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

Establishment

Citation: Ann. Stat. § 14-3-213

The State agency shall establish and maintain within the statewide child protection center a central registry of child protection cases.

Purpose

Citation: Ann. Stat. § 14-3-213

Through the recording of reports, the State agency's recordkeeping system shall be operated to enable the State agency to do the following:

• Identify and locate prior reports immediately to assist in the diagnosis of suspicious circumstances and the assessment of the needs of the child
• Monitor the status of all pending child protection cases
• Evaluate the effectiveness of existing laws and programs through the development and analysis of statistical and other information

Contents

Citation: Ann. Stat. § 14-3-213

All reports of abuse or neglect contained in the central registry shall be classified as either 'under investigation' or 'substantiated.' Unsubstantiated reports shall not be contained in the central registry.

Any person named as a perpetrator in a substantiated report shall have a right to have included in the record their statement concerning the incident.

Conviction of a person under § 6-2-502(a)(v) [intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing female genital mutilation to be performed on a person who is under age 18] when the victim is a minor shall be included as a substantiated report of child abuse in the central registry under this section.

Maintenance

Citation: Ann. Stat. § 14-3-213

Within 6 months, any report classified 'under investigation' shall be reclassified as 'substantiated' or expunged, unless there is an open criminal investigation or prosecution.