An audit conducted by the Department of Justice’s internal watchdog has uncovered serious shortcomings in how the FBI handles cases involving suspected child abuse. The report revealed that only 17 percent of child sex abuse cases, which required mandatory reporting, were “fully documented” by the FBI.
The DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General reviewed a sample of 327 child sex abuse cases, flagging 42 of them—13 percent—as requiring “immediate attention” from authorities. The audit highlighted the FBI’s failure to meet legal obligations in responding to these cases, including mandatory reporting requirements.
In half of the cases reviewed, the FBI failed to report instances of child sex abuse to social services agencies. Even when reports were made, only 43 percent were submitted within the required 24-hour timeframe. Overall, just 17 percent of the cases sampled met the standards for being “fully documented” for reporting purposes.
The report also identified several areas where FBI employees did not comply with relevant laws or policies, including mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse, providing victim services, transferring incidents between field offices, and responding to allegations of ongoing child sexual abuse within 24 hours. These failures had real-world consequences.
One particularly concerning example involved the FBI receiving an allegation of hands-on abuse by a registered sex offender and opening an investigation. However, the FBI did not take appropriate action for over a year, nor did it refer the suspected abuse to local law enforcement. During this time, the alleged perpetrator is believed to have victimized at least one more child over a 15-month period.
The audit made 11 recommendations to the FBI, including the implementation of a system to monitor employees’ compliance with mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse, the development of policies for field offices on documenting and responding to allegations of child sexual abuse, and the establishment of controls to prevent users from self-approving documents that require oversight within investigative case files.