Mandatory Reporter Laws by State: CHILD ABUSE

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I agree, to an extent. The problem of having all adults be mandatory reporters is that if a person were to not report abuse, that person would be criminally or civilly liable.

That seems o.k. on the surface. However, if you don’t know that abuse is occurring, you could still get in trouble because the claim might be made that you should have known.

I coached youth soccer (U-8 boys). I had never met the boys (aside from my son, of course) prior to our first practice. I saw them for a total of about three hours a week for 10 or 12 weeks. I barely knew their names, let alone what their lives were like. How would I have known if abuse were occurring?

I absolutely agree that everyone has a duty to report, but when it becomes mandatory it gets tricky, especially for people who have no training, experience, etc.

edit: I haven’t read the link.
 
Jerurussia said:
usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-01-02/unreported-child-abuse/51981108/1

Please review the status of your state’s mandatory reporter law as regards child abuse/neglect. ALL adults should have a mandatory reporting duty.
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The problem with making "all adults’ mandatory reporters is that “all adults” do not have the training to recognize abuse. If I see a kid in my neighborhood sporting a black eye, for instance, I have no idea if he is being abused or if he may have been hit by a stray baseball or been in a recent bike accident. It’s easy to say that we should err on the side of caution and report all such cases. But there is a huge middle ground between really knowing and just suspecting. If all suspected cases were reported, there would be nowhere near the resources to investigate them all and real abuse cases would get lost in the paperwork.
 
That’s the problem I had with the Virtus training that was mandated before I could teach CCD. I see these first-graders for less than an hour, in a group setting, twenty times, providing they’re never absent. My two hours of training and the limited amount of time I have with them certainly did not give me a good basis to detect sexual, or any other, abuse.

And, in a related area, the hour-long training session in no way prepared me adequately to teach the “Safe Touches” classes.

I really worry that the Church considers this an adequate response to the problems it’s facing in those areas.
 
This is from one of the comments on the story:

“Most cases are far more ambiguous than a man allegedly caught in the act of raping a child in the shower. Nationwide, even now, more than three-quarters of all reports alleging child abuse are false. Further terrorizing people into reporting their slightest suspicion means child abuse hotlines will be deluged with even more false reports, further overloading workers who then will have less time to find children in real danger.”
 
Book_Worm said:
I really worry that the Church considers this an adequate response to the problems it’s facing in those areas.
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My wife had to watch a video when she taught CCD. Her response was, “It’s not the CCD teachers, the principals, and the janitors who are causing the problem, but they want us to act as if we’re all somehow responsible for what happens.”
 
on_the_hill said:
My wife had to watch a video when she taught CCD. Her response was, “It’s not the CCD teachers, the principals, and the janitors who are causing the problem, but they want us to act as if we’re all somehow responsible for what happens.”
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I was once asked, after I attended one of these classes, what I thought of it.

I told them it was the biggest waste of my time.

Not only didn’t it teach me what I needed to know, it spent way too much time talking about what the Church had done to combat abuse.
 
There are two questions that are confused in the article and interchanged though they are far from equivalent. The chart says “required to report child abuse or neglect.” The statement above the chart says, " alert authorities when they suspect a child has been abused or neglected." The two are very different. In the article, we read:
“If you actually see it and interrupt a sexual assault by an adult on a small child, you’re on notice, everyone can agree that you have to report it,” King County, Wash., Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said. “But if you just hear about it or you hear rumors or you hear something that causes you concern … it’s very hard to say that somebody actually had the duty.”
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I see this as the problem to both reporting and prosecution. We as Catholics understand that offenses against the truth include calumny, rash judgment and gossip. We understand that people are entitled to their good name.

People are rarely prosecuted for failure to report. There may be a sound fundamental reason for this, like people are very good at reporting when they need to. Hindsight made by professionals is always going to be better than the amateur’s blind sight.
 
The other problem with mandatory reporting is that the state may have an overly aggressive agency dealing with this issues. The state may become more of a problem than a solution.

Also, the definition of child abuse is not widely known by the general public of that state. What may be child abuse pertaining to the law may not be child abuse to the potential reporter. This relates to conscientiousness.
 
