Unsupervised Children

At what age can a child be left home alone?

Call your local police dept; but many states have no official rule on that.

...and any neglect charge depends on the circumstances

There is good reason not to set a specific age at which children may be left at home alone. Specifically, no matter what age you pick there will be some children who are not sufficiently mature to look after themselves. It would not be good public policy to effectively grant parents immunity for the consequences of what they know to be poor parenting decisions, merely because a child has reached the age specified in a statute or regulation. Also, the nature and duration of the parents' absence can significantly affect the age at which the child should be left alone. A twelve-year-old may be perfectly comfortable taking care of himself after school until a parent gets home from work, but that does not mean that he's sufficiently mature to stay at home alone while his parents take a two-week tour of Europe.