An Overview of State Child Abuse and Neglect Registries

Almost everyone knows that each state maintains a sex offender registry, but few people know that each state also maintains a child abuse and neglect registry. While the sex offender registry serves a useful purpose in that it makes the public aware of convicted sex offenders, the nature of their crimes, and where they are currently living; the child abuse and maltreatment registry is seriously flawed and is injurious to thousands of people who have never been convicted of a crime. That's because you do not have to be convicted of a crime to have your name placed on the child abuse and neglect registry. I know because I have had it happen to me, not once, but twice.

Just how does your name get on the registry? After a phone call is made to the child abuse hotline, a report of the call is made to Child Protective Services (CPS). Child Protective Services launches an investigation that can take up to sixty days to complete. When the CPS investigator completes her investigation, she either indicates the report or declares that it is unfounded. An unfounded report means that the Child Protective Services investigator found no evidence of neglect or abuse. An indicated report means that the CPS investigator found some evidence of neglect or abuse. Once a report is indicated, the person who allegedly abused or neglected a child is immediately placed on the child abuse registry. All it takes then to be placed on the registry is one person's investigation, resulting in her belief that there is some evidence that abuse or neglect took place. The Child Protectives Services investigator is generally not required to find that there is a preponderance of evidence pointing to guilt, but only some credible evidence.

It's true that some of these cases end up in court and the person named in the report is found guilty of neglect or abuse, but there are also many cases where the person is found innocent. If a person is found innocent, his or her name is not automatically removed from the registry. A separate hearing has to be held to do that and the alleged perpetrator has to formally request that hearing within a certain time frame.

Many times a CPS investigator indicates a report, particularly in neglect cases, and no criminal charges are lodged. I know of cases where a Child Protective Services investigator indicated a report of neglect, but no charges or petitions were filed in either family or criminal court. My guess is that the investigator did not really believe there was any neglect, but wanted to protect herself in case more evidence surfaced in the future.

What is disturbing about the child abuse and maltreatment registry is that, regardless of whether or not a person is guilty, he or she is placed on the registry before having a chance to defend his or her innocence--prior to any kind of due process. And he or she is placed on that registry based on the investigation of one Child Protective Services caseworker. This is akin to a person being placed on the sex offender registry, prior to going to trial, based on one detective's investigation.

This becomes even more troubling when one realizes that the registry is not just a list of people who have been accused of child abuse and neglect and investigated by one Child Protective Services investigator who believes there is some evidence of neglect, but it is also a form of punishment. While the child abuse registry is not available to the general public, it is available to employers who employ people in jobs-such as daycare, teaching or pediatric nursing-where they have contact with children.

When you apply for a job working with children, your prospective employer will most likely send an inquiry to the your state's Office of Children and Family Services (may have a different name in some states) to see if your name is on the register. If your name is on it, the employer is not likely to care whether or not you are innocent or whether or not you got your day in court. He's not likely to hire you, and with law suits and liability insurance being what they are, you can hardly blame him.

The real culprits here are not employers who use the list, Child Protective Services investigators who put people on the list, or the Office of Children and Family Services which maintains the list. The real culprits are the legislators who passed the laws setting up the registry and the rules for getting placed on the list.

These laws are unfair and most likely unconstitutional, but no one has challenged them, except in Missouri where they have been successfully challenged. Most of the people on the list, whether guilty or innocent, are the kind that can't afford an attorney to represent them at a "fair hearing" to get their name taken off the list, much less afford to challenge the laws that put them on the list in the first place.

Civil liberties groups have challenged sex offender laws, laws that often affect convicted criminals, because of their unfairness. Unfortunately, he same attention has not been paid to parents, foster parents, grandparents and others who have been placed on the child abuse and maltreatment registry before having their day in court and in some cases without ever having their day in court.