Jerurussia said:
usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-01-02/unreported-child-abuse/51981108/1

Please review the status of your state’s mandatory reporter law as regards child abuse/neglect. ALL adults should have a mandatory reporting duty.
Click to expand...
Interesting comment. At a training on mandatory reporting there was a question if a person in a job/position making them a mandatory reporter are they always a mandatory reporter or just while on the job? It was determined that it was all the time. So when I’m around friends or relatives I’m still a mandated reporter. Super. :rolleyes:
 
I haven’t been through any training like VIRTUS so I don’t know what it’s like but I’m puzzled by some of the concerns noted here.

I am a mandated reporter and have been for several years and have served on a child protection team. I’m required by law to report abuse or suspected abuse or neglect. I don’t have to know with absolute certainty it is going on. Also, if someone tells me they want to make a report, I have to report even if the information given doesn’t indicate abuse or neglect(different parenting styles, annoyed neighbors). If there is a custody situation going on, I include that in the report as it gives context. If someone just casually mentions something that is falls under the category of abuse as defined by my state’s statutes I have to report it.

Who do I report to? During regular business hours I call/fax social services. After hours, weekends, and holidays I call the police or sheriff, depending on where the alleged abuse happened. When in doubt I report. I report facts. I do not define anything as abuse; I describe simply what I saw or heard (was told) and let the people who’s job it is to sort it out, sort it out.

Who are you all instructed to alert? Do you have forms to assist you? Do you have a printouts to reference? Do you realize most of what you will encounter will not be so severe so it definitely won’t make the news and will likely be screened out because there are more severe cases that take priority? That many of the cases will be neglect due to drug addiction or mental illness? Where I live there are several approaches (levels) and the first is being offered services and for the most part it’s voluntary on the part of parents and many are grateful. A call doesn’t mean that the kids are willy-nilly pulled from homes.

And I think the Virtus training is a CYA thing for insurance. Obviously, there have been to many situations were someone “knew” about abuse but kept silent so the Church is covering all the bases. It’s good to be given permission to not be silent just because your not sure or because it’s someone you think is a “nice person”. It’s a good thing even if you are unlikely to ever have something to report. I’ve probably made more reports than most people here but it’s not like I am making reports weekly or even monthly.
 
Bruised_Reed said:
Who are you all instructed to alert? Do you have forms to assist you? Do you have a printouts to reference? Do you realize most of what you will encounter will not be so severe so it definitely won’t make the news and will likely be screened out because there are more severe cases that take priority? That many of the cases will be neglect due to drug addiction or mental illness? Where I live there are several approaches (levels) and the first is being offered services and for the most part it’s voluntary on the part of parents and many are grateful. A call doesn’t mean that the kids are willy-nilly pulled from homes.
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For parish activities covered by Virtus, an adult would alert the DRE or the pastor. No, we don’t have any printouts or forms to use.

I am in Texas, where technically all adults are mandatory reporters. In a non-parish related situation, I would have no guidance or instruction as to who to alert under that category. If it were me, I would call the police and definitely not call CPS. There is no protection for me against wrongful accusation if I deal with CPS.
 
Corki said:
For parish activities covered by Virtus, an adult would alert the DRE or the pastor. No, we don’t have any printouts or forms to use.

I am in Texas, where technically all adults are mandatory reporters. In a non-parish related situation, I would have no guidance or instruction as to who to alert under that category. If it were me, I would call the police and definitely not call CPS. There is no protection for me against wrongful accusation if I deal with CPS.
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I note that in Texas, regretfully, even the clergy during confession are not exempt, not that this has ever been tested.
 
Yeah, where would one report abuse? The church bulletin has an abuse hotline but as I think about it, that’s been the whole problem, self-reporting, very parallel to campus police investigating abuse by star athletes and having these cases diverted from the criminal justice system.

The only thing I liked about the movies we had to watch to teach CCD was the part about grooming, with perps spending long hours instilling confidence in parents and guardians; with perps using porn to make their actions seem normative; with perps urging intoxicants and so forth. There were elements of the films that seemed self-serving, like statistic bending as regards homosexual perps that says this is statistically rare; but they tend to be serial offenders and this accounts for the staggering impact of a small population.

