Article Re: Clergy/Penitent Privilege

[helix]

9 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

We don't define the scope of the problem by the false positives.... We define the scope of the problem by our expectations of the number of abuse cases that we don't discover or prevent.

I find that absolutely terrifying. False positives and all the problems associated with them are very real and should factor into such laws.

5 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

We give officially recognized religions benefits in exchange for the good that they provide to society.

This litmus test is interesting with regards to religious freedom. What happens when society, (often the angry mob), decides that religion no longer provides any good to society?

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I suspect that it is actually a quite rare event for a perpetrator to confess.

What started this year's mandatory reporting kerfuffle was when the abuser confessed to his bishop in Arizona. The wife didn't start it. The visiting teacher tried desperately to fish something out of the kids but the kids refused to budge. The bishop brought them in for counseling and eventually he confessed on his own.

Edited March 9, 2023 by helix

[SeekingUnderstanding]

3 hours ago, webbles said:

https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/mandaall.pdf goes over each state with who is required to report, who has privilege, and other details about mandatory reporting.

In 18 states, everyone is a mandatory reporter.

 

The other states all appear to have some form of medical professional listed in the required reporters.

 

With regards to privileged communication:

 Oregon is the only state that appears to permit a doctor related privilege:

4 states don't address privileged communication

The others either don't mention doctor related privilege as being protected or specifically exclude it from protection.

Just found this as well which makes exceptions for risk of death and significant bodily injury to the attorney client privilege: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/resources/child_law_practiceonline/child_law_practice/vol-34/november-2015/rule-limits-when-attorneys-may-report-child-abuse/

So @smac97 ‘s assertion that religious practitioners are being targeted for reporting while physicians and attorneys are not seems to be false. 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, helix said:

The bishop brought them in for counseling and eventually he confessed on his own.

Just to fill in detail…

To a one time, in the past event.  I can’t remember if details of what was confessed were included, but it sounded iirc not like rape, but very inappropriate touching.  My impression was he downplayed it, but it is possible it was early enough he had just abused her the once and it was minor compared to what he did later, though horrendous enough…still he didn’t seem to have given the impression he was addicted as he was.  But my memory could be off on what he told or implied to the Bishop about what he did.  The mother claimed she was very abused herself from early on, if not before the marriage and there is no indication there was any confession to that.  The VT also tried to get it out of the mom, no go.

The confession took place first, btw.  The way you wrote it could be read the confession came after the VT’s efforts, which were started years after the confession iirc.  She was not a member of the ward when the confession took place, iirc.  Joined not long afterwards.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Calm

[webbles]

3 hours ago, helix said:

What started this year's mandatory reporting kerfuffle was when the abuser confessed to his bishop in Arizona. The wife didn't start it. The visiting teacher tried desperately to fish something out of the kids but the kids refused to budge. The bishop brought them in for counseling and eventually he confessed on his own.

 

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Just to fill in detail…

To a one time, in the past event.  I can’t remember if details of what was confessed were included, but it sounded iirc not like rape, but very inappropriate touching.  My impression was he downplayed it, but it is possible it was early enough he had just abused her the once and it was minor compared to what he did later, though horrendous enough…still he didn’t seem to have given the impression he was addicted as he was.  But my memory could be off on what he told or implied to the Bishop about what he did.  The mother claimed she was very abused herself from early on, if not before the marriage and there is no indication there was any confession to that.  The VT also tried to get it out of the mom, no go.

The confession took place first, btw.  The way you wrote it could be read the confession came after the VT’s efforts, which were started years after the confession iirc.  She was not a member of the ward when the confession took place, iirc.  Joined not long afterwards.

Pretty close.  The man went to the bishop to confess to pornography.  He visited the bishop multiple times about pornography (possibly years) and in those meetings he mentioned that he had oral sex with his daughter.  The bishop says that is all the child abuse that the man confessed to.  The bishop brought in the wife, had the man tell the wife, and then worked with the wife to keep the daughter safe (which failed badly).

The wife claimed that she was abused by her husband, starting their wedding night.  But she didn't bring this up till very late.  During her lawsuit, her lawyer tried to use her abuse as a reason why she was a victim but the prosecutor used the fact that she didn't bring it up till after multiple police interviews.  So there was some doubt on whether she was really abused or not.  Neither bishop or the visiting teacher have said that they knew of her abuse.

