WEST WHITELAND – Justice4PAKids will host a seminar on Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church to help residents learned how to better protect their children from abuse.
The “Keep Your Kids Safe” lecture will feature guest speaker Elizabeth Pitts, formerly from the Chester County DA’s office, discussing ways to protect children from sexual abuse. The event will take place at St. Paul’s Parish Hall at 1105 Lincoln Highway in Exton on Sunday starting at 12:30 p.m. and will last around an hour.
Pitts is a former Deputy District Attorney for the county and currently is the associate director of investigations for Swarthmore College. According to the organization, Pitts supervised the Chester County District Attorney’s Office Child Abuse Unit for more than a decade. She has also been a guest lecturer on child abuse and Megan’s Law at local universities.
According to Justice4PAKids, around 90 percent of all sexually abused children are abused by someone they know. The organization said the purpose of the seminar on Sunday is to make families aware that “stranger danger awareness is not enough.”
Maureen Martinez, president of the organization, said the lecture is part of a series of seminars the group hopes to hold once a month. She said that the monthly seminar series will rotate to different groups and organizations who are interested in learning more about preventing child sex abuse. She also advised attendees to not bring children to the seminar.
Justice4PAKids, a local group that helps child sex abuse victims, has three main focus areas: improving statute of limitations laws, education through seminars and literature, and comforting victims by putting them in touch with professional organizations.
Those interested in attending the lecture on Sunday should RSVP to info@justice4pakids.com by Friday.
Follow Daily Local News Staff Writer on Twitter at @KendalGapinski.
Kendal Gapinski is the Daily Local News reporter covering events in the Whiteland and Uwchlan areas. She is a 2013 graduate from American University. Reach the author at kgapinski@dailylocal.com .
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ST. FRANCIS — INFURIATED MEMBERS OF A GROUP REPRESENTING CLERGY AND SURVIVORS OF CLERGY ABUSE MET OUTSIDE THE ARCHDIOCESE OF MILWAUKEE’S HEADQUARTERS WEDNESDAY, CALLING THE CHURCH’S BANKRUPTCY REORGANIZATION PLAN AN AFFRONT TO POPE FRANCIS’ S MESSAGE OF HEALING AND RENEWAL.
“This is not the way a new church is going to be born,” said Peter Isely, a member of the Survivors and Clergy Leadership Alliance. “This is the old church.”
Archbishop Jerome Listecki announced on a radio talk show Wednesday morning that the archdiocese, as part of bankruptcy reorganization plan, would set aside $4 million to compensate sex abuse victims.
“It’s not just what is in the plan, but how it was communicated,” Isely said. “He doesn’t have the common decency, much less the Christian charity, to look survivors and victims’ family members in the face and explain to them why this amount is so low. We find out about it because it’s been on a radio talk show.”
Isely is one of the founders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. He said the reorganization plan hurts all Catholics, not just victims and their families.
“It’s not helping victim survivors. That’s obvious. But it is not helping Catholics either. We don’t believe any Catholic is going to be very satisfied with this. This is just going to continue the shame.”
Father James Connell said: “It is a sad day. It is an embarrassing day.” Connell is a retired Catholic priest who has been outspoken in his criticism of how the church has handled the sex abuse crisis.
“Justice is a matter of equity between the parties and the common good of society,” Connell said. “I certainly hope the bankruptcy court explains how this stands as justice.”
Monica Barrett, who was raped by a priest when she was a eight, appeared to be on the verge of tears as she spoke.
“This is a very sad day for survivors,” she said. “It’s just insulting. It is much like being raped all over again.”
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A statute of limitations exists in most states in both civil and criminal cases to bring forth legal action on child sexual abuse. Often victims do not disclose or feel ready to come forward to address their abuse within the legal system for a long period of time after the abuse has occurred. In a recent case in New Jersey, several adults alleged that a well-known sports reporter had sexually abused them decades ago when they were children. The statute of limitations in force at the time prevents this alleged perpetrator from being prosecuted. Spurred by the Penn State case, recent efforts have revisited the statute of limitations to amend the laws and allow victims and the court system a longer period of time to bring action.
March/April 2012 Issue
Revisiting Child Abuse Reporting Laws By Debra Schilling Wolfe, MEd Social Work Today Vol. 12 No. 2 P. 14
The Penn State child sexual abuse allegations incited public outrage and renewed interest among legislators in reforming reporting laws. But experts caution against hasty changes if child welfare systems are unprepared to handle the outcomes.
Allegations that a former Penn State football coach sexually abused several boys have drawn national attention to child abuse and neglect reporting. Outraged citizens wondered how these incidents could have gone on for so long without anyone reporting it to the authorities, questioning whether the system designed to receive and investigate reports is truly responsive to abuse victims’ needs.
The Penn State tragedy has raised more questions than answers, both on state and national levels. One outcome has undoubtedly been that a much-needed light has been shined on child abuse reporting. There is an opportunity to honor those victims who had the courage to step forward and tell their stories by working to improve the systems that were supposed to protect them.
Definition of Child Abuse Reporting
There were an estimated 3.3 million reports of suspected child abuse and neglect involving 5.9 million children across the United States in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Child abuse reporting laws provide the means for government agencies to investigate allegations of child maltreatment. Each state has its own public child welfare system designed to investigate reports of child maltreatment and intervene on behalf of victims if the allegations are substantiated. Some child protective service systems are statewide, while others are county based. Each state determines what cases will be investigated and how authorities will respond based on the state’s statutes and regulations.