May the Most Holy Trinity send His Holy Angels to encamp about us, guide us and protect us, all for His honor and glory. AMEN
 
Corki said:
For parish activities covered by Virtus, an adult would alert the DRE or the pastor. No, we don’t have any printouts or forms to use.

I am in Texas, where technically all adults are mandatory reporters. In a non-parish related situation, I would have no guidance or instruction as to who to alert under that category. If it were me, I would call the police and definitely not call CPS. There is no protection for me against wrongful accusation if I deal with CPS.
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I would alert the DRE and/or pastor but either I’m present when they call the police or CSP or I’ll do it myself. I don’t like the idea that a report gets passed on to another person or a report is made (especially one in writing) that I did not make myself.

Why is there no legal protection for you if you call CPS? Where I live, they cross report and are part of a team. Is if a law that all adults are mandated reporters? If so, there should be guidelines and forms available on the state DHS website, if they really have the expectation that people will make good faith reports.
 
Jerurussia said:
Yeah, where would one report abuse? The church bulletin has an abuse hotline but as I think about it, that’s been the whole problem, self-reporting, very parallel to campus police investigating abuse by star athletes and having these cases diverted from the criminal justice system.

(…)
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I wonder how that works as well.
 
Jerurussia said:
ALL adults should have a mandatory reporting duty.
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I assume you mean with an exception for priests hearing confessions.

The track record of false accusations for the crime of the week - for example the McMartin family who operated a preschool in California and were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care in 1983, arrested in 1984 and tried from 1987 to 1990 - by prosecutors whose only goal is to get scalps is so frightening I have grave reservations about mandatory reporting.

As happened with the daycare sex-abuse hysteria in the 1980s, the probable outcome will be false charges, ruined lives, and little positive impact on reducing real abuse, most of which occurs in the family.
 
Rob_Arnzen said:
I assume you mean with an exception for priests hearing confessions.

The track record of false accusations for the crime of the week - for example the McMartin family who operated a preschool in California and were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care in 1983, arrested in 1984 and tried from 1987 to 1990 - by prosecutors whose only goal is to get scalps is so frightening I have grave reservations about mandatory reporting.

As happened with the daycare sex-abuse hysteria in the 1980s, the probable outcome will be false charges, ruined lives, and little positive impact on reducing real abuse, most of which occurs in the family.
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Yes, there have been many cases involving false charges which have been prosecuted with convictions obtained and innocent people sent to prison, due to police and prosecutorial misconduct resulting from misplaced zeal and an effort to obtain convictions at any cost. The book “No Crueler Tyrannies,” by Dorothy Rabinowitz, outlines a number of such cases.

Besides the tragedy of sending people to prison for crimes that never happened, it was also a tragedy in many of these cases that prosecutors, alleged child care experts, and families pounded into the heads of children that terrible crimes were done to them–again, crimes which never occurred, but which because of these cases alleging incidents when they were four and five years old, they grew up thinking they were victims of crimes that they can’t even remember because they never happened.

If you don’t think such a thing is possible, read Rabinowitz’s book.

Edit: PS: Let me add that I heard listening to Dr. Ray Guarendi’s radio show just the other day that even if something is reported and then found to be nothing, in effect, just a report of something that the reporter thought should be reported but that had nothing to do with abuse or neglect, no further action is taken. BUT the mere fact of a report is added to a database which can be held against the person who was cleared of those charged, years in the future.

I have no knowledge of how that works. That’s just what I heard from the mouth of Dr. Ray.
 
Jerurussia said:
ALL adults should have a mandatory reporting duty.
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Disagree.

Not all adults are fully functioning. There are severely low IQ adults out there as well as those who are not fully mentally functioning. I have even met a few homeless people who just aren’t in the same “world” as the rest of us. Not meaning it in a bad way, but I’m pretty sure some people don’t process the world the same way others do.

I’m not going to agree with having people like that risk prosecution for failing to report suspected abuse.

If you want to say most adults, then yes, I will agree with you. But not all.
 
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