NEW YORK — New York has replaced anonymous reports to its child abuse hotline with a confidential reporting system under the Anti-Harassment in Reporting Act, a law intended to curb false and malicious reports that have subjected families to invasive investigations, according to Brooklyn Defenders.
The Anti-Harassment in Reporting Act was fully implemented June 17. According to Brooklyn Defenders, the law “replaces the state’s anonymous reporting system with a confidential one, closing a loophole that allowed false and malicious reports to trigger invasive investigations of families.”
The organization said “more than 93% of anonymous reports to the state hotline are found to have no evidence of harm to a child.”
Nevertheless, innocent families bear the brunt of these false and malicious reports. These families describe the experience of being investigated because of such reports as “harrowing” and “traumatic,” according to Nila Natarajan, director of Family Defense & Policy for the Family Defense Practice, in a Brooklyn Defenders reel.
“Late night knocks on the door often lead to strip searches of children and photographs of their bodies, interrogations of children without the presence of their parents, and invasive home searches looking through cabinets, refrigerators, and dresser drawers,” said Natarajan.
“Under the new law, callers must leave their name and contact information, which stays confidential from the family being reported,” Brooklyn Defenders said.
“Good faith reporters are protected.” Those who weaponize the system “to harass a tenant, an ex-partner, or a co-parent” are not afforded those protections.
In its “Latest” column, Brooklyn Defenders catalogued some of the most significant developments in New York law and politics during the week.
“We joined 70 organizations urging the Mamdani administration to reject an increase to the NYPD headcount and end broken windows policing, in favor of investments in housing, health care, and other supportive services,” the organization said.
Additionally, Brooklyn Defenders “filed a joint amicus brief in support of New York State’s efforts to uphold the critical protections offered by the Protect Our Courts Act,” which bars U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, from making arrests at local courthouses.
According to amNewYork, “Officers from ICE were really disrupting court activity,” said Legal Aid attorney Evan Henley. “Immigrants, whether they were undocumented or not, were terrified of coming to court, whether they were defendants, whether they were witnesses, or whether they were complainants. People were not willing to come to court to participate in the state’s justice system. That has negative impacts for everyone.”
In an effort to combat that culture of fear, Legal Aid “asked an appellate court to side with New York over the federal government in Trump’s 2025 suit attempting to strike down the state’s Protect Our Courts Act, which prohibits ICE from arresting people in state courthouses.”
“This month, Brooklyn Defenders was proud to take part in two powerful conferences — The 4th Movement: The Evolution of Lived Expertise Conference, hosted by the NYC Justice Peer Initiative, and the 2026 Black Public Defender Association Summer Conference.”
“At The 4th Movement Conference, Samuel Hamilton, reentry supervisor, and Gina Mitchell, attorney in charge of Law Reform and Policy, presented ‘Building Bridges,’” which examines how a public defender office can “drive systemic change by connecting reentry practice and policy advocacy through the leadership of people directly impacted by incarceration.”
According to Brooklyn Defenders, these conferences promote conversations about what it means to make an impact through policy, public defense and other forms of advocacy. In turn, those conversations “build the relationships that make collective progress possible.”
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