New "Failure to Report Abuse" Lawsuit (OR/WA)

[smac97]

Mormon church accused of failing to report child sex abuse in OR and WA; faces $25M suit

Quote

A woman who was sexually abused as a girl by her adopted father is suing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, alleging a bishop from a Vancouver branch they attended was informed of the abuse but failed to report it to police or child welfare workers.

As a result, the girl suffered additional months of abuse when the adopted parents split and the father, Craig McNeil Ford, took the girl to live with him in Oregon, according to the suit.

That's it.  Not much detail.  "{W}as informed of the abuse" does not clarify who did the informing.  That can have a significant impact as to mandatory reporting laws.

Here's a news item from WA that lays out some of the current status of the clergy-penitent privilege:

Quote

For nearly twenty years, some state lawmakers have tried to remove Washington state from the list of five that do not require clergy and religious leaders to report child abuse, child neglect and child sexual abuse. For the third year in a row, Sen. Noel Frame is leading that effort in the state capitol again.

Senate Bill 5375 would add clergy members to the list of mandatory reports in the state, joining teachers and law enforcement officers. The law, if passed, would require what clergy hear in settings like confession to be reported as well.

“By keeping the seal of confession, it hasn’t made children safer. If anything, it’s protected perpetrators and the thing that could change that would be making them mandatory reporters,” said Mary Dispenza in an interview with KIRO.

I question if there is any evidence that widening mandatory reporting laws has "made children safer."  I have my doubts.

"The law, if passed, would require what clergy hear in settings like confession to be reported as well."  Hmm.  Sounds like a First Amendment challenge waiting to happen.

Meanwhile, I think that many predators will find out about this new law, tag priests as mandatory reporters, and cease confession of their misconduct.  As it is, clergy are situated to encourage individuals to stop, to turn themselves in as part of the repentance process, etc.  All that will likely go away.

Quote

Dispenza testified to the Senate Human Services Committee Tuesday about her experience as a sexual assault victim. When she was seven years old, she was raped by a priest in her church. She first divulged what happened while in confession.

“The priest perpetrator who harmed me would have been prevented from going on for four more decades raping little girls, had the priest reported the crime,” Dispenza said.

The impact abuse has had was clear in the testimony Tuesday. An impassioned Sen. Frame spoke of her own assault as a child only being revealed when she told a mandatory reporter in the form of a teacher.

“Nothing in this bill clergy-penitent privilege for prosecution, that is not the point of this bill. It is merely so that clergy will go to authorities and ask them to check on that kid and find out if they’ve been abused or neglected.” Frame said.

Not sure what to make of that last statement.

Quote

Frame herself has brought this bill three times, each time trying to carefully craft it through the opposition of different groups and lawmakers.

“For those I have worked with I am sorry I don’t feel like I can make a compromise anymore. I stand by the bill. This bill has been in consideration in some way shape or form for twenty years. I really wonder about all the children who have been abused or neglected and have gone unprotected by the adults in their lives because we didn’t have a mandatory reporter law and that we continue to try and protect this in the name of religious freedom.” Noel said.

Some resources:

Per this article, 

• Expanding "mandatory reporting" laws results in "flooded" reporting hotlines, "excessive waiting times, unanswered calls, spurious calls, and unnecessary reports, leading to the inability to pursue many of these reports."
• There is no indication or competent evidence that expanding mandatory reporting improves detection of abuse, and some evidence that it detracts from such efforts.
• Expanding mandatory reporting is politically easy (what politician or child welfare expert wants to oppose it?), yet there are no "useful indicators of the efficacy of this approach, and no data exist to demonstrate that incremental increases in reporting have contributed to child safety."
• Expanding mandatory reporting by the lay public "is more likely to result in spurious reports."
• Expanding mandatory reporting "depletes resources that are already spread thin and diverts attention away from children who need it the most."
• Expanding mandatory reporting will almost certainly disproportionately, and adversely, affect lower-income families.
• Sometimes the cure (getting CPS involved, which can be both heavy-handed and callously indifferent at the same time) can be worse that the disease.
• Inquiries about abuse can themselves be traumatic for kids.
• "Fear of reporting may prevent families from seeking help, whereas assurance of confidentiality has been shown to increase help-seeking behaviors."

