The Connecticut General Assembly

OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH

March 5, 1997 97-R-0436

TO:

FROM: Lawrence K. Furbish, Assistant Director

You asked how many other states have criminal penalties for falsely reporting child abuse.

At least 25 states, including Connecticut, criminally penalize the intentional false reporting of child abuse. The attached material from the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information provides the false reporting penalty statutes for 22 states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. In 12 of these states the offense is a misdemeanor, in three a low level felony, and in the other seven a specific fine is set or the individual making the false report is specifically subject to a civil suit.

The clearinghouse data is current through December 31, 1995, but some states have enacted penalties since then. In 1996 Rhode Island made anyone who knowingly and willfully makes a false child abuse report guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both (R.I. Gen. Laws § 40-11-3.2). Last year Connecticut changed its law from a general crime of falsely reporting an incident to the new specific one of knowingly making a false child abuse report (the penalty remains the same, a fine of up to $2,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both) (CGS § 17a-101e).

Many other states likely have some type of “falsely reporting an incident” law that could be used to prosecute someone for an intentionally false child abuse report. For example, in New York one element of the crime of second degree falsely reporting an incident is to knowingly report, by word or action, to the statewide central register of child abuse and maltreatment an alleged instance of abuse or maltreatment that did in fact not exist (N.Y. Penal Code § 240.55). In New Hampshire it is criminal defamation, a class B misdemeanor, to purposefully communicate to anyone, any information the communicator knows to be false and which will expose another person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule (N.H. Rev Stat. § 644:11).

LKF:pa

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