The Penn State institutional failure to report and address child sexual abuse on its campus is heartbreaking for both the victims and their families, as well as for those many individuals who have advocated for decades for improved systems to protect children from intentional injuries inflicted by adults. Closer to home, in Georgia in recent weeks, a four-year old Downs Syndrome child was stabbed to death by her psychotic mother, and afterword neighbors told news reporters that there was something “not right” about the mother’s behavior.
Are the child abuse reporting statutes too weak in either Pennsylvania or Georgia? If every person were required to report child abuse, instead of only certain professionals “mandated’ to reporter, would it make a difference for so many children who suffer daily from abuse?
Child abuse reporting statutes have been enacted in all 50 states over the last 50 years, following the medical recognition of the “battered child syndrome” in 1963. Mandated reporters in all states include professionals who presumably have the expertise to recognize abuse in children. This list of professionals includes teachers, doctors, and nurses. From currently collected data, 29 percent of investigated child abuse reports come from non-mandated reporters; 57 percent of the mandated reports were substantiated, and 45 percent were substantiated after investigation from non-mandated reporters. Is this difference in rate of substantiation great enough to prove that the assumed expertise of mandated reporters is better than that of the untrained neighbor who sees and hears a daily family struggle? If many substantiated reported cases are now made from non-mandated reporters can we assume that more reports of real child abuse would be made if everyone were required to report? Would children be safer?
I have introduced House Bill 948 this week in the General Assembly to fill what I believe are current gaps in Georgia’s child abuse reporting statute. This proposed legislation adds “Clergy” as a mandated child abuse reporter and provides a narrow exception for clergy-parishioner confidences. Twenty-six other states include clergy as mandated reporters. Additionally, “Coach” is added as a mandated reporter under the definition of child service organization personnel who are required to report abuse. Some argue that coaches are already mandated reporters under “school administrator” or “child serving organization,” but the clarifying language in HB 948 makes in indisputable that Georgia’s statute includes non-school based coaches and colleges where thousands of children participate in summer and special athletic programs.
Eighteen states do require everyone to report child abuse, and not just mandated professionals, and I am open to a discussion about this possible addition to the child abuse reporting statute. More importantly, however, and separate from government and politics, we should re-examine our own personal and moral duties to protect the children in our families, schools, little league ball clubs, and neighborhoods from abuse. Let us continue the debate of child abuse prevention regardless of what improvements the Georgia General Assembly may make to our child abuse reporting statutes.
Representative Mary Margaret Oliver represents the citizens of District 83, which includes portions of DeKalb County. She was elected into the House of Representatives in 2002, plus five years previous service. She currently serves on the Appropriations, Governmental Affairs, Judiciary, and Science and Technology committees.
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