All reports made to child abuse hotlines in the United States are confidential. Most states allow anonymous reports by legal statute- just seven do not specify and only two, Texas and California, explicitly forbid them by law..
A confidential report is any report made to the child abuse hotline where the information about the source of the report is kept private or is on a need-to-know basis. On paper, this is to protect the source from retaliation for making the report. Anonymous reports are accepted by legal statute in most states (states that do not tend to accept reports without identifying information for the source may do so, anyway) and are identical to confidential reports, except that no information on the identity of the source is recorded.. The rationale for this is that some people may be afraid to report child abuse or neglect due to retaliation and this makes those people more likely to report. At the same time, this does allow for abuse of the child abuse reporting systems.
Anonymous reporting comprised 6.5% of all child abuse and neglect reports made in the United States in 2019. Anonymous reporting is intended to cater to the feelings of people who fear retaliation, despite the confidential reporting protections and to encourage more reporting. It is believed that without anonymity, there are some individuals who would feel safe enough to report child abuse or neglect to CPS. This is a problem and becomes especially concerning when you look at the laws protecting the integrity of reporting child abuse and neglect and the fact that the majority of reports identified as made in bad faith (malicious reports) are made anonymously.
All states have laws protecting all reports made to the child abuse hotline that are what is known as good faith. These are reports where the reporter genuinely believes there is reason to suspect a child may be abused or neglected. On the other hand, reports of malicious intent, known as reports made in bad faith, are illegal. Bad faith reports are identified when a report is made to the police and the investigation finds that the report was made in bad faith, which is a criminal act. If they are never reported and investigated by the police, they are assumed to have been made in good faith and this is how they are characterized in the yearly statistics released by the federal government.
Unfortunately, in practice, there is no enforcement mechanism for anonymous reports. You can’t hold someone accountable for a bad faith report if you have no record of who made the report in the first place. Very few reports end up officially classified as being made in bad faith. This is because the amount of evidence required to unseal the identity of the source of a report of child abuse or neglect is substantial, so very few attempts make it far. Even then, if the local district attorney’s office is short-staffed or has higher priority cases, it may decide it’s not worth pursuing unless the evidence makes conviction a certainty in their eyes. While it’s unfair, the decision not to prosecute does occur.
Reports made in bad faith have the potential to destroy families. In our experience, common reasons for reports made in bad faith are custody disputes, disagreements with extended family, angry neighbors, and landlord-tenant disagreements. If you decide to tell the police about a report made in bad faith, you should have the following:
- Be certain of the identity of the source of the report. If you get it wrong, you may not be taken seriously a second time.
- Have a record of evidence demonstrating intent to call CPS on you for the wrong reasons, including text messages, e-mails, letters, social media posts and audio or video recordings. If your state requires two party consent for audio or video recordings, make sure you obtained such consent.
- Make sure it demonstrates a pattern.
- Have at least one other person who can vouch for your credibility and validate your allegation.
It is important to note that while there are seven states that do not have legal statutes explicitly accepting anonymous reports of child abuse and neglect, the hotlines in each of these states also accept anonymous reports in practice. In these states, though, you may see a lower amount of anonymous reports.
Anonymous Reports of Child Abuse/Neglect Explicitly Banned by State Statute
- California
- Texas
Anonymous Reports of Child Abuse/Neglect by State Statute in All Other States (Explicitly Accepted or Not Explicitly Banned)
- Alabama- accepted
- Alaska- accepted
- Arizona- accepted
- Arkansas- accepted
- Colorado- accepted
- Connecticut- accepted
- Delaware- accepted
- Florida- accepted
- Georgia- accepted
- Hawaii- accepted
- Idaho- accepted
- Illinois- accepted
- Indiana- not accepted
- Iowa- not accepted
- Kansas- not accepted
- Kentucky- accepted
- Louisiana- not accepted
- Maine- not accepted
- Maryland- accepted
- Massachusetts- not accepted
- Michigan- accepted
- Minnesota- accepted
- Mississippi- accepted
- Missouri- accepted
- Montana- accepted
- Nebraska- accepted
- Nevada- accepted
- New Hampshire- accepted
- New Jersey- accepted
- New Mexico- not accepted
- New York- not accepted
- North Carolina- accepted
- North Dakota- accepted
- Ohio- accepted
- Oklahoma- accepted
- Oregon- not accepted
- Pennsylvania- accepted
- Rhode Island- accepted
- South Carolina- accepted
- South Dakota- accepted
- Tennessee- accepted
- Utah- accepted
- Vermont- accepted
- Virginia- accepted
- Washington- accepted
- West Virginia- accepted
- Wisconsin- accepted
- Wyoming- accepted
- Washington, D.C.- accepted