Child abuse allegations are reported to a designated hotline or child protective services agency. Phones are answered by trained staff who receive calls, ask questions to elicit needed information, and make determinations of what happens next. They decide whether there is sufficient information to proceed, whether a case falls within their jurisdiction, and whether the allegations meet the established standard to be screened in for investigation by the child protection agency. For example, if the reporter is unable to provide sufficient information as to the identity of the alleged victim or family, if the victim is over the age of majority, or if the allegations do not meet the state’s statutory definition of child abuse or neglect, the report cannot be referred for investigation. Data from the 2010 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) show that 60.7% of child abuse and neglect reports were screened in for investigation while 39.3% were screened out.
Evolution of Reporting and Investigation
Although child protection agencies began investigating child abuse in the late 19th century and the federal Children’s Bureau was established in 1912, child abuse reporting laws did not exist until the mid-1960s when C. Henry Kempe’s landmark work on battered child syndrome drew attention to the need for a systemic response. Today, every state has enacted a child abuse reporting statute that defines, at a minimum, what constitutes child abuse in that particular state and who is mandated to report the abuse. No two states have the exact same law, nor is there an overarching federal child abuse reporting statute.
Historically, child abuse reporting laws were designed to identify suspected child abuse and neglect by an adult in a caretaking role. Child maltreatment by other adults fell under the purview of the criminal justice system. Today, some states include all perpetrators in their child protection system. Child abuse by a parent or other adult in a caretaking role may be reported to and investigated by both the child welfare and criminal justice systems if the reported abuse rises to the level of criminal activity. Each state determines its own protocols vis-à-vis a dual system response.
Commonalities Among Reporting Laws
Although reporting laws differ from state to state, they do share common core components. For instance, they all specify what constitutes child abuse and neglect in that particular state. Statutes include their specific definition of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, and neglect; the failure to meet the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter; and medical care and sometimes education of children. These definitions vary among states, so what constitutes a reportable condition in one jurisdiction may not be considered reportable in another.
The Children’s Bureau reports in their 2010 data that 78.3% of victims were reported for neglect, 17.6% for physical abuse, 9.2% for sexual abuse, 8.1% for psychological maltreatment, 2.4% for medical neglect, and 10.3% for other types of reportable conditions; some children were reported for multiple types of child maltreatment.
Those responsible for the alleged abuse are addressed as well. Each state defines who may be considered a perpetrator. In most instances, states limit the class of perpetrator to people in a parental or caretaking role, but others allow for anyone to be a perpetrator. In the former, child abuse inflicted by someone who is not responsible for the care of a child does not fall under the jurisdiction of child abuse reporting laws.
Each state’s child abuse reporting law enumerates classes of individuals who are mandated by law to report suspected abuse. Mandated reporters typically include doctors, nurses, teachers, counselors, therapists, law enforcement, and day care staff—almost any classification of professional who would come in contact with a child in the course of their work. Some states mandate athletic coaches to report suspected abuse, while others mandate parents to do so. There are 18 states that currently mandate all adults report suspected child abuse and neglect.
The Children’s Bureau reported in “Child Maltreatment 2010” that 58.6% of reports were made by professionals and 27.7% by nonprofessionals, and the reporter’s classification was either unknown or considered “other” (such as clergy members, sports coaches, and camp counselors) in 13.7% of the reports.
In every state, anyone who is not mandated by law to report child abuse still has the option to report it voluntarily. Additionally, each state permits voluntary reports to be made anonymously. This protection is often helpful when the reporter is fearful of repercussions or would otherwise not report.
Normal doctor-patient and therapist-patient confidentiality is waived in most states if child abuse is suspected; protection of children supersedes the privacy of these relationships. Reports are required to be made in good faith, and those who do report in good faith are immune from liability. Statutes also enumerate punishment for failure to report, currently a minor offense across the country.
Some states address a systemic responsibility for reporting or communicating alleged child abuse. Pennsylvania, for example, amended its law to require internal institutional reporting so that the person with direct knowledge is required to report “up” within his or her organization rather than to the child welfare system. It is left to the organization administrator to file the report.
A few states clarify what cases fall under their geographic jurisdiction. For example, a state may specify that its authorities are responsible for investigating reports of abuse in which the child resides within its jurisdiction even if the abuse did not occur within its borders. More often than not, however, jurisdiction is left up to the interpretation and the discretion of those receiving the reports. This results in cases falling through the cracks and remaining uninvestigated.
Reporting laws often delineate a process and protocol for accepting reports and conducting investigations. For example, they can specify time frames to complete investigations. The state statutes may also address how information is maintained on substantiated cases, such as a central registry containing the identities of perpetrators.
Penn State-Inspired Changes
The impact of the Penn State case has been felt locally and nationally. Politicians, lawmakers, professionals, and advocates have called for changes to the current laws and regulations. Some are thoughtful and grounded in good practice, while others are knee-jerk responses seeking a quick fix to a very complex issue.
In Pennsylvania and around the country, efforts to amend current statutes seek to prevent a recurrence of all that went wrong in State College. State legislators have proposed changes in their reporting laws in response to public outcry to do something. Some initiatives are calling for more serious penalties for failing to report child abuse. One federal bill would impose sanctions on those who witness child sexual abuse for failing to report it. Although such ideas appear to be a solution and may have applied in the Penn State case, very few cases of child sexual abuse actually have witnesses because perpetrators usually take great care to ensure there are none.
Other initiatives are focused on expanding who is mandated to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Some legislation looks to add new categories of mandated reporters such as athletic coaches and higher education staff, while other efforts attempt to require all adults to report child abuse.
