Funeral homes have come under scrutiny in recent months for some alarming violations. A family in Florida who lost an infant boy recently claimed they received the wrong ashes after he was cremated.
In July, police were going to enforce an eviction order when they came across eight unattended and unidentified bodies in a Fort Worth, Texas mortuary.
Cases like the one in Fort Worth are rare, but police in Terre Haute received complaints in May 2013 that curious kids had been looking through windows—which, in a funeral home, are supposed to be covered—and could see dead bodies.
Is the Current System Effective?
There are more than 600 funeral homes and crematoriums in Indiana. The state's Professional Licensing Agency inspects dozens of them each year.
But that means the large majority of them are going unchecked.
Curtis Rostad, director of the state's funeral home trade association says the system is ineffective because it's inconsistent.
"It would be similar to a freeway where everybody gets to know a police officer is only out there once a year," Rostad says. "It's not a deterrent. It's not an incentive. It's not an effective way to inspect the profession."
Funeral home inspections fall under the purview of four inspectors from the state's Board of Funeral and Cemetery Service. The inspectors visit funeral parlors and crematoriums to make sure businesses meet both safety and licensing requirements.
Those four inspectors are also responsible for barbershops, beauty parlors and tanning salons.
That brings the total number of businesses they're charged with inspecting to about 12,000.
What's Frequently Found In Funeral Homes Inspections
"There is no statutory requirement that says it needs to be done every two years, every four years," Deborah Frye, a compliance director for the Professional Licensing Agency says. "The statutes that apply to funeral homes simply do not have a requirement for inspections."
Frye says the agency does self-impose some requirements.
For example, inspectors always visit funeral homes when they're new and just opening for business. They also inspect facilities each time they change ownership or location.
"I think our compliance staff is very conscientious. They do a fantastic job inspecting facilities," she says.
Frye points out that, for the most part, the worst thing a funeral home inspection turns up is an expired license or an out-of-date merchandise price list.
And the state inspection records agree with her: the majority of funeral homes pass inspection with no problem.
But is it possible things are being missed? Absolutely, Rostad says.
"It's rare that even an inspection is done," he says. "I know of funeral homes that tell me they received their initial inspection when they got licensed and haven't seen an inspector since—and that might be 10-12 years."
A Rare Example
The state only inspected about 7 percent of the state's funeral homes between January and November of this year.
That makes Eric Powell a rare example. He opened his funeral home in Bloomington the Funeral Chapel in Bloomington five years ago.
"They were here before we opened, before we could get our license to open. They've been back twice since then," Powell says. "They were probably here 45 minutes to an hour, just going through stuff."
Powell says on average, he's been inspected about once every two to three years.
As the Chairman of the Funeral Services Education program at Vincennes University, Jonathan DeHart educates future funeral home directors about health requirements.
But those rules and how they're enforced varies from state to state.
"Indiana has a smaller number of inspectors than other states do," DeHart says. "We're fortunate in Indiana that we have a state board of funeral and cemetery service that's very proactive. They expect everybody to do the right thing and then when they find out something's not being done right they're very quick to investigate it."
Other states, such as Iowa, work under the requirement that funeral homes should be inspected annually.
However, there has been a push to move to a model similar to Indiana's because inspectors can't keep up with the requirement.
Payton Windell contributed to this report.