The findings indicated that among the sample of detained youth, 16.6 percent of participants who reported any maltreatment, 22.2 percent of participants who reported severe levels of maltreatment, and 25.1 percent of participants who reported that they required medical treatment as a result of maltreatment also had a court record of abuse or neglect. Among those with any self-reported maltreatment, African-Americans and girls were more likely to have a court record of maltreatment. The findings suggest that the true incidence of childhood maltreatment is not captured by official court records, indicating the need to reference multiple data sources in research on childhood maltreatment. Data were drawn from the Northwestern Juvenile Project, a study of 1,829 randomly selected youth between the ages of 10 to 18 years who were arrested and detained for delinquency between 1995 and 1998 at Chicago’s Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. Data were gathered via private interview and focused on punishments participants ever received from parents or other custodial adults and injuries received as a result of punishments. Court records of child abuse or neglect for the participants were gathered from the Cook County Court Child Protection Division. The analysis focused on determining the association between the self-reported measures of child maltreatment and court records of maltreatment. Comparisons were made for gender, age, and race. Future research should focus on understanding racial/ethnic disparities in official records of childhood maltreatment. Tables, references