Federal legislation was initiated in November 2011 to amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) to require that all states amend their laws within two years to mandate all adults report suspected child abuse and provide training on child abuse reporting, tied to state eligibility to continue to receive federal CAPTA funding. Introduced by Sen. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania and Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, the Speak up to Protect Every Abused Kid Act is designed to increase trained, responsible reporting of child abuse across the country.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families held a public hearing in December 2011. Experts recommended studying the outcomes of increasing the class of mandated reporters to all adults in the 18 states that currently do so prior to moving forward and legislating this act nationally.
A statute of limitations exists in most states in both civil and criminal cases to bring forth legal action on child sexual abuse. Often victims do not disclose or feel ready to come forward to address their abuse within the legal system for a long period of time after the abuse has occurred. In a recent case in New Jersey, several adults alleged that a well-known sports reporter had sexually abused them decades ago when they were children. The statute of limitations in force at the time prevents this alleged perpetrator from being prosecuted. Spurred by the Penn State case, recent efforts have revisited the statute of limitations to amend the laws and allow victims and the court system a longer period of time to bring action.
New efforts are focused on increasing public awareness of child abuse and the need to report. Efforts are being made to expand and improve training for both mandated reporters and the general public on child abuse, the reporting system, and individual responsibility. Child abuse prevention programs are also receiving greater attention, a much-needed boost at a time when prevention programs are faced with funding cuts.
Pennsylvania recently passed legislation to form a Task Force on Child Protection, a year-long commission comprised of experts charged with improving child abuse reporting, training, policies, procedures, and laws. The commission’s report, due in November 2012, will address needed systemic changes as a package.
Factors That Warrant Consideration
It is important not to make change just for change’s sake. Any amendments or modifications should be initiated in a thoughtful manner and be based on research, evidence, and proven practice. While many seek to “do good,” there may be unintended consequences of their actions that can actually cause harm.
One critical factor to consider is the implication of mandating all adults to report child abuse. According to Eckerode et. al. (1988), reports by professionals have substantiation rates 23% higher for reports of physical abuse, 11% higher for reports of sexual abuse, and 26% higher for reports of neglect compared with nonprofessionals. The 2008 NCANDS report found that professional reports have overall substantiation rates nearly double that of nonprofessionals; child abuse and neglect reports made by professionals are substantiated 27.4% of the time, while only 14.4% of nonprofessional reports are substantiated.
From these national data, one can extrapolate that increasing the pool of nonprofessional reports will likely increase the proportion of those that cannot be substantiated. If the system is inundated with reports of this nature, time and attention may be taken away from the more serious cases.
Expanding reporting without simultaneously ensuring the ability to investigate them can result in tragedies. Legislative initiatives have focused on increasing the reporting of child abuse but have not addressed the systemic capacity to investigate these additional cases nor to provide needed services to protect children from further harm should the reports be substantiated. Currently, child welfare agencies are being pushed to their limits with the perfect storm: Families are experiencing greater stress with fewer supports due to the country’s economic downturn, while resources that were historically available to them to provide relief are facing their own challenges with funding cutbacks. Child protection agencies, also facing funding cutbacks, cannot turn families away or place them on waiting lists, which are full. Higher agency caseloads may also prevent completing investigations within legally required time frames. States must find a way to underwrite the capacity of child welfare systems to investigate and serve any increase in reports that result from these efforts.
Before opening the doors to new classes of mandated reporters, the reasons mandated reporters currently fail to report need to be identified and addressed. A study conducted by Robert Sege, MD, PhD, of Boston Medical Center (2011) compared how physicians responded in 92 cases of child injury with evaluations by child abuse experts. They found that a report of child abuse was warranted in 20% of the cases that doctors chose not to report. In six of these cases, the physicians themselves had identified a high likelihood of abuse. One reason the doctors declined to report was their lack of faith in the child protection system. Other reasons that have been cited for professionals failing to report suspected child abuse include worrying about relationships with families, concern about legal action, and the need to be more confident in their suspicion of child abuse.
Families and cases often cross state lines. There is currently no mechanism, law, or regulation to ensure that a report of child abuse will be accepted for investigation when the incident, the victim, and the perpetrator are not all located within the same state. Such cases often fall through the cracks and go uninvestigated. This is an unintended consequence of a state-administered child welfare system and is in need of a remedy.
The construct of systemic reporting, when the organization is legally mandated to report suspected abuse in addition to or in lieu of individuals, is complex and replete with problems. The Penn State case illustrates how reporting up in lieu of reporting out fails victims. If the individual with direct knowledge of the alleged abuse is not the one to report to authorities, the incident itself may be distorted, as in the game of telephone, or not reported at all. The alleged rape of a young boy as reportedly witnessed became horseplay in the locker room as described by an administrator. However, had horseplay been reported to the child welfare system, it would not have been investigated because it would have failed to meet the state’s definition of child abuse.
Moving Forward
The current climate, one of outrage at the increasing number of cases in which trusted and respected adults reportedly abused an increasing number of children, provides an opportunity to do better. This window has been opened, and the response needs to be thoughtful, deliberate, and evidence based. It is not enough or even right to cave in to public pressure and enact legislation that will make citizens feel like they have fixed the problem when they may be compounding it. There is a great body of knowledge in the child welfare field, and it can and should be used to inform systemic change.
— Debra Schilling Wolfe, MEd, is executive director of The Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research at the University of Pennsylvania.
References
Eckenrode, J., Powers, J., Doris, J., Munsch, J., Bolger, N. (1988). Substantiation of child abuse and neglect reports. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56(1), 9-16.
