The Connecticut State Police began a child-abuse investigation in August.

Usually, the city's handling of child-abuse investigations is shielded from public scrutiny by state confidentiality laws meant to protect family privacy.

As a result, child-abuse investigations often began too long after an incident to permit an effective follow-up,she said.

The division has also hired 500 case workers and has signed contracts with outside agencies to assist in child-abuse investigations.

Few courts have ruled on what protections are guaranteed to people who are the subjects of child-abuse investigations.

The police also telephoned the Becks' next-door neighbor, a psychiatrist who had worked with the police in other child-abuse investigations.

But the experts described those plans as "less developed, less connected, less concrete and less ready for implementation" than the city's emphasis on improving child-abuse investigations.

Usually the agency refuses all comment on child-abuse investigations.

But he acknowledged that a proposal was made to intercede in the child-abuse investigation in favor of a private settlement.

It seems clear that in at least some child-abuse investigations the chief problems the children face are those created by the insistence of well-meaning rescuers.