MDCPS state central registry; revise provisions related to., the official text

MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE

2026 Regular Session

To: Judiciary, Division B

By: Senator(s) Sparks, Gillespie Isom

Senate Bill 2805

(As Sent to Governor)

AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 43-21-257, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972,
TO REQUIRE A COPY OF A JUDGMENT TO BE SENT TO THE MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF
CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES UPON CRIMINAL CONVICTION OR ADJUDICATION OF A CHILD;
TO AMEND SECTION 97-5-39, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO CLARIFY LANGUAGE
CONCERNING THE CONTINUING PHYSICAL OR SEXUAL ABUSE OR FELONIOUS NEGLECT OF A
CHILD; TO AUTHORIZE THE COURT TO PLACE A PARENT OR GUARDIAN ON THE DEPARTMENT
OF CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES' STATE CENTRAL REGISTRY FOR ANY CONVICTION OF A
CRIME SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION IN WHICH THE PARENT OR GUARDIAN QUALIFIES AS A
"SUBSTANTIATED PERPETRATOR," AS DEFINED IN SECTION 43-21-257(3); AND
FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE
LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

SECTION 1.  Section
43-21-257, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

43-21-257.  (1)  Unless
otherwise provided in this section, any record involving children, including
valid and invalid complaints, and the contents thereof maintained by the
Department of Human Services or the Department of Child Protection Services, or
any other state agency, shall be kept confidential and shall not be disclosed
except as provided in Section 43-21-261.

(2)  The Office of Youth
Services shall maintain a state central registry containing the number and
disposition of all cases together with such other useful information regarding
those cases as may be requested and is obtainable from the records of the youth
court.  The Office of Youth Services shall annually publish a statistical
record of the number and disposition of all cases, but the names or identity of
any children shall not be disclosed in the reports or records.  The Office of
Youth Services shall adopt such rules as may be necessary to carry out this
subsection.  The central registry files and the contents thereof shall be
confidential and shall not be open to public inspection.  Any person who
discloses or encourages the disclosure of any record involving children from
the central registry shall be subject to the penalty in Section 43-21-267.  The
youth court shall furnish, upon forms provided by the Office of Youth Services,
the necessary information, and these completed forms shall be forwarded to the
Office of Youth Services.  The Department of Human Services and its employees
are exempt from any civil liability as a result of any action taken pursuant to
the compilation or release of information on the central registry under this
section and any other applicable section of this code, unless determined that
an employee has willfully and maliciously violated the rules and administrative
procedures of the department pertaining to the central registry or any section
of this code.  If an employee is determined to have willfully and maliciously
performed such a violation, said employee shall not be exempt from civil
liability in this regard.

(3)  The Department of Child
Protection Services shall maintain a state central registry on neglect and
abuse cases containing (a) the name, address and age of each child, (b) the nature
of the harm reported, (c) the name and address of the person responsible for
the care of the child, and (d) the name and address of the substantiated
perpetrator of the harm reported.  "Substantiated perpetrator" shall
be defined as an individual who has committed an act(s) of sexual abuse or
physical abuse that would otherwise be deemed as a felony or any child neglect
that would be deemed as a threat to life.  A name is to be added to the
registry only based upon a criminal conviction or an adjudication by a youth
court judge or court of competent jurisdiction, ordering that the name of the
perpetrator be listed on the central registry.  Upon
criminal conviction in circuit court or adjudication in youth court, the clerk
of court shall send the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services a
copy of the judgment.  The central registry shall be confidential
and shall not be open to public inspection.  Any person who discloses or
encourages the disclosure of any record involving children from the central
registry without following the rules and administrative procedures of the
department shall be subject to the penalty in Section 43-21-267.  The
Department of Child Protection Services and its employees are exempt from any
civil liability as a result of any action taken pursuant to the compilation or
release of information on the central registry under this section and any other
applicable section of this code, unless determined that an employee has
willfully and maliciously violated the rules and administrative procedures of
the department pertaining to the central registry or any section of this code.
If an employee is determined to have willfully and maliciously performed such a
violation, said employee shall not be exempt from civil liability in this
regard.

