Definition

s of abuse and neglect. More detailed information is available in the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services' policies.

Child welfare data are reported according to the location of the DCFS office through which the case is handled. Some parishes do not have a DCFS office that handles child welfare cases, and children in those parishes are served by offices in the nearest parish. Geographies reported here reflect instances in which one parish office serves children in multiple parishes (e.g. Jefferson Parish's offices also serve children in Plaquemines and St. Bernard). A small number of alleged victims are included in the statewide total, but are not reported in any parish's data because their cases were handled by the state office or because the record was missing parish data.

Note that all data reported here were updated in December 2022, and some historical data that were previously reported in the "missing parish data" category have now been included in the appropriate parish. Previous years' data have been updated as more investigations were finalized. Additionally, 2020-2021 data does not include any investigations considered to be ongoing, and are therefore subject to future revision and increases. We encourage users to interpret data for these years as the minimum number of confirmed victims and to use caution in interpreting apparent decreases.

LNE - "low number event" reflects a number or rate based on at least one but fewer than five events

Data Source

Agenda for Children's analysis of data provided by the  Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, by special request and Puzzanchera, C., Sladky, A. and Kang, W. (2021). "Easy Access to Juvenile Populations: 1990-2020."

Notes

Data are reported here according to race and ethnicity/Hispanic origin. A child identifying as Hispanic or Latino may also identify as white or Black, and vice versa. Therefore, the sum of the racial and ethnic categories could be larger than the total reported for the parish. Note that data for other races are not reported here, but are included in the totals. Additionally, data on ethnicity (Hispanic/Latino or Non-Hispanic) was unavailable for a large number of victims each year (e.g. 17% of victims in 2021), so caution should be used in interpreting data on Hispanic/Latino victims of child abuse.

The child protection investigation process begins with a report of child abuse and/or neglect. Reports are then screened to determine whether or not the allegations meet the

Last Updated

2022-12