Sege, R., Flaherty, E., Jones, R., et. al. (2011). To report or not to report: examination of the initial primary care management of suspicious childhood injuries. Academic Pediatrics, 11(6), 460-466.
Three years after filing for bankruptcy, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which insured itself for over $1.3 billion dollars in the 1990’s, filed a reorganization plan today that sets aside a mere $4 million dollars to compensate 575 victim/survivors who were sexually assaulted by archdiocesan priests, religious and employees.
This means that each survivor in the Milwaukee Archdiocese would receive less than $7,000. By contrast, survivors in all other church bankruptcies throughout the U.S. have received an average compensation between $274,000 to as much as $2.1 million, with a national average of $400,000 per survivor.
When Archbishop Jerome Listecki announced the bankruptcy three years ago he said that the purpose of reorganization was to bring “healing” to survivors and “make them whole.” Clearly, this is not the case.
Instead of taking the path to healing as he promised, Listecki instead has spent over $11.5 million dollars on bankruptcy lawyers and court costs fighting victims, nearly three times the total amount he now proposes to compensate survivors with.
Even more outrageous, the archdiocese “compensated” known child abuser priests with a $20,000 “signing bonus” to secretly leave the priesthood. That’s on top of pension, health insurance, and in some cases continuing salaries and vocational “retraining” into new occupations working with children. That amount offered to the criminal clergy is nearly three times what Listecki believes will “heal” their victims.
But not to worry. Listecki also proposes a “lifetime therapy fund”. Of course, Listecki is going to control the therapy monies and the alleged “lifetime” of the total fund for all victims runs out at $500,000 dollars. In other words, under Listecki’s “healing” proposal each survivor would receive less than $900 for their “lifetime” of therapy.
Money communicates value. It is pretty clear that Listecki and the Milwaukee archdiocese does not value healing victims very much.
So little respect Listecki has for healing victims, he announced the filing of the plan today on a radio talk show. He did not notify the court. He did not notify victim attorneys. It goes without saying he did not notify victims and their families.
Does that sound like healing?
SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 23 years and have more than 10,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Visit us atSNAPwisconsin.com and SNAPnetwork.org.
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On January 30, a federal court judge threw out the $680 million lawsuit brought against Yeshiva University by 34 former students of its high school for boys who claimed they were sexually abused in the 1970s and ’80s.
The suit also pinpointed Y.U. officials, trustees, board members and faculty as responsible for a “massive cover-up” of the abuse. As expected, the judge pointed out in his 52-page opinion that the statute of limitations had expired decades ago.
I was one of those abused in the early ’70s, though I chose not to be part of the lawsuit. But now that “we are moving forward,” as a Y.U. press release declared, I suggest it is important that the leadership of the self-proclaimed “North America’s Torah-informed institution” (“Torah informed,” for those who may not know, is Jewish insider language for “most authentically religious and ethical”) understand, as should leadership of many religious institutions these days guilty of such crimes, that from God’s perspective there is no statute of limitations.
Decades-long tolerance of abuse of teenage boys is never merely a legal issue. In the court of the ethical, psychological, and spiritual, Y.U., like myriad religious institutions plagued by this behavior, is more than guilty. Y.U has exhibited a real lack of transparency in this case, neither releasing the full text of an independent investigation carried out last year nor making public the names of the board committee members specially appointed to deal with this issue.
Actions like these make the university perpetrators of exactly what allows sexual abuse to continue for years — secrecy. It is a privileging and protecting of institutional reputation over people victimized by Y.U.’s “religious” leadership. (It should be clear that there was no legal reason to keep the full report secret, as it had no bearing on whether or not the statute of limitations had expired. Also, if the ruling had been that the statute of limitations had not expired, Y.U. would have had to disclose the report in discovery anyway.)
Y.U. could have been a model for how traditional religious institutions deal with young people who have been sexually molested by self-styled holy men while other selfstyled holy men shielded the abusers from judicial consequences. All religious institutions, especially those with traditional systems of hierarchy and strong male authority, need to go beyond the letter of the law and engage in repentance and in serious ethical and spiritual reflection befitting theological schools.
It is time for religious institutions to seriously question the relationship between sexual abuse of teenage boys and range of other factors — a patriarchal worldview, sexual repression, the belief leadership holds that “God is with me,” the belief that forgiveness is but a confession or a prayer away, access to young peoplewho accept authority, the dynamics of faith, which, to a child, perhaps makes sexual requests no more bizarre than any number of other extreme rituals, the unquestioning trust of people in its clergy, religious people’s aversion to learning the distasteful truth about a religious leader, the reluctance to go to the police and start a scandal, since religious institutions also do so much good.
By not examining these various dynamics and making these nasty crimes merely American legal issues and carefully crafted public relations challenges, religious institutions like Y.U. show that their wisdom and ways (their Torah) can’t actually function in the contemporary world. Rather than being sacred, life-affirming, wisdom-based institutions, they are models of shame and defamation of the spiritual and ethical — of the very God they imagine knowing. They simply ensure that Americans will increasingly disconnect from and be suspicious of organized religion.
But then, for decades now we have known that those who claim with most certainty and fierceness to know God’s will and who see themselves most clearly as God’s chosen actually most embarrass the God they claim to know and are so much less worthy than those over whom they imagine to be so superior.
Irwin Kula is a rabbi and the president of CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.
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Preventing child abuse is subject of talk (Daily Local News)
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformProfessor Marci A. Hamilton: “SE PA child prevention talk. Great group!”
Preventing child abuse is subject of talk
By Kendal Gapinski, Daily Local News
POSTED: |
http://www.dailylocal.com/
WEST WHITELAND – Justice4PAKids will host a seminar on Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church to help residents learned how to better protect their children from abuse.
