Too Much Reporting, Too Little Service

Abstract

This chapter examines the widespread acceptance of mandatory reporting as a powerful tool in combating child abuse. It follows the implementation of CAPTA (1973) throughout the country, and the unsuccessful attempt to legislate national standards for reporting child abuse in the mid 1970s. The chapter examines local and national statistics to examine the impact of expanding mandatory reporting, and questions why this tool was viewed as so powerful. In particular, it asks why the increase in reports was seen to be the pertinent measure of success, rather than measures of child well-being. The chapter follows the trajectory of mandatory reporting over the decades, and examines its long-lasting appeal, despite having significant unintended, but certainly foreseeable, consequences.