I 

108TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 5219

To require the Attorney General to establish a Federal register of cases 

of child abuse or neglect. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

OCTOBER 5, 2004

Mrs. KELLY introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 

Committee on the Judiciary 

A BILL

To require the Attorney General to establish a Federal 

register of cases of child abuse or neglect.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. FINDINGS. 

4 The Congress finds as follows: 

5 (1) The Report and Recommendations of the 

6 Westchester County, New York, January ‘‘B’’ 2004 

7 Grand Jury, entitled ‘‘Returning Abused Children to 

8 their Abusers: How Westchester County’s Child Pro9 tective System Fails the Children it Most Needs to 

10 Protect’’, identified 3 essential principles that should 
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1 guide child services programs, namely, maintaining 

2 that the best interest of the child is paramount, en3 suring continuity in case supervision with all rel4 evant parties involved and all relevant information 

5 shared, and assigning special priority to the identi6 fication of high-risk cases. 

7 (2) Such report also observed that, because 

8 there is no direct way for the State of New York to 

9 report an individual’s history of child abuse to an10 other State, and a child may be placed at greater 

11 risk if an offender with an established history of 

12 child abuse moves to a State where his or her his13 tory is unknown, a national central register of cases 

14 of child abuse or neglect must be created. 

15 (3) 896,000 children were determined to be vic16 tims of child abuse or neglect in 2002. 

17 (4) The rate of victimization per 1,000 children 

18 in the national population has dropped from 13.4 

19 children in 1990 to 12.3 children in 2002. 

20 (5) 1,400 children died due to child abuse or 

21 neglect in 2002. 

22 (6) A 2002 Department of Health and Human 

23 Services child and family services review suggests 

24 that difficulties States experience in preventing mal-
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1 treatment recurrence may be due to inadequate 

2 identification of abusers. 

3 (7) When an individual is convicted of a crime 

4 in New York, police in California know and are able 

5 to identify the violator. Child abusers should be as 

6 easily identifiable for State and local child protective 

7 services. 

8 (8) Many States currently maintain a child 

9 maltreatment registry that collects information 

10 about maltreated children and individuals who were 

11 found to have abused or neglected children, in order 

12 to protect children from contact with individuals who 

13 may mistreat them. 

14 (9) Some States that maintain such registries 

15 are explicitly prohibited under State law from shar16 ing this important data with other States. 

17 SEC. 2. NATIONAL REGISTER OF CASES OF CHILD ABUSE 

18 OR NEGLECT. 

19 (a) IN GENERAL.—The Attorney General shall create 

20 a national register of cases of child abuse or neglect. The 

21 information in such register shall be supplied by States, 

22 or, at the option of a State, by political subdivisions of 

23 such State. 

24 (b) INFORMATION.—The register described in sub25 section (a) shall collect in a central electronic database in-
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1 formation on children reported to a State, or a political 

2 subdivision of a State, as abused or neglected. 

3 (c) SCOPE OF INFORMATION.—

4 (1) IN GENERAL.—

5 (A) TREATMENT OF REPORTS.—The infor6 mation to be provided to the Attorney General 

7 under this section shall relate to substantiated 

8 reports of child abuse or neglect. Except as pro9 vided in subparagraph (B), each State, or, at 

10 the option of a State, each political subdivision 

11 of such State, shall determine whether the in12 formation to be provided to the Attorney Gen13 eral under this section shall also relate to re14 ports of suspected instances of child abuse or 

15 neglect that were unsubstantiated or deter16 mined to be unfounded. 

17 (B) EXCEPTION.—If a State or political 

18 subdivision of a State has an equivalent elec19 tronic register of cases of child abuse or neglect 

20 that it maintains pursuant to a requirement or 

21 authorization under any other provision of law, 

22 the information provided to the Attorney Gen23 eral under this section shall be coextensive with 

24 that in such register. 
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1 (2) FORM.—Information provided to the Attor2 ney General under this section—

3 (A) shall be in a standardized electronic 

4 form determined by the Attorney General; and 

5 (B) shall contain case-specific identifying 

6 information, except that, at the option of the 

7 entity supplying the information, the confiden8 tiality of identifying information concerning an 

9 individual initiating a report or complaint re10 garding a suspected or known instance of child 

11 abuse or neglect may be maintained. 

12 (d) CONSTRUCTION.—This section shall not be con13 strued to require a State or political subdivision of a State 

14 to modify—

15 (1) an equivalent register of cases of child 

16 abuse or neglect that it maintains pursuant to a re17 quirement or authorization under any other provi18 sion of law; or 

19 (2) any other record relating to child abuse or 

20 neglect, regardless of whether the report of abuse or 

21 neglect was substantiated, unsubstantiated, or deter22 mined to be unfounded. 

23 (e) DISSEMINATION.—The Attorney General shall es24 tablish standards for the dissemination of information in 

25 the national register of cases of child abuse or neglect. 
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1 Such standards shall preserve the confidentiality of 

2 records in order to protect the rights of the child and the 

3 child’s parents or guardians while also ensuring that Fed4 eral, State, and local government entities have access to 

5 such information in order to carry out their responsibil6 ities under law to protect children from abuse and neglect. 

7 (f) CONDITION ON RECEIPT OF FUNDS.—Compliance 

8 under this section shall be a condition precedent to receipt 

9 of funds under section 107 of the Child Abuse Prevention 

10 and Treatment Act (42 U.S.C. 5106c).

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