The “Keep Your Kids Safe” lecture will feature guest speaker Elizabeth Pitts, formerly from the Chester County DA’s office, discussing ways to protect children from sexual abuse. The event will take place at St. Paul’s Parish Hall at 1105 Lincoln Highway in Exton on Sunday starting at 12:30 p.m. and will last around an hour.
Pitts is a former Deputy District Attorney for the county and currently is the associate director of investigations for Swarthmore College. According to the organization, Pitts supervised the Chester County District Attorney’s Office Child Abuse Unit for more than a decade. She has also been a guest lecturer on child abuse and Megan’s Law at local universities.
According to Justice4PAKids, around 90 percent of all sexually abused children are abused by someone they know. The organization said the purpose of the seminar on Sunday is to make families aware that “stranger danger awareness is not enough.”
Maureen Martinez, president of the organization, said the lecture is part of a series of seminars the group hopes to hold once a month. She said that the monthly seminar series will rotate to different groups and organizations who are interested in learning more about preventing child sex abuse. She also advised attendees to not bring children to the seminar.
Justice4PAKids, a local group that helps child sex abuse victims, has three main focus areas: improving statute of limitations laws, education through seminars and literature, and comforting victims by putting them in touch with professional organizations.
Those interested in attending the lecture on Sunday should RSVP to info@justice4pakids.com by Friday.
Follow Daily Local News Staff Writer on Twitter at @KendalGapinski.
http://www.dailylocal.com/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kendal Gapinski is the Daily Local News reporter covering events in the Whiteland and Uwchlan areas. She is a 2013 graduate from American University. Reach the author at kgapinski@dailylocal.com .
Abuse survivors group insulted by Archdiocesan bankruptcy plan
/in Wisconsin /by SOL ReformAbuse survivors group insulted by Archdiocesan bankruptcy plan
“This is not the way a new church is going to be born,” said Peter Isely, a member of the Survivors and Clergy Leadership Alliance. “This is the old church.”
Archbishop Jerome Listecki announced on a radio talk show Wednesday morning that the archdiocese, as part of bankruptcy reorganization plan, would set aside $4 million to compensate sex abuse victims.
“It’s not just what is in the plan, but how it was communicated,” Isely said. “He doesn’t have the common decency, much less the Christian charity, to look survivors and victims’ family members in the face and explain to them why this amount is so low. We find out about it because it’s been on a radio talk show.”
Isely is one of the founders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. He said the reorganization plan hurts all Catholics, not just victims and their families.
“It’s not helping victim survivors. That’s obvious. But it is not helping Catholics either. We don’t believe any Catholic is going to be very satisfied with this. This is just going to continue the shame.”
Father James Connell said: “It is a sad day. It is an embarrassing day.” Connell is a retired Catholic priest who has been outspoken in his criticism of how the church has handled the sex abuse crisis.
“Justice is a matter of equity between the parties and the common good of society,” Connell said. “I certainly hope the bankruptcy court explains how this stands as justice.”
Monica Barrett, who was raped by a priest when she was a eight, appeared to be on the verge of tears as she spoke.
“This is a very sad day for survivors,” she said. “It’s just insulting. It is much like being raped all over again.”
Read more from Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.
Follow us: @JournalSentinel on Twitter
Jay Ram’s motion to dismiss and supporting declaration
/in Hawaii /by SOL ReformView PDF: Jay Ram’s motion to dismiss and supporting declaration
Debra Schilling Wolfe MEd., Revisiting Child Abuse Reporting Laws (2012)
/in Pennsylvania, Resources /by SOL ReformA statute of limitations exists in most states in both civil and criminal cases to bring forth legal action on child sexual abuse. Often victims do not disclose or feel ready to come forward to address their abuse within the legal system for a long period of time after the abuse has occurred. In a recent case in New Jersey, several adults alleged that a well-known sports reporter had sexually abused them decades ago when they were children. The statute of limitations in force at the time prevents this alleged perpetrator from being prosecuted. Spurred by the Penn State case, recent efforts have revisited the statute of limitations to amend the laws and allow victims and the court system a longer period of time to bring action.
March/April 2012 Issue
Revisiting Child Abuse Reporting Laws
By Debra Schilling Wolfe, MEd
Social Work Today
Vol. 12 No. 2 P. 14
The Penn State child sexual abuse allegations incited public outrage and renewed interest among legislators in reforming reporting laws. But experts caution against hasty changes if child welfare systems are unprepared to handle the outcomes.
Allegations that a former Penn State football coach sexually abused several boys have drawn national attention to child abuse and neglect reporting. Outraged citizens wondered how these incidents could have gone on for so long without anyone reporting it to the authorities, questioning whether the system designed to receive and investigate reports is truly responsive to abuse victims’ needs.
The Penn State tragedy has raised more questions than answers, both on state and national levels. One outcome has undoubtedly been that a much-needed light has been shined on child abuse reporting. There is an opportunity to honor those victims who had the courage to step forward and tell their stories by working to improve the systems that were supposed to protect them.
Definition of Child Abuse Reporting
There were an estimated 3.3 million reports of suspected child abuse and neglect involving 5.9 million children across the United States in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Child abuse reporting laws provide the means for government agencies to investigate allegations of child maltreatment. Each state has its own public child welfare system designed to investigate reports of child maltreatment and intervene on behalf of victims if the allegations are substantiated. Some child protective service systems are statewide, while others are county based. Each state determines what cases will be investigated and how authorities will respond based on the state’s statutes and regulations.
