Harassment reports to child protective services: An empirical examination

The misuse of Child Protective Services (CPS) by individuals making harassment reports has attracted a great deal of lay and editorial attention but virtually no empirical analysis. This paper examines cases of intentional harassment among child maltreatment reports from the State of Missouri, and finds them to be extremely rare. Those few harassment reports received are examined in relation to a comparison sample of non-harassment reports. Multi-variate analysis of the data suggests that poor metro areas have especially low rates of harassment and that mandated reporters are extremely unlikely to make harassment reports.