(4)  The Mississippi State
Department of Health may release the findings of investigations into
allegations of abuse within licensed day care centers made under the provisions
of Section 43-21-353(8) to any parent of a child who is enrolled in the day
care center at the time of the alleged abuse or at the time the request for
information is made.  The findings of any such investigation may also be
released to parents who are considering placing children in the day care
center.  No information concerning those investigations may contain the names
or identifying information of individual children.

The Department of Health
shall not be held civilly liable for the release of information on any
findings, recommendations or actions taken pursuant to investigations of abuse
that have been conducted under Section 43-21-353(8).

SECTION 2.  Section
97-5-39, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

97-5-39.  (1)  (a)  Except
as otherwise provided in this section, any parent, guardian or other person who
intentionally, knowingly or recklessly commits any act or omits the performance
of any duty, which act or omission contributes to or tends to contribute to the
neglect or delinquency of any child or which act or omission results in the
abuse of any child, as defined in Section 43-21-105(m) of the Youth Court Law,
or who knowingly aids any child in escaping or absenting himself from the
guardianship or custody of any person, agency or institution, or knowingly
harbors or conceals, or aids in harboring or concealing, any child who has
absented himself without permission from the guardianship or custody of any
person, agency or institution to which the child shall have been committed by
the youth court shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be
punished by a fine not to exceed One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00), or by
imprisonment not to exceed one (1) year in jail, or by both such fine and
imprisonment.

(b)  For the purpose of
this section, a child is a person who has not reached his eighteenth birthday.
A child who has not reached his eighteenth birthday and is on active duty for a
branch of the armed services, or who is married, is not considered a child for
the purposes of this statute.

(c)  If a child commits
one (1) of the proscribed acts in subsection (2)(a), (b) or (c) of this section
upon another child, then original jurisdiction of all such offenses shall be in
youth court.

(d)  If the parent has
failed to provide the child with food, clothing, or shelter necessary to sustain
the life or health of the child, excluding failure caused by financial
inability unless relief services have been offered and refused and the child is
in imminent risk of harm, or the parent is unwilling to provide reasonably
necessary medical care, though that medical care does not include recommended
or optional vaccinations against childhood or any other disease, the person may
be sentenced to imprisonment in custody of the Department of Corrections for
not more than five (5) years or to payment of a fine of not more than Five
Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or both.

(e)  A parent, legal
guardian or other person who knowingly permits the continuing physical or
sexual abuse * * * of a
child is guilty of or felonious neglect of a child * * * and may be sentenced to imprisonment in the
custody of the Department of Corrections for not more than ten (10) years or to
payment of a fine of not more than Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00), or both.

(2)  Any person shall be
guilty of felonious child abuse in the following circumstances:

(a)  Whether bodily
harm results or not, if the person shall intentionally, knowingly or
recklessly:

(i)  Burn any
child;

(ii)  Torture any
child;

(iii)  Strangle,
choke, smother or in any way interfere with any child's breathing;

(iv)  Poison a
child;

(v)  Starve a child
of nourishments needed to sustain life or growth;

(vi)  Use any type
of deadly weapon upon any child;

(b)  If some bodily
harm to any child actually occurs, and if the person shall intentionally,
knowingly or recklessly:

(i)  Throw, kick,
bite, or cut any child;

(ii)  Strike a
child under the age of fourteen (14) about the face or head with a closed fist;

(iii)  Strike a
child under the age of five (5) in the face or head;

(iv)  Kick, bite,
cut or strike a child's genitals; circumcision of a male child is not a
violation under this subparagraph (iv);

(c)  If serious bodily
harm to any child actually occurs, and if the person shall intentionally,
knowingly or recklessly:

(i)  Strike any
child on the face or head;

(ii)  Disfigure or
scar any child;

(iii)  Whip, strike
or otherwise abuse any child;

(d)  Any person, upon
conviction under paragraph (a) or (c) of this subsection, shall be sentenced by
the court to imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for a
term of not less than five (5) years and up to life, as determined by the
court.  Any person, upon conviction under paragraph (b) of this subsection
shall be sentenced by the court to imprisonment in the custody of the
Department of Corrections for a term of not less than two (2) years nor more
than ten (10) years, as determined by the court.  For any second or subsequent
conviction under this subsection (2), the person shall be sentenced to imprisonment
for life.

(e)  For the purposes
of this subsection (2), "bodily harm" means any bodily injury to a
child and includes, but is not limited to, bruising, bleeding, lacerations,
soft tissue swelling, and external or internal swelling of any body organ.

