NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Department of Children's Services has begun making publicly available the names of people who it believes have committed child abuse or neglect, despite the fact that some of them were never prosecuted for the accusations.
The Commercial Appeal (http://bit.ly/1Hed9bR ) reports that as of July 1, new additions to a formerly internal, confidential registry of people who investigators say they "substantiated" for child abuse will be shared with an online, publicly accessible registry of abusers of adults.
The internal registry is used to prevent those on the list from getting jobs at schools, for example. The public registry is used to prevent people who abused adults from getting jobs at places such as nursing homes.
The Department of Children's Services says people can appeal their placement on the registry.