{"id":9557,"date":"2018-02-21T14:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9557"},"modified":"2018-02-21T11:51:23","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T16:51:23","slug":"who-really-deserves-criminal-charges-for-ignoring-known-child-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9557","title":{"rendered":"Who Really Deserves Criminal Charges for Ignoring Known Child Abuse?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Rosenberg, Executive Director, and Joyce Lombardi, Director of Government Relations, Baltimore Child Abuse Center.<\/em><\/p>\n

For the past several years, the Baltimore Child Abuse Center has been advocating for a new law that will allow misdemeanor charges against front-line professionals who deliberately chose not to report child abuse.<\/p>\n

Sounds like an easy sell, but it isn\u2019t. Not in Maryland. Or, at least not in Maryland\u2019s House Judiciary Committee. The bill (SB132 this year) has already unanimously sailed through the Senate two years in a row thanks to Senator Susan Lee and Senator Robert Zirkin. But, despite the efforts of Delegate Carlo Sanchez, State\u2019s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks and several Democrats and Republicans, HB500 is still stalled in the House Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 Partially it\u2019s because leadership there questions the need for yet another law, and partially because many people rightfully struggle with the idea of putting \u201cjail\u201d and \u201cteacher\u201d or \u201cnurse\u201d in the same sentence.<\/p>\n

But many of the dozens and dozens of people we\u2019ve been talking with \u2013 which includes social workers, pediatricians and elected officials in Annapolis \u2013 instantly picture who this law is talking about: not your average teacher or nurse, but instead the people who knew but chose to protect themselves or their institutions. \u201cRight!\u201d they say, \u201clike at USA Gymnastics or Penn State.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, bingo. The enablers.<\/p>\n

Former Penn State administrators Tim Curley, left, and Gary Schultz (Centre County Correctional Facility, AP)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, others struggle.\u00a0 Instead of seeing the egregious enablers, they see their friends, their kid\u2019s soccer coach, their homeroom teacher, their family doctor.\u00a0 They see themselves.\u00a0 They can picture the predators, sure, the eerily bland face of Larry Nasser or maybe even the bulldog mug of Harvey Weinstein. But they can\u2019t see the quiet cadre of adults standing just behind the predators, the ones who are always there, desperately denying the crimes of the colleague or friend or beloved in their midst. They might see the good doctor who isn\u2019t sure the head trauma was abuse and doesn\u2019t report, or they might see a teacher who didn\u2019t report that a girl felt uncomfortable on her colleague\u2019s lap. They see nuance. They see negligence at best.<\/p>\n

Professionals in Maryland all have a duty to report SUSPECTED abuse, but this bill, HB 500, isn\u2019t criminalizing negligence.\u00a0 Instead, it targets those rare but persistent cases when a mandatory reporter \u201cKNOWS\u201d about the abuse and STILL doesn\u2019t act.\u00a0 Think Morgan State University, USA Gymnastics, and think Penn State. Think about the horror of seeing a naked boy in a shower sexually assaulted by a grown man. Think about several girls coming forward to say their doctor\u2019s hands inside them \u201cdidn\u2019t feel right,\u201d \u201cfelt wrong,\u201d or \u201che was aroused.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a a running list of professionals in Maryland who chose not to report, for example: cigarette burns on a girl\u2019s arm;\u00a0 a 5-year old boy disclosing that \u201cdaddy kisses my wee wee and makes it big; \u201da distressed tween disclosing that her grandfather takes her to the basement and puts his hand under her dress;\u00a0 lacerations and scars on an 8-year old; a 3-year old with visible bruises who said he gets hit with a belt, numerous 5th<\/sup> graders disclosing that a volunteer school aide was making boys do \u201cnasty stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, let\u2019s clarify what has been proposed:\u00a0 a misdemeanor with a max of 6 months in jail or a $1,000 fine.\u00a0 That\u2019s the same penalty you get in Maryland if you board someone\u2019s boat for a second time without permission or if you install an air conditioner without a license ((Crim. Law 6-403; Bus. Reg. 9A-501).<\/p>\n

Secondly, every other state in the country has a penalty of some sort and most make it a misdemeanor for deliberately failing to report SUSPECTED abuse \u2013 except Wyoming and Maryland. In Maryland, after years and years of wrangling and compromise with various legislators and professional associations for doctors, nurses, therapists, etc., this law would only target the worst of the worst: those who ignored KNOWN abuse.\u00a0 The proposed law (HB500) has an \u201cactual knowledge\u201d standard, an extremely high bar to reach, and one that reaches felony status elsewhere. \u00a0The bar is so high that, for the first time, it has gained support from some professional associations and censure from some activists.<\/p>\n

Leadership in the House Judiciary Committee questions why we need a new law when there are two on the books that get little use: a fairly new one, sponsored by Delegate Kathleen Dumais in 2015, which provides notice to a licensing board or employer for a failure to report, and an older one that criminalizes anyone who obstructs a report.\u00a0 Our answer is simply that this law, HB500, fills in the gap between the two.\u00a0 Saying more than that sounds like an attack on the current laws and their sponsors.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t meant to be an attack.\u00a0 It\u2019s a plea for another way. It\u2019s an \u201cAnd,\u201d not an \u201cOr.\u201d<\/p>\n

We all agree that child abuse needs to be reported, we just respectfully disagree whether Maryland needs a new law to help make that happen.\u00a0 After years of research and experience in the field, we believe that it does and HB500 is that law.<\/p>\n

If you agree that Maryland\u2019s children deserve better protections too, call the Maryland House Judiciary Committee at 301-858-3488 or 410-841-3488 to share your support for HB500.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Rosenberg, Executive Director, and Joyce Lombardi, Director of Government Relations, Baltimore Child Abuse Center. For the past several years, the Baltimore Child Abuse Center has been advocating for a new law that will allow misdemeanor charges against front-line professionals who deliberately chose not to report child abuse. Sounds like an easy sell, but … Continue reading Who Really Deserves Criminal Charges for Ignoring Known Child Abuse?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2141],"class_list":["post-9557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-child-abuse"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2u9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9557"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9562,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9557\/revisions\/9562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}