PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- When the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State erupted last year, public anger was not only directed toward Jerry Sandusky, whose trial begins Monday, but toward the people around him who didn't report their suspicions to police.
In the months that followed, that anger led many states to re-examine and expand their so-called mandatory reporting laws that require people to report suspected abuse or face civil and criminal penalties. Some state laws apply to professionals like doctors and teachers, while others apply universally to all adults.
Child advocates and
academics are divided, however, about whether increasing the number of
mandatory reporters will make the public more vigilant, or simply
overload an already stretched-thin child welfare system and siphon
limited resources from children who need help most.
Forty-eight
states require at least some professionals to immediately report
knowledge or suspicion of child sexual abuse to some authority,
according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The list of
professionals varies by state and can include teachers, school nurses,
doctors, social workers, police, day care workers, coaches and camp
counselors.
Of those states, 18 have laws that require mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse by all adults.
Of those states, 18 have laws that require mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse by all adults.
Many
states have no specific sanctions for those who fail to comply with
such laws, while others have penalties but they are not enforced unless a
case is particularly heinous or deadly, said Teresa Huizar of the
National Children's Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group.
"On
the surface, (universal mandatory reporting) sounds like an outstanding
idea," she said, "but if you make something everybody's responsibility,
it can end up becoming no one's responsibility."
About
105 bills on the reporting of suspected child abuse and neglect have
been introduced in 2012 legislative sessions in 30 states and the
District of Columbia, many of them directly in response to the Sandusky
case. Legislation has since been enacted in 10 of those states,
according to the latest NCSL tally updated Monday.
Oregon,
West Virginia, Virginia and South Dakota are among states that expanded
their list of professions that are mandatory reporters, while Indiana
and Iowa are requiring schools to develop new policies and reporting
procedures for responding to suspected child abuse.
Indiana,
also in response to the Penn State scandal, passed legislation that
requires the state to work with child sexual abuse experts to develop
education materials, response policies, and reporting procedures on
child sexual abuse. A new Iowa law requires schools to implement policy
for employees in contact with children to report suspected physical or
sexual abuse.
Also as a direct result of the
Sandusky case, Florida has passed what is now the toughest mandatory
reporting legislation in the country: Failure to report suspected child
abuse is a felony, and universities would be fined $1 million and
stripped of state funding for two years if officials don't report child
abuse. The law applies to everyone - from university coaching staff to
elementary school teachers to students.National Children's Alliance
"Florida
now has the toughest laws in the country for protecting children," said
Lauren Book, who created a nonprofit foundation for child abuse victims
and pushed for tougher sex offender laws with her father, lobbyist Ron
Book.
She said the legislation compels
individuals and institutions to speak up, the aim of which is to prevent
what allegedly happened at Penn State from occurring in Florida.
"Mandatory
reporting is a good thing but it's only a Band-Aid for a bigger issue,"
said Jim Hmurovich, president of Chicago-based child advocacy
organization Prevent Child Abuse America. "The right solution is we
should ensure as adults that the abuse and neglect ever happens in the
first place."
Dozens of universities are also
implementing their own reporting requirements. Penn State itself has
instituted a new policy requiring all employees to report suspected
child abuse to state authorities, while the University of Arkansas
requires university employees who suspect child abuse to first call the
state's Child Abuse Hotline and campus police.
Hmurovich and Huizar said they support the idea of mandatory reporting laws, even if imperfect.
"When
we don't prevent abuse and neglect from happening we spend $80 billion a
year trying to remediate it with treatment," Hmurovich said.
Critics
contend that such laws force child welfare workers to investigate an
endless flow of inconsequential complaints, to separate children
needlessly from their parents and wreak havoc on innocent families.
"We
don't have a problem of underreporting child abuse. We dramatically
over-report already," said New York University law professor Martin
Guggenheim, who specializes in legal issues related to child welfare.
"We do have a problem of not doing enough for families who come to child
welfare agencies and need help."
He said
roughly 60 percent of child abuse reports end up being classified as
unfounded cases, with no evidence of mistreatment, and predicted
mandatory reporting laws may send that number even higher.
"Politicians
serve themselves well. ... They recognized that Americans were (angry)"
in the aftermath of the Penn State scandal, Guggenheim said, and began
proposing legislation without clear understanding of child welfare
issues.
He said that reporting laws have
"turned child welfare practice into a quasi-criminal enterprise where
everyone's out there looking for wrongdoers."
"I
know what it can do to caseloads. What's more important, children or
caseloads?" Hmurovich said. "The common reaction is, `It's somebody
else's child, I'm not going to intervene, I'm not going to make the
matters worse,' but if it's the law you've got to do something about
it."
There's not enough evidence to say
whether there has been an overall increase in abuse reports nationwide,
Huizar said. Some individual states did experience temporary increases
in reports after the Penn State allegations surfaced.
New
Jersey's child abuse hotline received as many as 750 calls a day in
November after a grand jury indicted Sandusky, compared with 400 in the
months before the scandal broke. In Pennsylvania, where about 2,300
reports of suspected child abuse are reported every week, there were
more than 4,800 reports of suspected child abuse made statewide for
weeks after Sandusky's indictment.
Massachusetts-based
child advocacy group Stop It Now saw a 130 percent spike in calls
during the first two weeks after the sexual abuse allegations at Penn
State, services coordinator Jenny Coleman said.
Huizar
said standardizing the current patchwork of requirements, agencies and
procedures would make reporting abuse less intimidating and difficult -
but perhaps more importantly, a national awareness campaign would be an
invaluable step to reducing the societal stigma that makes victims and
witnesses remain silent.
"In the same way
we've taught people about the dangers of smoking, about using seat
belts, about drinking and driving, when there's that kind of a
commitment, you really see the dial move in the right direction," she
said. "Without that level of investment, you're not going to see that
kind of result."
Despite the uncertainty about
whether legislation brings about better outcomes, Huizar said the
Sandusky case has shown that there have been encouraging changes when it
comes to the way Americans view child abuse.
"The
instantaneous and universal outrage ... really is different than what
you would have had a decade ago," Huizar said. "People were instantly
saying, why didn't the adults do more? That assumption is an enormously
positive change in our societal understanding of who has responsibility
for reporting abuse. So we're learning."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PENN_STATE_ABUSE_AFTERMATH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
No comments:
Post a Comment