Report 2021-112 Recommendation 5 Responses

Report 2021-112: The Child Abuse Central Index: The Unreliability of This Database Puts Children at Risk and May Violate Individuals' Rights (Release Date: May 2022)

Recommendation #5 To: Justice, Department of

Until the Legislature amends state law and DOJ develops processes to use the CWS/CMS data for child abuse background checks, and to ensure that it accurately enters all cases of child abuse it receives, by July 2022 DOJ should develop policies and procedures to track, enter into CACI, and review data entry for all reports of child abuse it receives from counties. Also by July 2022, DOJ should develop policies and procedures to track those reports that it sends back to counties for correction.

1-Year Agency Response

The DOJ has policies and procedures to track, enter data into CACI and to review data entry for all reports submitting by the contributing agencies, including deletes. The Delete Verification Queue was released into the CACI database on February 16, 2023. This queue automated the delete verification procedure and replaced the manual delete verification process. The DOJ utilizes a manual verification process for data entry to ensure reports are accurately entered into CACI. The DOJ is currently developing an automated CACI Data Entry Verification Queue to review the data entry of the reports prior to accepting reports into CACI. The Data Entry Verification Queue will replace the manual data entry verification process and will be released into production in July 2023.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

DOJ provided a copy of its updated procedure manual which includes instructions on how staff should handle cases of child abuse it receives, including procedures to track, enter into CACI, and review all reports. Additionally, the manual includes procedures on how to track reports DOJ sends back to counties for correction.

6-Month Agency Response

The automation of the CACI Delete Verification Queue is currently under development, and discussions are underway concerning automating the manual CACI verification process. The DOJ anticipates the implementation of the automated verification queues by June 2023.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

Per DOJ's response, it will not fully implement this recommendation until June 2023.

60-Day Agency Response

DOJ implemented a manual verification process to accurately enter the substantiated CACI reports it receives. DOJ has procedures to track reports that are returned to the county for correction. As previously mentioned, DOJ is working towards creating an automated process to streamline this verification process.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

Per DOJ's response, it has not implemented this recommendation.

All Recommendations in 2021-112

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.