I think we need to give these things some serious consideration.  

Also here: Do Laws Requiring People to Report Crimes Violate the First Amendment?

I hope the victim in the story above receives all the counseling, help and assistance she needs.  Child abuse is such a terrible thing.

Thanks,

-Smac

[webbles]

Looks like the perpetrator was convicted and sentenced several years ago.  https://gazettetimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/albany-man-sentenced-to-33-years-in-prison-for-sex-crimes/article_23ca3f16-b585-56a8-9a90-dcd77ff2953b.html

So maybe he said something in prison that triggered this new lawsuit?

[Dario_M]

However i don't think this problem is only within the church. A failing system can be on schools, workplaces, etc. Here in the Netherlands i also here a lot about failed abuse reports. It's a well known complaint. 

[Benjamin McGuire]

Do we really need to rehash all of this again?

14 hours ago, smac97 said:

Per this article, 

• Expanding "mandatory reporting" laws results in "flooded" reporting hotlines, "excessive waiting times, unanswered calls, spurious calls, and unnecessary reports, leading to the inability to pursue many of these reports."
• There is no indication or competent evidence that expanding mandatory reporting improves detection of abuse, and some evidence that it detracts from such efforts.
• Expanding mandatory reporting is politically easy (what politician or child welfare expert wants to oppose it?), yet there are no "useful indicators of the efficacy of this approach, and no data exist to demonstrate that incremental increases in reporting have contributed to child safety."
• Expanding mandatory reporting by the lay public "is more likely to result in spurious reports."
• Expanding mandatory reporting "depletes resources that are already spread thin and diverts attention away from children who need it the most."
• Expanding mandatory reporting will almost certainly disproportionately, and adversely, affect lower-income families.
• Sometimes the cure (getting CPS involved, which can be both heavy-handed and callously indifferent at the same time) can be worse that the disease.
• Inquiries about abuse can themselves be traumatic for kids.
• "Fear of reporting may prevent families from seeking help, whereas assurance of confidentiality has been shown to increase help-seeking behaviors."

I think that expanding mandatory reporting - by simply making everyone mandatory reporters without the necessary (in my opinion) training and support is a problem. "Expanding" in this case means universal mandating laws - it does not refer to adding a specific category of reporting.

At the same time, there are challenges with this article that we have discussed before. We shouldn't mistake the challenges associated with expanded mandatory reporting with having a core group of trained professionals who are mandatory reporters. Nearly 90% of substantiated cases come from reporters came from that core group of trained professionals. So while there is limited (if any) evidence that universal mandatory reporting is beneficial in reducing harm, there is tremendous evidence that mandatory reporting by this core group has been helpful.

It is problematic to assert that expanded or universal mandatory reporting is bad when most of the bad outcomes are caused by a failure to support such a system. Most of the badness of the system described here comes after the mandatory reporting occurs - and is triggered by (as noted) too few resources. This isn't to suggest that the cost-benefit of training everyone is worth it - it is just an observation that the mandated reporter part of this shouldn't be viewed as the reason for the failures created by expanding to universal reporting models.

Sometimes the cure (getting CPS involved) is far better than the disease.

Abuse is always traumatic for kids.

We, as a society, have an obligation to protect those least able to protect themselves. The number of substantiated cases that are identified through mandatory reporters is significant. The loss of identified substantiated cases has to be weighed in an evaluation. Going from smaller groups of professional reporters to universal tends to bear out that the expansion doesn't help. But this shouldn't be used to further arguments about any mandatory reporting at all.

14 hours ago, smac97 said:

I question if there is any evidence that widening mandatory reporting laws has "made children safer."  I have my doubts.

