Alaska

AS 47.17.020 — Alaska Child Protection — Persons required to report

Clergy named as mandatory reporter?: No
Confessional exemption?: Yes

Statute: AS 47.17.020
Clergy named: Not expressly
Pending: —

Alaska's mandatory-reporting statute, AS 47.17.020(a), lists ten categories of occupational, appointed, and volunteer reporters that must report suspected child abuse and neglect. Clergy is not one of them. The only religiously inflected provision in the statute is subsection (d), a faith-healing carveout that narrows reporting for religious healing practitioners providing prayer-only treatment. Subsection (b) permits any person to report, but a permissive option is not a duty. The companion privilege-abrogation provision at AS 47.17.060 names only the physician-patient and spouse privileges as unavailable in child-protection proceedings. Clergy-penitent communications under Alaska Rule of Evidence 506 sit outside that override. The federal Child Welfare Information Gateway lists Alaska among the states that do not enumerate clergy as mandated reporters and that do not address clergy-penitent privilege in their reporting laws. The last meaningful legislative attempt to add clergy to the list was HB 92 in the 23rd Legislature (2003-2004); the bill moved through committee substitutes, passed the House 32-6, and stopped in the Senate Health, Education and Social Services committee. No later clergy-reporting bill has reached enactment, and AS 47.17.020 still omits clergy from its mandated-reporter list. UCO works state-by-state to add clergy to mandated-reporter lists and to address the privilege questions sitting next to those lists. Alaska is a long-quiet reform gap, not a live fight, and the work is to make it one.

Section 01What needs to change

What needs to change in Alaska.

AS 47.17.020(a) enumerates ten categories and clergy is not among them
The principal mandatory-reporting statute lists practitioners of the healing arts, school teachers and administrative staff, peace officers and Department of Corrections officers, administrative officers of institutions, child care providers, paid employees of domestic violence and sexual assault and crisis intervention programs, paid employees of substance-use counseling organizations, members of child fatality and multidisciplinary child protection review teams, certain school volunteers, and juvenile probation officers, juvenile probation office staff, and staff of juvenile detention and treatment facilities. Clergy as a category does not appear. The Alaska Office of Children's Services 'Who must report' page mirrors the statute's roster.
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Federal HHS survey classifies Alaska as 'not expressly' covering clergy
The Child Welfare Information Gateway's 2023 national summary classifies Alaska as a state that does not enumerate clergy as mandated reporters and that does not address clergy-penitent privilege in its reporting laws. The same chart groups Alaska with states where clergy may be picked up by an any-person designation. On our own reading of the statute that designation does not close the gap, because AS 47.17.020(b) is permissive rather than a mandate. The federal classification confirms the statute's silence, not a court's narrowing read of it.
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Permissive reporting under AS 47.17.020(b) is not a mandate
Subsection (b) provides that the statute does not prohibit any other person from reporting suspected child harm. The permissive option leaves nonlisted persons, including clergy who do not independently satisfy a listed role, outside the mandatory-reporter list. A reporter who is free to call is not the same as a reporter who must call, and the duty-bearing line in Alaska currently stops short of clergy as a class.
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Privilege-abrogation in the child-protection chapter names two privileges and skips clergy
The Alaska Office of Children's Services law-links page reproduces AS 47.17.060, which overrides the physician-patient and husband-wife privileges as grounds for excluding evidence in proceedings related to child-protection reports. The clergy-penitent privilege recognized at Alaska Rule of Evidence 506 is not named. The two adjacent testimonial privileges are expressly cleared away; the clergy privilege is not. Practitioner summaries reach the same read.
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Alaska Rule of Evidence 506 recognizes a broad clergy-communications privilege
Rule 506 of the Alaska Rules of Evidence defines clergy broadly and recognizes a privilege to refuse to disclose, and to prevent disclosure of, confidential communications made to a member of the clergy in that person's professional character as spiritual adviser. The child-protection chapter does not expressly override Rule 506, leaving the clergy-penitent privilege intact in any judicial proceeding related to a child-protection report.
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AS 47.17.020(d) is a narrowing faith-healing carveout, not a clergy mandate
Subsection (d) provides that the section does not require a religious healing practitioner to report as neglect a child's lack of medical attention when the child receives treatment solely by spiritual means through prayer in accordance with the tenets and practices of a recognized church or religious denomination by an accredited practitioner. This is the one religiously inflected provision in the statute, and it narrows reporting rather than expanding clergy coverage.
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Last serious legislative attempt was HB 92 in 2003-2004
HB 92 in the 23rd Legislature would have inserted clergy members at AS 47.17.020(a)(9) and would have added a new AS 47.17.021 addressing penitential communications. The bill moved through committee substitutes in House State Affairs and House Judiciary, passed the House on a 32-6 floor vote on April 25, 2003, and the official bill history shows the measure's last action in the Senate Health, Education and Social Services committee on April 29, 2003. The bill did not become law, and AS 47.17.020 still does not enumerate clergy. The action-needed framing is anchored here: Alaska's legislature has considered the question and let it sit for more than two decades.
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Section 02What's needed

What it takes to close the gap.

From Alaska's law as it stands today to the standard UCO is working toward, every adult who learns a child is being harmed has to report it:

AS 47.17.020(a) lists ten categories of mandated reporter and clergy were left off; subsection (b) lets any person report, but a permitted report is not a required one. AS 47.17.060 clears the physician and spousal privileges yet leaves the clergy-penitent privilege at Alaska Rule of Evidence 506 fully in force. Alaska has drafted half the fix once. HB 92 would have named clergy as reporters, but it paired that duty with a new statutory confessional exemption at AS 47.17.021 and left AS 47.17.060 and Alaska Rule of Evidence 506 untouched, so a reintroduction would need the privilege half rewritten. The work is to name clergy as reporters and close the privilege beside the duty.

