Child protection registry restrictions advanced

A bill intended to keep children off the registry of child abuse offenders was advanced April 10.

Introduced by Lincoln Sen. Colby Coash, LB292 would prohibit youth ages 11 and younger from being placed on the state Department of Health and Human (DHHS) central registry of child protection cases. Only youth ages 12 and older designated as agency- or court- substantiated could be entered into the registry under the bill.

Currently, the department uses the central registry of child protection cases to maintain a record of all reports of child abuse and neglect opened for investigation.

The department also would be required to submit an annual report providing the number, ages and classification of youth entered in the registry to the governor and the Legislature’s Health and Human Services and Judiciary committees.

The bill also would require the department to notify court- and agency-substantiated subjects ages 12 to 18 who are entered into the registry that a mandatory expungement hearing has been scheduled. Unless waived, hearings would be conducted within 60 days after the subject receives the notification and within 60 days after the subject’s 19th birthday.

Coash said he discovered DHHS erroneously was including children on the registry after reviewing the ages of perpetrators on the list. His inspections of the registry showed that four children under age 1 and 87 children ages 11 and younger were listed as child abuse offenders.

“It’s unbelievable to me that any child be listed as a perpetrator of a crime,” he said.

Coash said the bill would give youth the ability to remove themselves from a list that could affect their lives as adults.

“Something that was part of their past is going to come back to haunt them and they won’t even know it until they apply for a job,” Coash said. “We can protect future children from something that could have been pretty tragic.”

A Judiciary Committee amendment, adopted 26-0, would require both the subject and guardian to sign the expungement hearing waiver and also would prohibit the department from signing a waiver form for any subject in its custody. The amendment would grant registry subjects a second mandatory expungement hearing 60 days after the subject’s 19th birthday, unless waived by the subject.

Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks supported the amendment and bill. Subjects on the registry sometimes have no knowledge they are on the list, she said, and deserve to be notified of potentially damaging information.

“Senator Coash has gone above and beyond,” Pansing Brooks said. “He has found information that could have lifelong impacts on Nebraska citizens.”

Senators advanced the bill from general file on a 28-0 vote.