I don't have any doubts. Widening the range of trained professionals has made children safer. Expanding it to a universal mandatory reporting hasn't done much at all to make children safer (beyond that expanded group of professional reporters). I think that it is reasonable to believe that making clergy mandatory reporters (even with the exclusion of certain types of privileged communication) could help make children safer - as long as they participated in the same ways as our professional mandatory reporters do (and were provided the necessary training).

14 hours ago, smac97 said:

Meanwhile, I think that many predators will find out about this new law, tag priests as mandatory reporters, and cease confession of their misconduct.  As it is, clergy are situated to encourage individuals to stop, to turn themselves in as part of the repentance process, etc.  All that will likely go away.

CFR that perpetrators actually confess in any significant quantity. This has regularly been brought up as a concern - except by they clergy themselves. Most clergy who have have spoken out about this will tell you the same thing - abusers are generally very secretive about the abuse and do not confess it. Further, such an approach seems to prioritize the healing of the perpetrator over the healing of the victims. Where in this is our concern for the rule of law, or to see that victims get justice. So how much will really "go away"? Not enough to matter. On top of this, there is a real concern with some abusers that the tendency for abuse is pathological. No matter how far faith can work in terms of helping these individuals, clergymen (especially LDS clergymen) are simply not prepared to help these individuals.

Edit: I wanted to add - I have no problem carving out a confessional exclusion. This would primarily impact Catholics. It wouldn't do as much for Mormonism, where the internal processes of the Church would end up with an excommunication and a larger group of people being aware of the nature of the abuse than just the one person involved in the confession. We do not share a lot with the Catholic confessional.

So ... it's just another rehash of the same discussion.

Edited February 11 by Benjamin McGuire

[Benjamin McGuire]

11 hours ago, webbles said:

So maybe he said something in prison that triggered this new lawsuit?

$25 million dollars is a strong incentive ... this is not about the clergyman, who can't possibly make good on that sort of dollar amount (if he were to lose). It is the LDS Church that has the deep pockets.

[MustardSeed]

15 hours ago, smac97 said:

question if there is any evidence that widening mandatory reporting laws has "made children safer."  I have my doubts.

I can’t speak to these stats because I don’t know anything about that.
What I do know, is that I live in the Pacific Northwest and I can speak anecdotally to the damage that comes from church leaders who don’t “get it”. 
 

Sexual abuse is particularly problematic due to the fact that there is so much resistance to believe such horrible things actually happen. I mean, I think most people understand that it does happen, but when it actually happens, and you are thinking of a person that you care about or are involved with socially and it’s hard to imagine that that person could possibly do something so heinous. So what happens is that there is a lot of guarding, denial, resistance, etc. to facing reality and doing what’s needed to protect people.

Especially when it comes to clergy IME. In our church, the main task of our bishops and s president is to bring people to Christ. That means they’re doing the work of repentance with people constantly. The business of trauma healing? Not in a bishop’s wheelhouse. Not trained for that. Not their job.  

I’ll refer again to my experience as a therapist having wrestled with Bishops who tend to protect the offender. I am going to assume (I acknowledge that I might be wrong, but I certainly hope I’m not ) that Bishops in other states get a little more training or at least there’s understanding that they had better recognize that legal action (reporting) needs to be taken when there is a concern that sexual abuse may likely be happening.

I really wish that when I personally had to report sexual abuse, that the bishop had not gotten angry with me for doing so. He absolutely did not understand my responsibility legally nor morally to put a stop to what was happening. If he had a legal obligation to report as well, we could’ve been on the same page and there may have been a different outcome.

Note, he was angry because he believed that the event had happened “only one time”.  He was leaning into the offender’s  redeem-ability. The level of denial was so high.

 

 

[smac97]

14 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I can’t speak to these stats because I don’t know anything about that.
What I do know, is that I live in the Pacific Northwest and I can speak anecdotally to the damage that comes from church leaders who don’t “get it”. 

Okay.

