Kentucky
KRS 620.030 — Kentucky Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Duty
- Clergy named as mandatory reporter?
- No
- Confessional exemption?
- Yes
- Statute
- KRS 620.030
- Clergy named
- All-person
- Pending
- —
Kentucky's child-abuse reporting law says what looks like the right thing: any person who knows or has reasonable cause to believe that a child is dependent, neglected, or abused must report immediately. No professional list. No carve-outs in the duty itself. KRS 620.030(1) reaches clergy in the same breath it reaches teachers, doctors, and neighbors. Then subsection (5) speaks. It preserves the attorney-client and clergy-penitent privileges as the only two exceptions to the otherwise comprehensive override of professional privilege. Every other professional relationship (doctor-patient, therapist-client, husband and wife) loses privilege protection when child abuse is at stake. Clergy and lawyers alone retain it. The statute that could have closed the door leaves it open, in writing. What that means in practice: a Kentucky clergy member who hears about child abuse in ordinary conversation must report. The same clergy member who hears the same information inside a confidential pastoral communication may lawfully stay silent. The line between those two settings is the one the institution gets to draw. Kentucky Rules of Evidence 505 defines the privilege broadly: covering any minister, priest, rabbi, or similar religious functionary, and any communication made privately and not intended for further disclosure. The structural latitude is wide. Kentucky does impose real criminal consequences for willful non-reporting: a Class B misdemeanor on a first offense, Class A on a second, and a Class D felony for each subsequent violation. The state Attorney General's office characterizes the duty as universal for every adult Kentuckian. Courts have confirmed that the duty is independent: reporting to a supervisor does not discharge it. The enforcement floor is genuine. What UCO tracks here is the preserved privilege carveout at the center of an otherwise strong statute. Kentucky is one of dozens of states where the law sounds comprehensive and the exception does the real work. Removing that single preserved privilege is the reform UCO presses for here, and in every state whose statute reads strong until you reach the carveout.