A recent audit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General revealed “significant issues” with the FBI’s handling of child sex abuse cases and that only 17% of the cases that involved mandatory reporting requirements were “fully documented.”
According to the audit, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General exposed “significant issues with the FBI’s response to serious allegations involving suspected child abuse.” The audit noted that of the 327 child sex abuse cases reviewed by the Office of the Inspector General, 42 of the cases were flagged for “immediate attention” by law enforcement authorities. The audit noted that the FBI has struggled to meet the legal requirements regarding child sex abuse cases, including mandatory reporting standards.
The audit revealed that the FBI failed to notify social service agencies in almost half of the child sex abuse cases reviewed by the Office of the Inspector General. Additionally, only 43% of the reports that were made to social service agencies were completed in the required 24-hour time frame. The Office of the Inspector General also noted that only 17 of the child sex abuse cases could be considered “fully documented” for reporting.
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The audit also highlighted cases where “FBI employees did not comply with relevant law or policy for (a) mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse, (b) victim services, (c) transferring incidents between field offices, and (d) responding to allegations of active and ongoing child sexual abuse within 24 hours.”
One example included in the audit noted that the FBI did not “take appropriate investigative action” for over a year regarding an allegation of “hands-on abuse by a registered sex offender.” The delay resulted in the suspect allegedly victimizing at least one other child for roughly 15 months.
The Office of the Inspector General gave 11 recommendations to the FBI in light of the recent audit, including monitoring the agency’s compliance with mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse cases, implementing field office policies for documenting and responding to allegations of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation, and establishing “sufficient controls” to prevent employees from approving documents that “require approval/authority within investigative case files.”
In a statement to Axios after the publication of the recent FBI audit, the agency said, “The FBI’s efforts combating crimes against children are among the most critical and demanding undertakings we do.”
The FBI added, “We are committed to maintaining the public’s trust by implementing the necessary improvements to ensure the important changes we made to our Violent Crimes Against Children program in 2018 and 2019 have the intended effect of promoting the highest level of compliance and effectiveness.”