14 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Sexual abuse is particularly problematic due to the fact that there is so much resistance to believe such horrible things actually happen. I mean, I think most people understand that it does happen, but when it actually happens, and you are thinking of a person that you care about or are involved with socially and it’s hard to imagine that that person could possibly do something so heinous. So what happens is that there is a lot of guarding, denial, resistance, etc. to facing reality and doing what’s needed to protect people.

I can see that.  Another issue, I think, is that the ramifications of a response to abuse allegations are profound no matter which way it goes.  

14 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Especially when it comes to clergy IME. In our church, the main task of our bishops and s president is to bring people to Christ. That means they’re doing the work of repentance with people constantly. The business of trauma healing? Not in a bishop’s wheelhouse. Not trained for that. Not their job.  

Another think that is "{n}ot in a bishop's wheelhouse" is navigating the legal complexities associated with abuse allegations.  Hence the value of the Bishop's Helpline.

14 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I’ll refer again to my experience as a therapist having wrestled with Bishops who tend to protect the offender. I am going to assume (I acknowledge that I might be wrong, but I certainly hope I’m not ) that Bishops in other states get a little more training or at least there’s understanding that they had better recognize that legal action (reporting) needs to be taken when there is a concern that sexual abuse may likely be happening.

Again, the helpline is very useful in this regard.  "{C}oncern that sexual abuse may likely be happening" is a pretty nebulous concept.  

14 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I really wish that when I personally had to report sexual abuse, that the bishop had not gotten angry with me for doing so. He absolutely did not understand my responsibility legally nor morally to put a stop to what was happening. If he had a legal obligation to report as well, we could’ve been on the same page and there may have been a different outcome.

Note, he was angry because he believed that the event had happened “only one time”.  He was leaning into the offender’s  redeem-ability. The level of denial was so high.

I don't know when this happened.  We are not thirty years into the Bishop's Helpline, which is designed to help bishop's respond correctly to allegations of abuse.  And yet many critics - and even many members - seem to think the helpline is a terrible thing.

The bishop should not have gotten angry at you doing your job. 

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Do we really need to rehash all of this again?

Feel free to provide links to where you think this issue has previously been fully hashed out.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I think that expanding mandatory reporting - by simply making everyone mandatory reporters without the necessary (in my opinion) training and support is a problem. "Expanding" in this case means universal mandating laws - it does not refer to adding a specific category of reporting.

I pretty much agree.  My sense, though, is that some jurisdictions are incrementally getting to "universal" mandates.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

At the same time, there are challenges with this article that we have discussed before. We shouldn't mistake the challenges associated with expanded mandatory reporting with having a core group of trained professionals who are mandatory reporters.

I think my commentary about this has been mostly about clergy, who I am not sure ought to be included as part of the cadre of "core group of trained professionals who are mandatory reporters."

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Nearly 90% of substantiated cases come from reporters came from that core group of trained professionals. So while there is limited (if any) evidence that universal mandatory reporting is beneficial in reducing harm, there is tremendous evidence that mandatory reporting by this core group has been helpful.

The issue here is whether clergy should be included in that "core group."  I am on board with that relative to the approach some jurisdictions have taken (which is to essentially narrow the privilege to communications from the perp).

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

It is problematic to assert that expanded or universal mandatory reporting is bad when most of the bad outcomes are caused by a failure to support such a system.

The bullet list I provided (culled from the article) references quite a few "bad outcomes" that come from expanded pools of mandatory reporting.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Most of the badness of the system described here comes after the mandatory reporting occurs - and is triggered by (as noted) too few resources.

More resources would likely be good, but I don't think that will address problems like these:

• There is no indication or competent evidence that expanding mandatory reporting improves detection of abuse, and some evidence that it detracts from such efforts.
• Expanding mandatory reporting is politically easy (what politician or child welfare expert wants to oppose it?), yet there are no "useful indicators of the efficacy of this approach, and no data exist to demonstrate that incremental increases in reporting have contributed to child safety."

If you have provided evidence that "expanding mandatory reporting improves detection of abuse," please provide a link.