Child abuse allegations are reported to a designated hotline or child protective services agency. Phones are answered by trained staff who receive calls, ask questions to elicit needed information, and make determinations of what happens next. They decide whether there is sufficient information to proceed, whether a case falls within their jurisdiction, and whether the allegations meet the established standard to be screened in for investigation by the child protection agency. For example, if the reporter is unable to provide sufficient information as to the identity of the alleged victim or family, if the victim is over the age of majority, or if the allegations do not meet the state’s statutory definition of child abuse or neglect, the report cannot be referred for investigation. Data from the 2010 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) show that 60.7% of child abuse and neglect reports were screened in for investigation while 39.3% were screened out.
Evolution of Reporting and Investigation
Although child protection agencies began investigating child abuse in the late 19th century and the federal Children’s Bureau was established in 1912, child abuse reporting laws did not exist until the mid-1960s when C. Henry Kempe’s landmark work on battered child syndrome drew attention to the need for a systemic response. Today, every state has enacted a child abuse reporting statute that defines, at a minimum, what constitutes child abuse in that particular state and who is mandated to report the abuse. No two states have the exact same law, nor is there an overarching federal child abuse reporting statute.
Historically, child abuse reporting laws were designed to identify suspected child abuse and neglect by an adult in a caretaking role. Child maltreatment by other adults fell under the purview of the criminal justice system. Today, some states include all perpetrators in their child protection system. Child abuse by a parent or other adult in a caretaking role may be reported to and investigated by both the child welfare and criminal justice systems if the reported abuse rises to the level of criminal activity. Each state determines its own protocols vis-à-vis a dual system response.
Commonalities Among Reporting Laws
Although reporting laws differ from state to state, they do share common core components. For instance, they all specify what constitutes child abuse and neglect in that particular state. Statutes include their specific definition of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, and neglect; the failure to meet the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter; and medical care and sometimes education of children. These definitions vary among states, so what constitutes a reportable condition in one jurisdiction may not be considered reportable in another.
The Children’s Bureau reports in their 2010 data that 78.3% of victims were reported for neglect, 17.6% for physical abuse, 9.2% for sexual abuse, 8.1% for psychological maltreatment, 2.4% for medical neglect, and 10.3% for other types of reportable conditions; some children were reported for multiple types of child maltreatment.
Those responsible for the alleged abuse are addressed as well. Each state defines who may be considered a perpetrator. In most instances, states limit the class of perpetrator to people in a parental or caretaking role, but others allow for anyone to be a perpetrator. In the former, child abuse inflicted by someone who is not responsible for the care of a child does not fall under the jurisdiction of child abuse reporting laws.
Each state’s child abuse reporting law enumerates classes of individuals who are mandated by law to report suspected abuse. Mandated reporters typically include doctors, nurses, teachers, counselors, therapists, law enforcement, and day care staff—almost any classification of professional who would come in contact with a child in the course of their work. Some states mandate athletic coaches to report suspected abuse, while others mandate parents to do so. There are 18 states that currently mandate all adults report suspected child abuse and neglect.
The Children’s Bureau reported in “Child Maltreatment 2010” that 58.6% of reports were made by professionals and 27.7% by nonprofessionals, and the reporter’s classification was either unknown or considered “other” (such as clergy members, sports coaches, and camp counselors) in 13.7% of the reports.
In every state, anyone who is not mandated by law to report child abuse still has the option to report it voluntarily. Additionally, each state permits voluntary reports to be made anonymously. This protection is often helpful when the reporter is fearful of repercussions or would otherwise not report.
Normal doctor-patient and therapist-patient confidentiality is waived in most states if child abuse is suspected; protection of children supersedes the privacy of these relationships. Reports are required to be made in good faith, and those who do report in good faith are immune from liability. Statutes also enumerate punishment for failure to report, currently a minor offense across the country.
Some states address a systemic responsibility for reporting or communicating alleged child abuse. Pennsylvania, for example, amended its law to require internal institutional reporting so that the person with direct knowledge is required to report “up” within his or her organization rather than to the child welfare system. It is left to the organization administrator to file the report.
A few states clarify what cases fall under their geographic jurisdiction. For example, a state may specify that its authorities are responsible for investigating reports of abuse in which the child resides within its jurisdiction even if the abuse did not occur within its borders. More often than not, however, jurisdiction is left up to the interpretation and the discretion of those receiving the reports. This results in cases falling through the cracks and remaining uninvestigated.
Reporting laws often delineate a process and protocol for accepting reports and conducting investigations. For example, they can specify time frames to complete investigations. The state statutes may also address how information is maintained on substantiated cases, such as a central registry containing the identities of perpetrators.
Penn State-Inspired Changes
The impact of the Penn State case has been felt locally and nationally. Politicians, lawmakers, professionals, and advocates have called for changes to the current laws and regulations. Some are thoughtful and grounded in good practice, while others are knee-jerk responses seeking a quick fix to a very complex issue.
In Pennsylvania and around the country, efforts to amend current statutes seek to prevent a recurrence of all that went wrong in State College. State legislators have proposed changes in their reporting laws in response to public outcry to do something. Some initiatives are calling for more serious penalties for failing to report child abuse. One federal bill would impose sanctions on those who witness child sexual abuse for failing to report it. Although such ideas appear to be a solution and may have applied in the Penn State case, very few cases of child sexual abuse actually have witnesses because perpetrators usually take great care to ensure there are none.
Other initiatives are focused on expanding who is mandated to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Some legislation looks to add new categories of mandated reporters such as athletic coaches and higher education staff, while other efforts attempt to require all adults to report child abuse.