(f)  For the purposes
of this subsection (2), "serious bodily harm" means any serious
bodily injury to a child and includes, but is not limited to, the fracture of a
bone, permanent disfigurement, permanent scarring, or any internal bleeding or
internal trauma to any organ, any brain damage, any injury to the eye or ear of
a child or other vital organ, and impairment of any bodily function.

(g)  For purposes of
this subsection (2), "torture" means any act, omission, or
intentional neglect committed by an individual upon a child within his custody
or physical control, whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable physical or mental
pain or suffering is caused or permitted, regardless of whether serious
physical injury results.  Child torture involves treatment that is
intentionally cruel, inhumane, and degrading, including, but not limited to:
intentionally starving a child; forcing a child to sit in urine or feces;
binding or restraining a child; repeatedly physically injuring a child;
exposing the child to extreme temperatures without adequate clothing or
shelter; locking a child in closets or other small spaces; and forcing a child
into stress positions or exercise resulting in prolonged suffering.

(h)  Nothing contained
in paragraph (c) of this subsection shall preclude a parent or guardian from
disciplining a child of that parent or guardian, or shall preclude a person in
loco parentis to a child from disciplining that child, if done in a reasonable
manner, and reasonable corporal punishment or reasonable discipline as to that
parent or guardian's child or child to whom a person stands in loco parentis
shall be a defense to any violation charged under paragraph (c) of this
subsection.

(i)  Reasonable
discipline and reasonable corporal punishment shall not be a defense to acts
described in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection or if a child suffers
serious bodily harm as a result of any act prohibited under paragraph (c) of
this subsection.

(3)  Nothing contained in
this section shall prevent proceedings against the parent, guardian or other
person under any statute of this state or any municipal ordinance defining any
act as a crime or misdemeanor.  Nothing in the provisions of this section shall
preclude any person from having a right to trial by jury when charged with
having violated the provisions of this section.

(4)  (a)  A parent, legal
guardian or caretaker who endangers a child's person or health by knowingly
causing or permitting the child to be present where any person is selling,
manufacturing or possessing immediate precursors or chemical substances with
intent to manufacture, sell or possess a controlled substance as prohibited
under Section 41-29-139 or 41-29-313, is guilty of child endangerment and may
be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten (10) years or to payment of
a fine of not more than Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00), or both.

(b)  If the
endangerment results in substantial harm to the child's physical, mental or
emotional health, the person may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than
twenty (20) years or to payment of a fine of not more than Twenty Thousand
Dollars ($20,000.00), or both.

(5)  Nothing contained in
this section shall prevent proceedings against the parent, guardian or other
person under any statute of this state or any municipal ordinance defining any
act as a crime or misdemeanor.  Nothing in the provisions of this section shall
preclude any person from having a right to trial by jury when charged with
having violated the provisions of this section.

(6)  After consultation with
the Department of Child Protection Services, a regional mental health center or
an appropriate professional person, a judge may suspend imposition or execution
of a sentence provided in subsections (1) and (2) of this section and in lieu
thereof require treatment over a specified period of time at any approved
public or private treatment facility.  A person may be eligible for treatment
in lieu of criminal penalties no more than one (1) time.

(7)  In any proceeding
resulting from a report made pursuant to Section 43-21-353 of the Youth Court
Law, the testimony of the physician making the report regarding the child's
injuries or condition or cause thereof shall not be excluded on the ground that
the physician's testimony violates the physician-patient privilege or similar
privilege or rule against disclosure.  The physician's report shall not be
considered as evidence unless introduced as an exhibit to his testimony.

(8)  Any criminal
prosecution arising from a violation of this section shall be tried in the
circuit, county, justice or municipal court having jurisdiction; provided,
however, that nothing herein shall abridge or dilute the contempt powers of the
youth court.

(9)  For any conviction
of a crime set forth in this section in which a parent or guardian qualifies as
a "substantiated perpetrator," as defined in Section 43-21-257(3),
the court may place the parent or guardian on the Department of Child
Protection Services' state central registry.  If the circuit court determines
that a convicted parent or guardian should be placed on the central registry,
the circuit court shall include the registry requirement in the judgment and
transmit a copy to the Department of Child Protection Services.

SECTION 3.  This act
shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2026.