• Expanding mandatory reporting by the lay public "is more likely to result in spurious reports."

This will likely happen regardless of whether more "resources" are allocated or not.  

As for an example of "spurious reports," see here:

Quote

When Pennsylvania expanded its mandatory reporting laws in the wake of the Sandusky trial, reports of potential abuse rose a startling 72% over the next five years. As many as nine out of ten of these increased reports were eventually dismissed as unfounded after an investigation was conducted. It appears that the threat of legal action against professionals who fail to report any possible sign of abuse or neglect may have largely resulted in limited resources being utilized for the investigation of cases that largely do not reveal serious abuse or neglect.

Good intentions, bad results.

• Sometimes the cure (getting CPS involved, which can be both heavy-handed and callously indifferent at the same time) can be worse that the disease.
• Inquiries about abuse can themselves be traumatic for kids.

In Utah, "CPS" is DCFS ("Department of Child and Family Services"), which an attorney friend of mine - who had extensive experience with DCFS - had some pretty bleak things to say about how DCFS behaves.  "Heavy-handed" is the mildest thing he had to say (in his black humor moments, he would refer to DCFS as "Destroying Children for Satan").

• Expanding mandatory reporting will almost certainly disproportionately, and adversely, affect lower-income families.
• "Fear of reporting may prevent families from seeking help, whereas assurance of confidentiality has been shown to increase help-seeking behaviors."

Another article: States find a downside to mandatory reporting laws meant to protect children

Quote

More than 60 years ago, policymakers in Colorado embraced the idea that early intervention could prevent child abuse and save lives. The state's requirement that certain professionals tell officials when they suspect a child has been abused or neglected was among the first mandatory reporting laws in the nation.

Since then, mandatory reporting laws have expanded nationally to include more types of maltreatment — including neglect, which now accounts for most reports — and have increased the number of professions required to report. In some states, all adults are required to report what they suspect may be abuse or neglect.

"In some states, all adults are required to report what they suspect may be abuse or neglect."

All adults.  Yeesh.  All adults as de jure agents of the State (under threat of criminal punishment or severe civil penalties if they fail to "report," no less).  All sorts of things can - and do - go wrong with this.

Abuse and neglect.  "Neglect" sure seems fraught with "eye of the beholder" and other problems.

Quote

But now there are efforts in Colorado and other states – including New York and California — to roll back these laws, saying the result has been too many unfounded reports, and that they disproportionately harm families that are poor, Black, or Indigenous, or have members with disabilities.

If expanded mandatory reporting requirements are so good and effective, why are these states rolling them back?

Quote

"There's a long, depressing history based on the approach that our primary response to a struggling family is reporting," says Mical Raz, a physician and historian at the University of Rochester in New York. "There's now a wealth of evidence that demonstrates that more reporting is not associated with better outcomes for children."

"{M}ore reporting is not associated with better outcomes for children."

Quote

Seeking balance

Stephanie Villafuerte, Colorado's child protection ombudsman, oversees a task force to reexamine the state's mandatory reporting laws. She says the group is seeking to balance a need to report legitimate cases of abuse and neglect with a desire to weed out inappropriate reports.

"This is designed to help individuals who are disproportionately impacted," Villafuerte says. "I'm hoping it's the combination of these efforts that could make a difference."

Some critics worry that changes to the law could result in missed cases of abuse. Medical and child care workers on the task force have expressed concern about legal liability. While it's rare for people to be criminally charged for failure to report, they can also face civil liability or professional repercussions, including threats to their licenses.

Being reported to child protective services is becoming increasingly common. More than 1 in 3 children in the United States will be the subject of a child abuse and neglect investigation by the time they turn 18, according to the most frequently cited estimate, a 2017 study funded by the Department of Health and Human Services' Children's Bureau.

Black and Native American families, poor families, and parents or children with disabilities experience even more oversight. Research has found that, among these groups, parents are more likely to lose parental rights and children are more likely to wind up in foster care.

