Texas officials saw that number quickly rise. The number of children alone was last reported at 464, including two infants born while in state custody.

The numbers help shape state response, or lack thereof, McCown noted.

"Inside Texas as well, along the border where you have thousands and thousands of children in very severe poverty, a child might be left in a neglectful situation," McCown said. "But in a rich, suburban area in the northern area of the state, it might not be tolerated. What's the difference? You can remove one, you cannot remove thousands."

McCown, who retired as a state judge in 2002 and presided over thousands of child-abuse cases, said because of federal government mandates, state laws on child protection and agency response can't vary too much.

"There's not much difference in the formal expression of the law. There may be some differences in practice, but the big reason practices may vary is the differences in the services that are available."

Texas also recently revamped its marriage laws after FLDS members acquired the ranch and moved there.

"The magnitude of the problem, from the Texas point of view, is that every person — every adult man and woman in a plural marriage — was committing a second-degree felony for which they can go to prison for 20 years," McCown said.

Bigamy in Texas is a second-degree felony if the "second" spouse is 16 or older and a first-degree felony if the second spouse is younger than 16.

"The way the state sees it, the way CPS sees it, these adults are knowingly committing felonies, knowingly tolerating felonies being committed, and those felonies involve the sexual assault of children," McCown said.

Culturally, the historical tolerance of polygamy is also absent in Texas.

The state, he said, doesn't see it as a "lot of adults in a plural marriage, with a different religion, different culture and so live and let live...."

Laws and children

Procedurally, both Texas and Utah have the right to take children into protective custody if authorities suspect immediate danger to the minor.

States don't have to wait to file criminal charges, they just need enough cause to believe that if the child isn't removed there will be immediate danger. The proof of neglect or abuse, or lack of it, unfolds later in family court under the umbrella of civil law, where the level of proof is lower than a criminal court.

In this scenario, the most common, practical example offered by Utah authorities is the child found in a home where a meth lab is discovered.

If both parents or guardians are arrested on suspicion of drug possession, there's no one else to take care of the child, and the child can't be left on its own.