Texas
Tex. Fam. Code §§ 261.101, 261.109, 261.202 — Texas Family Code — Mandatory Reporting and Privilege Override
- Clergy named as mandatory reporter?
- Yes
- Confessional exemption?
- No
- Statute
- Tex. Fam. Code §§ 261.101, 261.109, 261.202
- Clergy named
- Expressly
- Pending
- —
Texas has one of the broadest mandatory-reporting statutes in the country. Section 261.101(a) of the Family Code requires any person with reasonable cause to believe a child has been abused or neglected to make an immediate report. Section 261.101(c) removes any doubt about clergy: the duty applies 'without exception' to persons whose communications are otherwise privileged, and it names clergy directly in that list. The privilege is abrogated twice: at the reporting stage under §261.101(c), and again at the evidentiary stage under §261.202, which bars excluding evidence in child-abuse proceedings on privilege grounds except for attorney-client communications. Bordman v. State, decided by the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in 2001, confirmed that this dual abrogation reaches criminal prosecutions, not only civil CPS proceedings. The penalties reflect legislative seriousness. Section 261.109 makes knowing failure to report a Class A misdemeanor. Where the reporter acted with intent to conceal abuse, the offense becomes a state jail felony. In 2025, the 89th Legislature passed SB 127, extending the statute of limitations for these offenses: three years from discovery for the misdemeanor, four years from discovery for the felony. The Senate Research Center's own statement acknowledged that failure to report 'goes unpunished in many cases of ongoing abuse', the legislature's candid diagnosis that a strong statute has not produced proportionate enforcement. Texas also ended anonymous reporting in 2023. House Bill 63 amended §261.104 to require reporters to provide their name and contact information; refusal ends the call without acceptance of the report. That change narrowed the channel for all reporters, including clergy, without touching the underlying duty or the privilege override. The gap in Texas is not in the text. It is in the distance between what the statute commands and what accountability has followed. No reported prosecutions of clergy for failing to report have emerged from the research record through 2018, and the legislative response to that gap has been procedural rather than substantive. Here the reform is not new statutory text but enforcement: making a strong law mean something in practice. That distance between what a statute commands and how often it is used is the work UCO takes up in Texas and in every state whose words outrun its record.