[webbles]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Just found this as well which makes exceptions for risk of death and significant bodily injury to the attorney client privilege: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/resources/child_law_practiceonline/child_law_practice/vol-34/november-2015/rule-limits-when-attorneys-may-report-child-abuse/

So @smac97 ‘s assertion that religious practitioners are being targeted for reporting while physicians and attorneys are not seems to be false. 

Your link is on whether the ABA would reprimand the lawyer for breaking the lawyer-client privilege.  It would be similar to the Catholic church announcing that priests may/must go to the police and would not be breaking the seal of the confessional.  It allows a lawyer to partially follow the law if mandatory reporting is required and the state doesn't allow the lawyer-client privilege.  Indiana is one of the states that doesn't allow the privilege.  It doesn't allow any privilege and explicitly disallows some privileges (husband-wife, healthcare-patient, school counselor-student).

The ABA decision is also interesting that a lawyer would still be in trouble with the ABA if they told the police in Indiana about child abuse that wasn't super severe.  The lawyer is required, by state law, to report but also required, by ABA guidelines, to not report.

One interesting thing is that if the lawyer or priest did go to the police, their testimony would (in most states) be barred from the trial.  For example, the AZ law does allow a priest to go to the police but any statement he or she made would be barred from the trial because of the priest-penitent privilege.

[Tacenda]

42 minutes ago, webbles said:

Your link is on whether the ABA would reprimand the lawyer for breaking the lawyer-client privilege.  It would be similar to the Catholic church announcing that priests may/must go to the police and would not be breaking the seal of the confessional.  It allows a lawyer to partially follow the law if mandatory reporting is required and the state doesn't allow the lawyer-client privilege.  Indiana is one of the states that doesn't allow the privilege.  It doesn't allow any privilege and explicitly disallows some privileges (husband-wife, healthcare-patient, school counselor-student).

The ABA decision is also interesting that a lawyer would still be in trouble with the ABA if they told the police in Indiana about child abuse that wasn't super severe.  The lawyer is required, by state law, to report but also required, by ABA guidelines, to not report.

One interesting thing is that if the lawyer or priest did go to the police, their testimony would (in most states) be barred from the trial.  For example, the AZ law does allow a priest to go to the police but any statement he or she made would be barred from the trial because of the priest-penitent privilege.

I disagree please CFR for the bold. 

[Calm]

Looks like they can refuse to be a witness after reporting.  Whether or not they can chose to be a witness isn’t clear, imo.  My bold

Quote

In any civil or criminal litigation in which a child's neglect, dependency, physical injury, abuse, child abuse, or abandonment is an issue, a member of the clergy, a Christian Science practitioner, or a priest shall not, without his or her consent, be examined as a witness concerning any confession made to him or her in his or her role as a member of the clergy, a Christian Science practitioner, or a priest in the course of the discipline enjoined by the church to which he or she belongs. This subsection does not discharge a member of the clergy, a Christian Science practitioner, or a priest from the duty to report as required above.

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/state/?CWIGFunctionsaction=statestatutes:main.getResults

[webbles]

20 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I disagree please CFR for the bold. 

Arizona Statute 12-2233:

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In a civil action a clergyman or priest shall not, without the consent of the person making a confession, be examined as to any confession made to him in his character as clergyman or priest in the course of discipline enjoined by the church to which he belongs.

You can not enter a statement from someone unless that same person can be examined (the confrontation right in the 6th amendment).  Since the clergy may not be examined in court, then any statement of the clergy may not be entered as evidence.

Edited to add: This is what the AZ Bisbee case is dealing with.  The bishop can not be forced to testify and even if he wanted to testify or the church wanted him to testify, his testimony would be excluded.  That's why there is a lot of argument over what is considered to be priest-penitent privilege and whether or not the abuser waived the privilege.

Edited March 10, 2023 by webbles

[webbles]

19 hours ago, Calm said:

Looks like they can refuse to be a witness after reporting.  Whether or not they can chose to be a witness isn’t clear, imo.  My bold

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/state/?CWIGFunctionsaction=statestatutes:main.getResults

Here's a better link https://www.azleg.gov/ars/13/03620.htm.  It is section L.