Section 03How you can help

Concrete ways to support reform in Alaska.

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Donations fund Alaska-specific research and the long work of building the coalition Alaska does not yet have.

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Section 04Timeline

How Alaska got here.

2003-2004
HB 92 passed the House, then stalled in the Senate
HB 92 in the 23rd Legislature would have added clergy members to AS 47.17.020(a) and added a new AS 47.17.021 on penitential communications. The bill moved through House State Affairs and Judiciary committee substitutes, passed the House 32-6 on April 25, 2003, and stopped in the Senate Health, Education and Social Services committee on April 29, 2003. It did not become law.
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2023
Federal HHS survey confirms Alaska's 'not expressly' status
The Child Welfare Information Gateway's May 2023 Alaska page cites AS 47.17.020, records that any person who has reasonable cause to suspect a child has been harmed may report, and states that the issue of privileged communications for clergy is not addressed in the statutes reviewed.
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2025
Practitioner summaries continue to read AS 47.17.060 as silent on clergy
Practitioner-oriented summaries, last reviewed March 19, 2025, restate that AS 47.17.060 reaches only the physician-patient and husband-wife privileges in child-protection proceedings.
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2026
AS 47.17.020 remains silent on clergy
AS 47.17.020 continues to omit clergy from its enumerated mandated-reporter list and does not address the clergy-penitent privilege. The statutory silence first tested by HB 92 in 2003 remains the operative posture.
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Section 05Background

Public-record sources UCO is tracking.

Always verify against the underlying statute or filing before quoting.

Alaska State Legislature· 2024
Alaska Statutes AS 47.17.020 — Persons required to report
Official Alaska Legislature rendering of the principal mandatory-reporting statute. Subsection (a) enumerates ten categories of mandated reporters; clergy is not among them. Subsection (b) is the permissive any-other-person provision. Subsection (d) contains the faith-healing carveout for religious healing practitioners providing prayer-only treatment.
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Justia US Law· 2024
2024 Alaska Statutes — Title 47, Chapter 17, Section 47.17.020 (Justia mirror)
Independent secondary rendering of AS 47.17.020. Useful cross-check against the akleg.gov source; reflects the same ten enumerated reporter categories, the (b) permissive provision, and the (d) faith-healing exemption.
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Alaska Department of Family and Community Services, Office of Children's Services
Who must report? All of us — Alaska Office of Children's Services
State child-welfare agency page identifying mandated reporters under AS 47.17.020. The agency's roster tracks the statute's enumerated categories and does not include clergy as a class; the only religious role identified is religious healing practitioners, folded into the healing-arts subsection.
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Alaska Department of Family and Community Services, Office of Children's Services
State of Alaska Law Links — Chapter 47.17 Child Protection
Agency law-links page reproducing AS 47.17.020's enumerated-reporter list and AS 47.17.060's privilege provision. AS 47.17.060 overrides only the physician-patient and husband-wife privileges in child-protection proceedings and is silent on clergy-penitent communications.
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Child Welfare Information Gateway, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children's Bureau· May 2023
Clergy as Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse and Neglect: Summary of State Laws (2023)
Federal HHS Children's Bureau 50-state survey current through May 2023. Categorizes Alaska among the states that do not enumerate clergy as mandated reporters and that do not address clergy-penitent privilege in their reporting laws. Authoritative secondary cross-reference for the statusBucket classification.
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Child Welfare Information Gateway, Children's Bureau / HHS· May 2023
Clergy as Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse and Neglect — Alaska
State-specific page in the federal Child Welfare Information Gateway series. Cites AS 47.17.020 and notes that clergy-privileged communications are not addressed in the statutes reviewed, supporting the silent privilege posture.
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Alaska Court System
Alaska Rules of Evidence, Rule 506 — Communications to Clergymen
Rule 506 defines clergy broadly and recognizes a privilege to refuse to disclose, and to prevent disclosure of, confidential communications made to a member of the clergy acting as spiritual adviser. The child-protection chapter does not expressly override this privilege.
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Church Law & Tax· Updated March 2025
Child Abuse Reporting Laws for Alaska
Practitioner-oriented summary of Alaska's reporting regime. Restates that the privilege-abrogation provision at AS 47.17.060 reaches only the physician-patient and husband-wife privileges. Secondary corroboration for the silent privilege posture and action-needed framing.
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Alaska State Legislature· 2003-2004
HB 92 (23rd Alaska Legislature) — An Act relating to reports by members of the clergy
Introduced text of the 2003-2004 bill that would have added clergy members to AS 47.17.020(a) and added a new AS 47.17.021 carving out penitential communications. Note that the version which actually advanced was the House Judiciary committee substitute, CSHB 92(JUD) am (akleg Hsid HB0092D), whose AS 47.17.021 differs materially from this introduced text: a three-condition confessional exemption keyed to 26 U.S.C. 501(c)(3) status, and without the introduced bill's uncodified retroactive past-abuse reporting section. That substitute passed the House 32-6. The bill did not become law; clergy remain absent from current AS 47.17.020.
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Alaska State Legislature· 2003-2004
HB 92 Bill History/Action — Clergy to Report Child Abuse
Official bill-history page for HB 92 in the 23rd Legislature. Last recorded action is the Senate Health, Education and Social Services committee on April 29, 2003. Anchors the action-needed urgency tier: the legislature has considered adding clergy to the reporter list and has not done so in more than twenty years.
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Other states

Last reviewed July 21, 2026 · by Unheard Child Org research teamHow we track this