projecting an increase on the order of 10 percent.

Representative Barry asked about the mandated‑reporter breakdown on page 4, noting a line listing 1,114 labeled 'teacher.' Drew confirmed that 1,114 calls came from teachers and reiterated that the largest sources of mandated reports are law enforcement, medical personnel and school staff.

Next steps: committee members had the data for oversight and follow up questions; no formal votes related to the report were taken during the session.