The church's lawyers actually used that law to argue that the priest-penitent privilege is a two-way privilege: BOTH the penitent and the priest have control of the privilege.  Normally, it is just the penitent who can decide if the privilege is waived or not.  This was argued at the AZ appeals court.  In their decision, they had a footnote about this argument: (page 4, footnote 2)

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This court has rejected the argument that these statutes provide a basis for a priest to refuse to testify even when the penitent has waived the priest-penitent privilege. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Superior Court, 159 Ariz. 24, 32 (App. 1988). Given our disposition of this matter, we need not reach LDS’s argument that that case was wrongly decided and that priests have an “independent right to maintain confidentiality of confessions.”

Per that, in AZ, if the penitent waives the privilege, then the priest can be examined.

[Tacenda]

20 hours ago, Calm said:

Looks like they can refuse to be a witness after reporting.  Whether or not they can chose to be a witness isn’t clear, imo.  My bold

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/state/?CWIGFunctionsaction=statestatutes:main.getResults

 

1 hour ago, webbles said:

Here's a better link https://www.azleg.gov/ars/13/03620.htm.  It is section L.

The church's lawyers actually used that law to argue that the priest-penitent privilege is a two-way privilege: BOTH the penitent and the priest have control of the privilege.  Normally, it is just the penitent who can decide if the privilege is waived or not.  This was argued at the AZ appeals court.  In their decision, they had a footnote about this argument: (page 4, footnote 2)

Per that, in AZ, if the penitent waives the privilege, then the priest can be examined.

Thanks for the answers.

[Calm]

Debating whether to start a new topic and still might, but it seems to tie into this discussion 

https://publicsquaremag.org/politics-law/legal/a-misguided-crusade-how-mandatory-reporting-fails-our-children/

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So the question becomes how can society at large, and Latter-day Saints in particular, help reduce this kind of abuse. 

In addition to lingering on the heart-wrenching details of this new case of abuse, the article fixates on the fact that church leaders were aware of the abuse but did not report it to the police. And it further reports many of the details of mandatory reporting laws for clergy. 

While the article is a news piece and not an editorial, it is clear the authors want their readers to believe that the solution to preventing cases like this is increasing mandatory reporting laws. 

There is just one problem. Mandatory reporting laws don’t work.

Quote

It’s actually fairly uncontroversial among researchers that mandatory reporting laws don’t work. Mical Raz, a physician and public health and policy professor, explained, “We should be extremely cautious that our outrage is not translated into advocacy for policies that not only don’t adequately protect children but may ultimately be harmful.” She goes on to write, “This is the case, I argue, for calls to expand mandated reporting.”

Useful info based on research imo….

Also this…the outcome for the victims from the victims’ POV:

Quote

Of abuse survivors, only 18% said reporting made things better, while 62% said it made things worse. That includes 3% who said it made things much better and 50% who said it made things much worse.

So even when mandatory reporting laws work exactly the way they are supposed to, the abused child is 3.5X more likely to say it made things worse than it made things better.

 

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

20 hours ago, Calm said:

Useful info based on research imo….

I am (and have been) a mandatory reporter for a number of roles that I play in my professional and civic engagement.

These kinds of discussions often forget that mandatory reporting isn't simply about children. I deal much more frequently (at least in my professional career) with elder abuse than child abuse. One of the challenges I have seen in the decades I have been a mandatory reporter is the lack of real training and education (I say this in spite of the time I am required to participate in training every year).

Articles that provide the claims about the harms that mandatory reporting causes for children (at least without getting into the nuts and bolts of the issue) are a challenge. Yes, it is true that expanding mandatory reporting creates more unverifiable claims. It is also true that our system of handling these questions is deeply flawed. Those responsible to investigate reports tend to produce uneven outcomes, and, the most significant harms usually come when children are removed from their family environment and placed into state run programs (which are, in my experience, notoriously under funded and under staffed) - sometimes inappropriately. One thing that I can say with confidence (and the linked articles are not going to provide any sort of response to this) is that reducing mandatory reporting will not create better outcomes for children. Expanding mandatory reporting may not help much in the short term because it isn't really the mandatory reporting component that is broken - it is the rest of the system. If we can provide better training and oversight for what comes after a problem is reported, mandatory reporting would be far less of a statistical link to problems than it is now.

