They aren’t the kind of pictures you would want to see, but for Karen McClintock, they are invaluable.

They capture the images of burns, bruises and a variety of other injuries suffered by children around Coos County.

And for McClintock, an assistant district attorney, the photographs help her prosecute child abuse cases.

She won’t say the photos have won her a case, but they can certainly influence them.

“They may have helped in convincing people that they should take a plea offer,” she said. “And juries and judges have a clear idea what we are talking about.”

So McClintock has been quite pleased to see a tenfold increase in the number of child abuse cases accompanied with photographic evidence since last year. It is perhaps the most visible impact from Karly’s Law, which the Oregon Legislature passed last session.

The law mandates that anyone who comes across an injured child while conducting a criminal investigation must take photographs of the child. This includes police officers and Department of Human Services employees.

Before Karly’s Law, police might come across a child with injuries, but they wouldn’t necessarily know if those injuries warranted taking photos, said Cynthia Stinson, director of the Department of Justice’s crime victims division.

“They were making an evaluation about what had to happen next,” she said.

Or not.

The law also requires communities to identify a medical professional who will be consulted in cases where an injury may be due to abuse. In Coos County, that person is Dr. Jenni DeLeon, a pediatrician at North Bend Medical Center.

Under the new system, police officers automatically take photographs and schedule a medical visit within 48 hours if they see a “suspicious physical injury.”

Stinson concedes officers can take different views of the severity of injuries that might be considered suspicious, but given the proper training, officers around the state are catching more cases than they were before.

Nancylee Stewart, DHS’ child welfare manager for Coos and Curry counties, said the number of cases her staff handles hasn’t increased since the law passed, but she has noticed more cases involving injuries that require immediate medical attention. She isn’t sure if the increase can be attributed to Karly’s Law, though she has appreciated the greater cooperation inspired by the law.

McClintock said DeLeon has been particularly helpful in looking at injuries and determining if the guardian’s explanation is plausible.

“She has been phenomenal,” she said.

When DeLeon arrived in the Bay Area in December 2004, she stepped in to help evaluate possible child abuse cases. Since the passage of Karly’s Law, she said she hasn’t seen an increase in the number of patients who may be the victims of child abuse, though it may be too early to tell.

DeLeon said she sees about five to seven children a week, in addition to her own patients.

Statewide, Stewart said, there has been an increase in the number of cases reported.

The problem is, the law didn’t provide additional money to process more cases. This has been hard on child advocacy centers designed to oversee child sex abuse examinations. More of them are being asked to handle acute physical abuse exams, too, Stewart said.

Sex abuse cases often surface months after the assault, whereas acute physical abuse exams need to be seen immediately before the visible aspects of the injury fade.

“The centers are struggling with that somewhat,” she said.

The Coos County Children’s Advocacy Program has seen an increase in the number of sex abuse cases, though not the physical abuse exams, said Kathryn Gabel, the program’s manager.

She said she thinks the increase in cases isn’t due to Karly’s Law, but rather greater awareness in the community from outreach programs.

Coos Bay Police Department spokeswoman Helen Thompson said the law has improved communications between medical professionals and child service groups.

These various local agencies meet twice a month to review cases in multidisciplinary teams. McClintock serves as the chairwoman of the local organization. The number of cases it reviews has grown, said McClintock.

“There are more steps now to ensure something in a case doesn’t get lost,” Stewart said.

Stinson said there still is more that can be done, such as training more doctors to recognize signs of child abuse. But the law has been a good start. “We are hearing that there are child abuse cases that wouldn’t have been caught before that are,” she said.