[1] The Community-Based Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Grants was a program that was originally authorized by Sections 402 to 409 of the Continuing Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1985 (Public Law 98-473).
[2] CAPTA was completely rewritten in the Child Abuse Prevention, Adoption and Family Services Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-294).
[4] The Child Abuse Prevention Challenge Grants Reauthorization Act of 1989 (Public Law 101-126) transferred the program to CAPTA, as amended.
[12] The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016 altered CAPTA requirements for infants affected by substance use or born with withdrawal symptoms or fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
There is also concern that the perception of families as violent or criminal by mandated reporters creates stigma and bias, generating false positive cases and harming parents and children through traumatic investigations.
[19] Although a positive toxicology report does not confirm health risks to the child, CAPTA requires states to “address the needs of infants born with and identified as being affected by illegal substance abuse or withdrawal symptoms resulting from prenatal drug exposure.” This results in infants and mothers being drug tested, often without their consent, and incites racist discrimination against Black mothers by healthcare workers.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) acknowledges that “leading medical organizations agree that a positive drug test should not be construed as child abuse or neglect,” and adding that mandated drug testing “disrupts bodily autonomy of the pregnant person and their newborn and is inconsistent with treating substance use disorder as a health condition with social and behavioral dimensions.”[21]