I think the last quote was telling. That we made an abuse situation worse by reporting it becomes an argument not to report it and just let them live with the abuse? That makes little sense to me. It isn't the reporting that is the problem (despite its proximity), it is our response to that reporting that needs improvement.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

think the last quote was telling. That we made an abuse situation worse by reporting it becomes an argument not to report it and just let them live with the abuse? That makes little sense to me. It isn't the reporting that is the problem (despite its proximity), it is our response to that reporting that needs improvement.

I don’t think that was the intent, though I may be projecting my own thoughts.  They pushed implicitly throughout the article imo, if not always explicitly for doing things that were actually shown to reduce abuse.  The article’s second to last section focuses suggestions based on what does reduce abuse.

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If mandatory reporting doesn’t reduce abuse, increases the worst kinds of abuse, and is often illegal for clergy, what can be done to reduce abuse? 

We are far from helpless. Studies have shown that when professionals such as doctors, therapists, and lawyers can make a judgment about when to report, it can have a positive effect on reducing abuse.

Other studies have suggested that increased funds directed to families of children can help reduce abuse.  

Jenn Roach is a survivor of ecclesiastical abuse in an evangelical church. She later became a therapist and has become an outspoken advocate for sexual abuse victims. She suggests six ways that churches can reduce abuse:

So the push of the article imo is not about doing less reporting, it is about investing the effort that goes into mandatory reporting at the moment into more effective actions.   For example this states that less mandatory reporting would allow social workers to help actual abuse cases more.

Quote

In other words, no more abuse was actually caught, but there were lots more false reports that wasted the time of state social workers who could have been instead spending their time helping those children who were actually in danger. Another similar study found that while mandatory reporting laws increased reports, less abuse was actually caught.

These resource-wasting reports came much less often from professionals like doctors, therapists, and lawyers. 

And later…

Quote

Mandatory reporting laws don’t work because they push the families most in need of help into hiding. A 2019 study found that more than half of peoplechanged what they shared with mandated reporters when they learned about the mandatory reporting requirements. 

In an environment where mandatory reporting laws are universal, abusers simply don’t seek help from therapists, doctors, and spiritual advisors at the same rates they would otherwise. And with the influx of new reports, actual social workers’ time is spent having to dismiss reports rather than helping the children in the worst situations.

I do get the caution in approaching this.  Too often laws are made to punish or stop behaviour without providing sufficient support to make the alternatives desirable (thinking about abortion laws here) and decreasing what is viewed as negative behaviours without adding support for positive behaviours can often have unintended consequences.  There is certainly a possibility that some would jump on removing mandatory reporting for another reason, but use the current neutral or negative effects (assuming such studies are reliable) to justify the removal, but then neglect to use those resources freed up to increase usage of effective methods.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Calm

[Danzo]

I think mandatory reporting often makes the situation worse. 

I was talking to my brother the other day (EQ President of his ward) and he was relating to me how the relief society president (A teacher I think) wasn't allowed to visit certain members of the ward because she is a mandatory reporter. 

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I don’t think that was the intent, though I may be projecting my own thoughts.  They pushed implicitly, if not always explicitly for doing things that were actually shown to reduce abuse.

Like what? Give some examples? I say this somewhat tongue in cheek because they don't actually provide examples of things that can be done to reduce abuse. The original article makes this (in my opinion) bizarre assertion:

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If mandatory reporting doesn’t reduce abuse, increases the worst kinds of abuse, and is often illegal for clergy, what can be done to reduce abuse? 

Wait, what? In what alternate reality is it illegal for clergy to report abuse? Legally, clergymen are often not obligated to report what is learned in the confessional. But it isn't illegal for them to do so (whether or not the run into ecclesiastical difficulty and face church discipline for doing so is a different question altogether - but not a legal question).

Quote

Studies have shown that when professionals such as doctors, therapists, and lawyers can make a judgment about when to report, it can have a positive effect on reducing abuse.

In other words, mandatory reporting by professionals reduces abuse?

Quote

Other studies have suggested that increased funds directed to families of children can help reduce abuse.  

Ok. I can buy that. Let's redirect some of these funds towards direct financial benefits for families. Reducing poverty would very likely reduce certain types of abuse. But it's worth pointing out that our current political environment has been really uninterested in providing financial benefits to families of children (especially when worded like that - we should recognize that this wording is intentionally including all of the non-nuclear families).

