Establishment and Maintenance of Central Registries for Child Abuse or Neglect Reports

This publication examines State laws for maintaining records of child abuse and neglect. Almost all States maintain a statewide central registry, which is a centralized database of child abuse and neglect investigation records. In some States, the individual State agencies that received the reports of suspected abuse or neglect are required to maintain these records. Central registry reports are typically used to aid social services agencies in the investigation, treatment, and prevention of child abuse cases and to maintain statistical information for staffing and funding purposes. Central registry records are also used to conduct background checks on prospective foster and adoptive parents. This publication presents a general overview of this aspect of child welfare law. Summaries of laws on this topic for all individual States and U.S. territories are available from the State Statutes Search page.

This publication is a product of the State Statutes Series prepared by Child Welfare Information Gateway. While every attempt has been made to be as complete as possible, additional information on these topics may be in other sections of a State's code as well as agency regulations, case law, and informal practices and procedures.

This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit Child Welfare Information Gateway.