Federal legislation was initiated in November 2011 to amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) to require that all states amend their laws within two years to mandate all adults report suspected child abuse and provide training on child abuse reporting, tied to state eligibility to continue to receive federal CAPTA funding. Introduced by Sen. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania and Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, the Speak up to Protect Every Abused Kid Act is designed to increase trained, responsible reporting of child abuse across the country.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families held a public hearing in December 2011. Experts recommended studying the outcomes of increasing the class of mandated reporters to all adults in the 18 states that currently do so prior to moving forward and legislating this act nationally.
New efforts are focused on increasing public awareness of child abuse and the need to report. Efforts are being made to expand and improve training for both mandated reporters and the general public on child abuse, the reporting system, and individual responsibility. Child abuse prevention programs are also receiving greater attention, a much-needed boost at a time when prevention programs are faced with funding cuts.
Pennsylvania recently passed legislation to form a Task Force on Child Protection, a year-long commission comprised of experts charged with improving child abuse reporting, training, policies, procedures, and laws. The commission’s report, due in November 2012, will address needed systemic changes as a package.
Factors That Warrant Consideration
It is important not to make change just for change’s sake. Any amendments or modifications should be initiated in a thoughtful manner and be based on research, evidence, and proven practice. While many seek to “do good,” there may be unintended consequences of their actions that can actually cause harm.
One critical factor to consider is the implication of mandating all adults to report child abuse. According to Eckerode et. al. (1988), reports by professionals have substantiation rates 23% higher for reports of physical abuse, 11% higher for reports of sexual abuse, and 26% higher for reports of neglect compared with nonprofessionals. The 2008 NCANDS report found that professional reports have overall substantiation rates nearly double that of nonprofessionals; child abuse and neglect reports made by professionals are substantiated 27.4% of the time, while only 14.4% of nonprofessional reports are substantiated.
From these national data, one can extrapolate that increasing the pool of nonprofessional reports will likely increase the proportion of those that cannot be substantiated. If the system is inundated with reports of this nature, time and attention may be taken away from the more serious cases.
Expanding reporting without simultaneously ensuring the ability to investigate them can result in tragedies. Legislative initiatives have focused on increasing the reporting of child abuse but have not addressed the systemic capacity to investigate these additional cases nor to provide needed services to protect children from further harm should the reports be substantiated. Currently, child welfare agencies are being pushed to their limits with the perfect storm: Families are experiencing greater stress with fewer supports due to the country’s economic downturn, while resources that were historically available to them to provide relief are facing their own challenges with funding cutbacks. Child protection agencies, also facing funding cutbacks, cannot turn families away or place them on waiting lists, which are full. Higher agency caseloads may also prevent completing investigations within legally required time frames. States must find a way to underwrite the capacity of child welfare systems to investigate and serve any increase in reports that result from these efforts.
Before opening the doors to new classes of mandated reporters, the reasons mandated reporters currently fail to report need to be identified and addressed. A study conducted by Robert Sege, MD, PhD, of Boston Medical Center (2011) compared how physicians responded in 92 cases of child injury with evaluations by child abuse experts. They found that a report of child abuse was warranted in 20% of the cases that doctors chose not to report. In six of these cases, the physicians themselves had identified a high likelihood of abuse. One reason the doctors declined to report was their lack of faith in the child protection system. Other reasons that have been cited for professionals failing to report suspected child abuse include worrying about relationships with families, concern about legal action, and the need to be more confident in their suspicion of child abuse.
Families and cases often cross state lines. There is currently no mechanism, law, or regulation to ensure that a report of child abuse will be accepted for investigation when the incident, the victim, and the perpetrator are not all located within the same state. Such cases often fall through the cracks and go uninvestigated. This is an unintended consequence of a state-administered child welfare system and is in need of a remedy.
The construct of systemic reporting, when the organization is legally mandated to report suspected abuse in addition to or in lieu of individuals, is complex and replete with problems. The Penn State case illustrates how reporting up in lieu of reporting out fails victims. If the individual with direct knowledge of the alleged abuse is not the one to report to authorities, the incident itself may be distorted, as in the game of telephone, or not reported at all. The alleged rape of a young boy as reportedly witnessed became horseplay in the locker room as described by an administrator. However, had horseplay been reported to the child welfare system, it would not have been investigated because it would have failed to meet the state’s definition of child abuse.
Moving Forward
The current climate, one of outrage at the increasing number of cases in which trusted and respected adults reportedly abused an increasing number of children, provides an opportunity to do better. This window has been opened, and the response needs to be thoughtful, deliberate, and evidence based. It is not enough or even right to cave in to public pressure and enact legislation that will make citizens feel like they have fixed the problem when they may be compounding it. There is a great body of knowledge in the child welfare field, and it can and should be used to inform systemic change.
— Debra Schilling Wolfe, MEd, is executive director of The Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research at the University of Pennsylvania.
References
Eckenrode, J., Powers, J., Doris, J., Munsch, J., Bolger, N. (1988). Substantiation of child abuse and neglect reports. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56(1), 9-16.
Sege, R., Flaherty, E., Jones, R., et. al. (2011). To report or not to report: examination of the initial primary care management of suspicious childhood injuries. Academic Pediatrics, 11(6), 460-466.