Then the article kind of spins into a strange place:

Quote

As a result, in the only study comparing abuse rates in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to those in other faiths, the Church’s abuse rates are 75% lower. While church abuse rates, in general, are much lower than rates in schools.

I say strange, because this references for statistics only the reported abuse rates of LDS boyscouts. I might accept that as plausible except for that fact that research invoked in this article references other research which puts Utah (with its Universal Mandatory Reporting laws) as having the highest rates of confirmed physical abuse cases among all states with UMR (nearly double the next highest - Rhode Island), and the third highest among all states (behind only Alabama and Virginia). I don't buy the idea that LDS abuse rates are particularly low by comparison to other groups.

This article is simply bad - and the conclusion is terrible -

Quote

But we can’t let our moral outrage create policy that will ultimately hurt, and even kill, more children.

If there is little difference between states with UMR and without UMR in terms of actual cases of substantiated physical abuse, then it is unclear at all that such policies will have this sort of outcome. It is a position of fear-mongering, that is trying to minimize personal accountability towards those in our communities who need others to speak for them.

On the other hand, the studies that are referenced here suggest that the gap between professional and non-professional reporters is relatively small -

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Among professional reporters, less than 14% of physical abuse reports are confirmed and among nonprofessional reporters, less than 10% of physical abuse reports are confirmed

And, presented in another way:

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Among confirmed cases, 16.25% were made by nonprofessional reporters and 83.75% were made by professional reporters (Table 2).

In other words, 1 in 6 confirmed cases come from reports made by non-professionals. Now perhaps we will get these reports with or without expanded mandatory reporting. But if that's the case, then having mandatory reporting isn't nearly as bad as this article makes it out to be - eliminating all mandatory reporting (including from professionals) would almost certainly increase the abuse that is allowed to continue. Finding a happy medium between too much and not enough requires us to make the investment first in the back end and provide the necessary resources to allow for it to work as intended.

It isn't enough, at least in my opinion, to suggest that we should throw money at families of children. I am not sure how cost effective this would really be, unless we also find a way to determine which risk factors are best ameliorated by improving financial security - so that we can most effectively use that money to greatest effect. What we will still be missing is the 16% of cases that we currently get from non-professional reporters that aren't picked up by professional reporters. We need suggestions about how to spend those resources in a way that does this - not just in ways that helps reduce overall abuse.

The problem is about trying to find the abuse where it occurs. Universal reporting will only work if it comes with the appropriate commitment on the other end to provide adequate resources to not only investigate the reports, but also to make sure that the children are put into much better circumstances. Mandatory reporting doesn't work well if the system isn't given the resources to make it work, and the reporters don't have the training to do it properly. But, this doesn't mean that mandatory reporting itself is the biggest problem in the equation.

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

51 minutes ago, Danzo said:

I was talking to my brother the other day (EQ President of his ward) and he was relating to me how the relief society president (A teacher I think) wasn't allowed to visit certain members of the ward because she is a mandatory reporter. 

Because abuse was going on and there was a fear of it being reported? There is, I think, a reality that is exposed in comments like this which illustrates exactly why mandatory reporting may be necessary. If it is just the threat of Big Brother, then there is a real misunderstanding - because any report from a non-mandatory reporter is taken as seriously and has the same impacts on family lives as a report from a mandatory reporter.

[Calm]

22 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

n other words, mandatory reporting by professionals reduces abuse?

No, letting professionals judge when they should report and when not to reduces abuse (they claim).

on my phone and lazy today, so responding in multiple posts

Edited December 5, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

23 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

s? I say this somewhat tongue in cheek because they don't actually provide examples of things that can be done to reduce abuse

How would you describe these suggestions? (Not challenging you, am trying to understand your points)

Quote

Jenn Roach is a survivor of ecclesiastical abuse in an evangelical church. She later became a therapist and has become an outspoken advocate for sexual abuse victims. She suggests six ways that churches can reduce abuse:

1. Talk about the importance of reducing abuse

2. Organize congregations geographically

3. Announce to congregations who will be working with children and youth

4. Assign leaders to children and youth rather than relying on volunteers

5. Emphasize the importance of living in a home with both parents

6.Have female leaders responsible for girls and young women

 

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

On 12/5/2023 at 1:56 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

what alternate reality is it illegal for clergy to report abuse? Legally, clergymen are often not obligated to report what is learned in the confessional. But it isn't illegal for them to do so (whether or not the run into ecclesiastical difficulty and face church discipline for doing so is a different question altogether - but not a legal question).

