Establishment and Maintenance of Central Registries for Child Abuse Reports : Summary of State Laws

Every State has developed procedures for maintaining records of child abuse and neglect. Most States maintain some sort of central registry, which is a centralized database of child abuse and neglect investigation records. Approximately 42 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. territories of American Samoa and Guam have statutorily created central registries. Registries in other States, however, may be maintained as a matter of administrative or agency policy rather than statutory mandate and are beyond the scope of this publication.