Archdiocese of Milwaukee plans less than $7,000 per victim in bankruptcy reorganization plan
/in Wisconsin /by SOL ReformArchdiocese of Milwaukee plans less than $7,000 per victim in bankruptcy reorganization plan
Victim’s compensation would be over 25 times less than the average in other church bankruptcies
Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (Milwaukee)
CONTACT: 414.429.7259
Three years after filing for bankruptcy, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which insured itself for over $1.3 billion dollars in the 1990’s, filed a reorganization plan today that sets aside a mere $4 million dollars to compensate 575 victim/survivors who were sexually assaulted by archdiocesan priests, religious and employees.
This means that each survivor in the Milwaukee Archdiocese would receive less than $7,000. By contrast, survivors in all other church bankruptcies throughout the U.S. have received an average compensation between $274,000 to as much as $2.1 million, with a national average of $400,000 per survivor.
When Archbishop Jerome Listecki announced the bankruptcy three years ago he said that the purpose of reorganization was to bring “healing” to survivors and “make them whole.” Clearly, this is not the case.
Instead of taking the path to healing as he promised, Listecki instead has spent over $11.5 million dollars on bankruptcy lawyers and court costs fighting victims, nearly three times the total amount he now proposes to compensate survivors with.
Even more outrageous, the archdiocese “compensated” known child abuser priests with a $20,000 “signing bonus” to secretly leave the priesthood. That’s on top of pension, health insurance, and in some cases continuing salaries and vocational “retraining” into new occupations working with children. That amount offered to the criminal clergy is nearly three times what Listecki believes will “heal” their victims.
But not to worry. Listecki also proposes a “lifetime therapy fund”. Of course, Listecki is going to control the therapy monies and the alleged “lifetime” of the total fund for all victims runs out at $500,000 dollars. In other words, under Listecki’s “healing” proposal each survivor would receive less than $900 for their “lifetime” of therapy.
Money communicates value. It is pretty clear that Listecki and the Milwaukee archdiocese does not value healing victims very much.
So little respect Listecki has for healing victims, he announced the filing of the plan today on a radio talk show. He did not notify the court. He did not notify victim attorneys. It goes without saying he did not notify victims and their families.
Does that sound like healing?
SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 23 years and have more than 10,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Visit us atSNAPwisconsin.com and SNAPnetwork.org.
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SNAPwisconsin.com
Memo to Yeshiva U.: No Statute of Limitations on God’s Judgment
/in New York /by SOL Reformhttp://forward.com/articles/
Memo to Yeshiva U.: No Statute of Limitations on God’s Judgment
‘Moving On’ From Abuse Not Option Until Wrong Is Righted
By Irwin Kula
On January 30, a federal court judge threw out the $680 million lawsuit brought against Yeshiva University by 34 former students of its high school for boys who claimed they were sexually abused in the 1970s and ’80s.
The suit also pinpointed Y.U. officials, trustees, board members and faculty as responsible for a “massive cover-up” of the abuse. As expected, the judge pointed out in his 52-page opinion that the statute of limitations had expired decades ago.
I was one of those abused in the early ’70s, though I chose not to be part of the lawsuit. But now that “we are moving forward,” as a Y.U. press release declared, I suggest it is important that the leadership of the self-proclaimed “North America’s Torah-informed institution” (“Torah informed,” for those who may not know, is Jewish insider language for “most authentically religious and ethical”) understand, as should leadership of many religious institutions these days guilty of such crimes, that from God’s perspective there is no statute of limitations.
Decades-long tolerance of abuse of teenage boys is never merely a legal issue. In the court of the ethical, psychological, and spiritual, Y.U., like myriad religious institutions plagued by this behavior, is more than guilty. Y.U has exhibited a real lack of transparency in this case, neither releasing the full text of an independent investigation carried out last year nor making public the names of the board committee members specially appointed to deal with this issue.
Actions like these make the university perpetrators of exactly what allows sexual abuse to continue for years — secrecy. It is a privileging and protecting of institutional reputation over people victimized by Y.U.’s “religious” leadership. (It should be clear that there was no legal reason to keep the full report secret, as it had no bearing on whether or not the statute of limitations had expired. Also, if the ruling had been that the statute of limitations had not expired, Y.U. would have had to disclose the report in discovery anyway.)
Y.U. could have been a model for how traditional religious institutions deal with young people who have been sexually molested by self-styled holy men while other selfstyled holy men shielded the abusers from judicial consequences. All religious institutions, especially those with traditional systems of hierarchy and strong male authority, need to go beyond the letter of the law and engage in repentance and in serious ethical and spiritual reflection befitting theological schools.
It is time for religious institutions to seriously question the relationship between sexual abuse of teenage boys and range of other factors — a patriarchal worldview, sexual repression, the belief leadership holds that “God is with me,” the belief that forgiveness is but a confession or a prayer away, access to young peoplewho accept authority, the dynamics of faith, which, to a child, perhaps makes sexual requests no more bizarre than any number of other extreme rituals, the unquestioning trust of people in its clergy, religious people’s aversion to learning the distasteful truth about a religious leader, the reluctance to go to the police and start a scandal, since religious institutions also do so much good.
By not examining these various dynamics and making these nasty crimes merely American legal issues and carefully crafted public relations challenges, religious institutions like Y.U. show that their wisdom and ways (their Torah) can’t actually function in the contemporary world. Rather than being sacred, life-affirming, wisdom-based institutions, they are models of shame and defamation of the spiritual and ethical — of the very God they imagine knowing. They simply ensure that Americans will increasingly disconnect from and be suspicious of organized religion.
But then, for decades now we have known that those who claim with most certainty and fierceness to know God’s will and who see themselves most clearly as God’s chosen actually most embarrass the God they claim to know and are so much less worthy than those over whom they imagine to be so superior.
Irwin Kula is a rabbi and the president of CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.