I do think talking about client-penitent privilege gets sloppy and not being able to use testimony in court in some places gets labeled as illegal to break confidence, but if no one goes to jail and it only results in a lawsuit for damages, it is a civil issue and not illegal as I understand it.   It is more or less breaking a contract in my view (though obviously not an actual contract).

Edited December 8, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

40 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

But it's worth pointing out that our current political environment has been really uninterested in providing financial benefits to families of children (especially when worded like that - we should recognize that this wording is intentionally including all of the non-nuclear families).

As I mentioned before, I think this is a valid concern. If mandatory reporting is going to be removed, don’t use this as an excuse to further gut the programs. Instead turn around and invest time and money saved in the more effective (evidence based) methods, like getting better wages and better hours for currently overworked social workers. Don’t take the time saved by not having mandatory reporting and fill it up with useless meetings or adding more children to each worker. Let them take that time to be with the kids they are assigned to already…or better yet, less kids per each social worker AND more time over all. 
 

helpers are coming to clean so won’t get back to much later. I am not great with stats these days, so interested in your appraisal. 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Calm

[Danzo]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Because abuse was going on and there was a fear of it being reported? There is, I think, a reality that is exposed in comments like this which illustrates exactly why mandatory reporting may be necessary. If it is just the threat of Big Brother, then there is a real misunderstanding - because any report from a non-mandatory reporter is taken as seriously and has the same impacts on family lives as a report from a mandatory reporter.

The ward covers a certain ethnic minority population.   Often people in these minority communities live off of far less money and resources than is normal.  Also their customs regarding marriage age and child rearing arrangements as well as when children work and how much work children is different than our culture norms.   This creates a legitimate fear of having child protective services called and disrupting the family and culture. 

These children often do need help,  but the very fact that someone is a mandatory reporter cuts these children off from the help they need. 

Mandatory reporting laws are more so that we feel good about ourselves than about getting people the help they need and that they are able to receive. 

Real help is very circumstance based and often subject to nuance.  It is my experience that child protective services often interferes where it shouldn't and doesn't interfere where it should.

It often is more of the problem than the solution.  Based on several news articles over the past few years, in my state calling Child Protectives Services might introduce children to more abuse than they experience in their current situation. 

[Danzo]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Because abuse was going on and there was a fear of it being reported? There is, I think, a reality that is exposed in comments like this which illustrates exactly why mandatory reporting may be necessary. If it is just the threat of Big Brother, then there is a real misunderstanding - because any report from a non-mandatory reporter is taken as seriously and has the same impacts on family lives as a report from a mandatory reporter.

The difference between a mandatory reporter and an non mandatory reporter is that the non mandatory reporter reports out of genuine concern for the child and does it because they feel it is the best course of action.  The mandatory reporter may report out of fear  and out of what is best for the reporter (avoiding loss of job or going to jail) even when the mandatory reporter might not feel  reporting is the best course of action.

Also, not everyone is able to receive or benefit from help by the state.  Mandatory reporting can take people away from help they are willing to receive by preventing people from seeking help.   

Sometimes people need to be lead to a place where they can receive help from the state.

[Benjamin McGuire]

20 hours ago, Calm said:

How would you describe these suggestions? (Not challenging you, am trying to understand your points)

I think they are good suggestions - but that is all that they are.

There is a disconnect here. There is absolutely zero empirical evidence that any of these suggestions have an impact on abuse (let alone that they reduce abuse by the same margin that eliminating mandatory reporting would increase it). These are reasonable, they are important things to be doing. But the list isn't actually terribly relevant to the argument.

I'll try to lay out an executive summary of the article that you provided.

1: There is empirical evidence that expanding mandatory reporting doesn't reduce abuse and may be actually causing harm.

2: There is empirical evidence that other steps can reduce abuse. The evidence for this is the rough comparison made by the author using data about abuse in boy scout troops. This comparison is limited to comparing LDS scout troops to the troops of other religious groups.

3: We should attribute that gap in abuse to differences in policies relative to the scout troops.

4: If we can get a drop in abuse by shifting policies, we should instead focus on those types of improvements rather than expanding mandatory reporting.