"Black and Native American families, poor families, and parents or children with disabilities ... are more likely to wind up in foster care."

My attorney friend corroborated this assessment.  He said that the issue is as much about socioeconomic status as about race (perhaps even more so).  Simply put, he felt that DCFS is a lot more likely to take kids from poor families than from wealthy ones.

Quote

In an overwhelming majority of investigations, no abuse or neglect is substantiated. Nonetheless, researchers who study how these investigations affect families describe them as terrifying and isolating.

I read these articles and their embedded links, and then I look at your commentary, and I find the former to be more persuasive.

Candidly, I wonder how much of your commentary is based on personal antipathy rather than the subject matter at hand.

Quote

In Colorado, the number of child abuse and neglect reports has increased 42% in the past decade and reached a record 117,762 last year, according to state data. Roughly 100,000 other calls to the hotline weren't counted as reports because they were requests for information or were about matters like child support or adult protection, say officials from the Colorado Department of Human Services.

There seems to be a pretty strong correlation between expanding mandatory reporting laws and substantial increases in reports and, therefore, increased burdens on already limited resources.

Quote

No surge in substantiated cases of abuse

The increase in reports can be traced to a policy of encouraging a broad array of professionals — including school and medical staff, therapists, coaches, clergy members, firefighters, veterinarians, dentists, and social workers — to call a hotline whenever they have a concern.

These calls don't reflect a surge in mistreatment. More than two-thirds of the reports received by agencies in Colorado don't meet the threshold for investigation. Of the children whose cases are assessed, 21% are found to have experienced abuse or neglect. The actual number of substantiated cases has not risen over the past decade.

So . . . a lot more reports, but no corollary increase in detections of abuse.

Quote

While studies do not demonstrate that mandatory reporting laws keep children safe, the Colorado task force reported in January, there is evidence of harm. "Mandatory reporting disproportionately impacts families of color" — initiating contact between child protection services and families who routinely do not present concerns of abuse or neglect, the task force said.

The task force says it is analyzing whether better screening might mitigate "the disproportionate impact of mandatory reporting on under-resourced communities, communities of color and persons with disabilities."

The task force pointed out that the only way to report concerns about a child is with a formal report to a hotline. Yet many of those calls are not to report abuse at all but rather attempts to connect children and families with resources like food or housing assistance.

Hotline callers may mean to help, but the families who are the subjects of mistaken reports of abuse and neglect rarely see it that way.

That includes Meighen Lovelace, a rural Colorado resident who asked KFF Health News not to disclose their hometown for fear of attracting unwanted attention from local officials. For Lovelace's daughter, who is neurodivergent and has physical disabilities, the reports started when she entered preschool at age 4 in 2015. The teachers and medical providers making the reports frequently suggested that the county human services agency could assist Lovelace's family. But the investigations that followed were invasive and traumatic.

"Our biggest looming fear is, 'Are you going to take our children away?'" says Lovelace, who is an advocate for the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, an organization that lobbies for the civil rights of people with disabilities. "We're afraid to ask for help. It's keeping us from entering services because of the fear of child welfare."

State and county human services officials said they could not comment on specific cases.

Troubling stuff, this.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This isn't to suggest that the cost-benefit of training everyone is worth it - it is just an observation that the mandated reporter part of this shouldn't be viewed as the reason for the failures created by expanding to universal reporting models.

The above article lays out a number of troubling downsides to expanding mandatory reporting laws.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I don't have any doubts. Widening the range of trained professionals has made children safer. Expanding it to a universal mandatory reporting hasn't done much at all to make children safer (beyond that expanded group of professional reporters). I think that it is reasonable to believe that making clergy mandatory reporters (even with the exclusion of certain types of privileged communication) could help make children safer - as long as they participated in the same ways as our professional mandatory reporters do (and were provided the necessary training).

I question the reasonableness of this proposal re: clergy.  And then there are the First Amendment issues, at least for our Catholic friends. 

