The Problem with Investigating All Calls

Child protective services has a difficult job – if a child is hurt after a cursory investigation, CPS is blamed; but doing intensive investigations on all cases is intrusive and harmful to the children and families, many of whom have done nothing wrong. Add to it the volume of calls not screened out by the NY State Central Registry (the child abuse “hotline”), the number of malicious hotline calls meant to harass, and the mandate that localities must investigate every screened-in report, and you have thousands of families needlessly investigated every year.

A paper by The Legal Aid Society with recommendations for how New York State and New York City manage reports and investigations was recently published in the Columbia Journal of Race and Law.

Interview (5m audio) with the authors Daniella Rohr and Melissa Friedman:
WNYC

Full paper: COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF RACE AND LAW, VOL. 15 May 2025