I think that this is all wrong. When I drill down into the evidence used by the author, I get to the research paper that I linked earlier. I am going to quote from their concluding paragraph (my emphasis):

Quote

Lastly, the cross-sectional nature of these data, collected in 2013, precludes drawing conclusions about the causal effects of UMR on child physical abuse reporting and identification. Historical effects may also have skewed the results. For example, because of ongoing lawsuits challenging the validity of investigations that extended beyond 90 days, Missouri screened out all child maltreatment reports that did not lead to a complete investigation within 90 days in 2013. This may have contributed to the extremely low physical abuse reporting and victimization rates in Missouri (i.e., 0.93 and 0.66 per 10 000 children, respectively). Longitudinal studies investigating how UMR affects rates of total and confirmed reports before and after its implementation, over time, and across maltreatment types are needed to fully inform policymakers on whether and how UMR should be implemented in their jurisdiction.

 This just deals with universal mandatory reporting (which Utah already has in place - Utah Code Ann. §62A-4a-403). Your article tells us at the end:

Quote

So while this most recent story should lead us to reflect on how we can continue to improve, the answer is not to throw out a system that is one of the most effective at reducing abuse.

I am going to deal with a coupe of issues all at once here.

There is no empirical data available that compares the effectiveness between preventing abuse and stopping abuse. I also don't agree with the article's idea that we should focus our efforts more on preventing abuse than on discovering and stopping it. I think that this puts abuse into a space where we are suggesting that abuse is largely preventable - and I am not sure that this is true - especially given the fact that some types of abuse are linked to disorders. Other types of abuse are closely connected to issues where we have a conflict between issues associated with higher risks of abuse and individual freedoms (i.e. alcohol and alcoholism). When we deal with suggestions (as your list above) we are making efforts to make abuse more difficult. Such steps are primarily focused on certain contexts for abuse. Despite the numbers of abuse cases documented in the BSA, the greatest risks of abuse come to children in the home. These kinds of steps would have zero impact on reducing much of the abuse we [don't] see.

This doesn't mean that I don't believe that we shouldn't be aggressively working to raise minimum wage, or providing a free college education for all Americans, or that we shouldn't be working hard to rebuild the social safety nets that would help provide security for families and reduce abuse risks. I think that these things work hand-in-hand. We work to minimize the abuse through societal efforts, and we work to root out and stop abuse where it happens.

Now, I think that the idea of resources is something of a red herring. I work for a public agency under the auspices of MDHHS (Michigan Department of Health and Human Services). My public governance board is also responsible for the local MDHHS agency that covers three local counties. They are understaffed. Even if we eliminated mandatory reporting, they would be understaffed. Mandatory reporting does not come with increased budgets and resources and additional staffing. If we took mandatory reporting away, it is certainly true that the staff would have more time to focus on their other jobs. But the idea that if we took mandatory reporting away that we would have additional resources to use to help prevent abuse from starting is imaginary. It certainly wouldn't produce the sorts of results that some people think it could. If our problem is that we have more reports that we need to go through to get to the those that are important, it would seem to me that our dollars would be far better spent in investing in more DHHS workers to investigate claims, rather than spending that relatively small amount of funding and spreading it so thinly that it would make virtually no difference across our impoverished populations. This is why the argument about resources sounds good but is really just a deflection. We have, over my lifetime, consistently stripped out the social safety nets and support for the poor in our country. Consider, for example, one program which has done a great deal to help poor children in the country over the past several years - the federal free school lunch program. This has become a flash point politically, with one party wanting to expand it, and the other party wanting to eliminate it. If free school lunches (which help us prevent neglect more directly than many programs) has become so controversial, how do we think that broader safety net issues are going to fare?

Now, from your other comments -

21 hours ago, Calm said:

I do think talking about client-penitent privilege gets sloppy and not being able to use testimony in court in some places gets labeled as illegal to break confidence, but if no one goes to jail and it only results in a lawsuit for damages, it is a civil issue and not illegal as I understand it.   It is more or less breaking a contract.

None of this applies to clergy. I am pretty sure that an LDS Bishop is not called with a contract. Unless the law actually spells out a legal liability for clergy confidentiality, there isn't even any basis to sue. In general, Churches would oppose this sort of ruling on the basis that they might become liable as an organization as apart from the individual. So there is no contract - there is just a degree of trust. To suggest that a clergyman breaking that confidentiality is illegal isn't merely sloppy journalism.