I'm not sure the Church takes a hard doctrinal stance clergy privilege issues. 

In 2020, the Deseret News published this editorial:

In our opinion: Eliminating clergy-penitent privilege raises First Amendment red flags

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

CFR that perpetrators actually confess in any significant quantity.

Are you really asking for "references" as to statistical data re: confessions to clergy?  How would you propose such data be collected?

There's this little piece (re: JWs in Australia) :

Quote

In July and August 2015, the royal commission examined the handling of child sexual abuse cases by Jehovah's Witnesses in Australia. Their "case studies showed that it was a common practice of religious institutions to adopt 'in-house' responses when dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse."^[189] The court questioned Geoffrey Jackson, a member of the Governing Body.^[190]

The hearing was told that in response to a summons issued by the commission, the Watch Tower Society had produced 5,000 documents relating to 1,006 case files of allegations of child sexual abuse reported to Jehovah's Witness elders in Australia since 1950—each file for a different alleged perpetrator of child sexual abuse, including 579 cases in which the perpetrator confessed.

In this instance, it looks like 58% of the files involved confessions to clergy.  Hard to extrapolate that out to other religions, other areas, other circumstances, etc., though.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This has regularly been brought up as a concern - except by they clergy themselves. Most clergy who have have spoken out about this will tell you the same thing - abusers are generally very secretive about the abuse and do not confess it.

And some abusers do confess.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Further, such an approach seems to prioritize the healing of the perpetrator over the healing of the victims.

I don't think so.  If clergy become mandatory reporters, those who are inclined toward confessing will be markedly less inclined to do so, thus reducing the capacity of clergy to become aware of abuse and do something about it.

This is not a contest between the welfare of the perp versus that of victims.  You know which category of people are likely to get tons of confessions of abuse?  Lawyers.  And yet does anyone claim that the attorney-client privilege "prioritize{s} the healing of the perpetrator over the healing of the victims."  Why?  Because we as a society recognize that there are times when a bad guy needs to be able to confide in someone.  

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Where in this is our concern for the rule of law, or to see that victims get justice. So how much will really "go away"? Not enough to matter. On top of this, there is a real concern with some abusers that the tendency for abuse is pathological. No matter how far faith can work in terms of helping these individuals, clergymen (especially LDS clergymen) are simply not prepared to help these individuals.

No argument there.  But that has little to do with the making clergy de jure agents of the State.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Edit: I wanted to add - I have no problem carving out a confessional exclusion. This would primarily impact Catholics.  It wouldn't do as much for Mormonism, where the internal processes of the Church would end up with an excommunication and a larger group of people being aware of the nature of the abuse than just the one person involved in the confession. We do not share a lot with the Catholic confessional.

I agree.  They are situated fairly differently from us re: clergy and doctrinal concerns.

Thanks,

-Smac

[MustardSeed]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

{C}oncern that sexual abuse may likely be happening" is a pretty nebulous concept. 

Indeed. I’ve been at my job for 20 years and I still cringe at the idea of having to report every time it comes up. I have to weigh in my mind all the possibilities if I’m right or if I’m wrong. I have to err on the side of caution but it’s always always always scary to report.  
Now I put myself in a bishop’s shoes who has never been trained and didn’t take the six month course that I took with somebody drilling into my brain that no matter how much my denial kicks in, I have to protect.  I’m glad I got that training. I have never in the end, regretted making that call. 
 

Our clergy simply is not trained enough to handle the emotional difficulties of being in that position. Add to that being on a list of very few states who don’t require reporting and a likelihood that a bishop is ever going to report in my opinion is lower than where reporting is required.  IMO. 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

The bishop should not have gotten angry at you doing your job. 

Thank you that is very validating for me. Even though I don’t question. Even though I had a spiritual experience telling me to let go of my negative feelings towards the man. It still feels good to hear somebody say that.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Further, such an approach seems to prioritize the healing of the perpetrator over the healing of the victims.