[Benjamin McGuire]

20 hours ago, Danzo said:

The ward covers a certain ethnic minority population.   Often people in these minority communities live off of far less money and resources than is normal.  Also their customs regarding marriage age and child rearing arrangements as well as when children work and how much work children is different than our culture norms.   This creates a legitimate fear of having child protective services called and disrupting the family and culture. 

These children often do need help,  but the very fact that someone is a mandatory reporter cuts these children off from the help they need. 

To be frank, I don't find this to be a valid argument. It misunderstands the roles of mandatory reporting, and it misrepresents the problem here. Cultural norms is not an acceptable justification for child abuse. Cultural norms is not an acceptable justification for breaking child-labor laws. Cultural norms is not a reasonable justification for not getting children an appropriate education. I could make a long list here. I am certainly willing to grant that there are some gray areas - but, if there are such major issues that any mandatory reporter would feel the need to report because the children are in such a risky situation, then your justifications for preventing access by that mandatory reporter fall on deaf ears - the situation needs to be corrected - and one way to correct that situation would be to remove those children from the overly risky environment.

If there are problems that exist then we shouldn't be simply adopting the attitude that we should prevent the reporting, we should be counseling those families to fix those issues so that the concern is gone.

20 hours ago, Danzo said:

Mandatory reporting laws are more so that we feel good about ourselves than about getting people the help they need and that they are able to receive. 

This is nonsense.

20 hours ago, Danzo said:

Real help is very circumstance based and often subject to nuance.  It is my experience that child protective services often interferes where it shouldn't and doesn't interfere where it should.

Sometimes this is true. But it is in my experience less common that this happens than that they interfere where interference is necessary and important - where children's parents have serious drug addictions, where they live in unsanitary environments, where there is no food in the house and they are hungry, and so on.

20 hours ago, Danzo said:

The difference between a mandatory reporter and an non mandatory reporter is that the non mandatory reporter reports out of genuine concern for the child and does it because they feel it is the best course of action.  The mandatory reporter may report out of fear  and out of what is best for the reporter (avoiding loss of job or going to jail) even when the mandatory reporter might not feel  reporting is the best course of action.

This is also nonsense.

I have worked with thousands of mandatory reporters over the past three decades of my work in the public sector. I have never had a single person express this sentiment to me (if anything, I have seen a few cases of people who didn't report something because they felt that they might be implicated by it). Most of the mandatory reporters care very much about those in their care. And there is very little to fear - you seem to think that there is some huge big brother mechanism that knows when a mandatory reporter should have reported something but didn't. Generally the only time there might be issues is when there is real abuse going on and someone fails to report the obvious. This isn't how it works.

It's worth pointing out that legally, every person in Utah is considered a mandatory reporter. And again, to be frank, if someone is aware of real abuse (not suspecting it, but knows that it is going on) and doesn't report it, then they are complicit in that abuse, and they should be worried about it. I don't have any problem with this. Then again, how many people in Utah were prosecuted last year for failure to report? There haven't been a wave of convictions ...

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

None of this applies to clergy. I am pretty sure that an LDS Bishop is not called with a contract. Unless the law actually spells out a legal liability for clergy confidentiality, there isn't even any basis to sue. In general, Churches would oppose this sort of ruling on the basis that they might become liable as an organization as apart from the individual. So there is no contract - there is just a degree of trust. To suggest that a clergyman breaking that confidentiality is illegal isn't merely sloppy journalism.

People have sued because of breaches in the priest-penitent privilege.  https://supreme.findlaw.com/legal-commentary/suing-clergy-for-divulging-confidences.html talks about a case that went all the way to the highest court of New York over whether a woman can sue her rabbi for breaching her confidence.  They ruled against her in the end, but that would have been an expensive lawsuit.  https://www.agfinancial.org/resources/article/church-liability-clergy-privilege-confidentially-and-reporting mentions nine cases (but doesn't give any names) and says that 3 of them did rule against the minister.  https://publicsquaremag.org/faith/should-a-church-pay-damages-for-reporting-abuse-to-the-police/ talks about a recent case against the church because the bishop helped turn in the father.  The wife sued the bishop and the church for breaking the privilege.