I have seen protecting the confession as expressed as concern for identifying where the danger is and possibly finding victims that wouldn’t come forward themselves to help them because predators are more likely to confess.  

Given abused children often don’t want parents taken away or being taken away themselves, mandatory reporting could lower kids sharing that info as well.  Is there research on rates of children sharing when mandatory reporting is required?  I can see an abuser using that as a threat to keep the kid quiet.

I see a major problem being the fact abusers tend to downplay the abuse significantly even when voluntarily confessing (so they count as confessing on the stats perhaps, but still hide the level of abuse).  Has there been research that shows confession actually results in lowering likelihood of future abuse and raising levels of help getting to victims as opposed to perhaps giving abusers guilt relief for their actions without corresponding positive changes and protections for children?

I have rarely (not sure I ever had actually) seen any stories about confessing abusers that got victims help where no one else was doing anything though.  Seems like there would be quite a few out there if confession was effective this way overtime given this approach of predator confessing being protected from reporting has been used for much longer than even a century.  Though perhaps this is respect for the privacy of all concerned.  No drive to go public when the system works.  Ben’s comment you don’t hear this from clergy—the ones who would know the best it seems to me—is very concerning to me.

I have also heard significant stories of bishops and others blowing off concerns of boundary crossing of confessed and unconfessed predators as simple social awkwardness and women being told they needed to be more Christian and forgive a fellow member rather than draw boundaries such as refusing to allow a known predator to hang out around kids, talk to or touch their children or themselves or even just expressing concerns about known predators  being given callings that require contact or gives excuses to have personal contact, implying they are safe to interact with, etc especially if there has been significant time since an arrest, exposure of crime, etc.  And yet if someone’s embezzled money, the Church will never again let them handle it and this is viewed as being wise, avoiding temptation, etc.  Again this imbalance in stories of failure to protect vs stories of effective response to expressed concerns may be a result of the lack of publicity when the system works.

I wonder how we can determine how much of the expressed concern for potential victims used to justify keeping the confession confidential ends up being more lip service than a call for action and how much protection keeping the confessional private provides kids and adults actual protection from predators.

Edited February 11 by Calm

[Benjamin McGuire]

26 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think my commentary about this has been mostly about clergy, who I am not sure ought to be included as part of the cadre of "core group of trained professionals who are mandatory reporters."

The article you provided and the summary list from it had nothing to do with just clergy. The challenge is that if we are going to discuss the value (or lack of value) of clergy as mandatory reporters, then the larger issues of universal mandatory reporting isn't particularly relevant, is it.

27 minutes ago, smac97 said:

The bullet list I provided (culled from the article) references quite a few "bad outcomes" that come from expanded pools of mandatory reporting.

This statement (and the article that you link to) is misleading when you use it in this way (I am not suggesting that this is deliberate on your part). The article calls it expanded, but there isn't anything in the article to provide a clear data set of what that means. Virtually all comparisons that try to show how expanded mandatory reporting compares deal with the comparison between states that have universal mandatory reporting and states that don't. There are some decent studies out there (and we have discussed some of them in the past couple of years) that deal with these issues. The article you provide gives no data to back this up. I'm not questioning it on that ground - because much of this is fairly widely recognized. But the article does point to a specific problem:

Quote

Actively increasing the number of reports from nonspecialized individuals may cause harm in a number of ways.

Generally speaking, clergymen with some training won't necessarily cause this significant harm - and just as importantly - are in a position where they interact regularly with potential victims in a context of trust. So to include this article as an argument against using clergy as mandatory reporting is problematic in my opinion.

42 minutes ago, smac97 said:

There is no indication or competent evidence that expanding mandatory reporting improves detection of abuse, and some evidence that it detracts from such efforts.

This is a red herring argument. Why? Because, again, the evidence against mandatory reporting involves the question of this universal mandation. There isn't enough granular evidence for you to make the case that clergy in general are only as good (and not better) than the average person in that universal mandatory reporting model. Clergy (outside of an LDS context) generally have some of the specialized training that make others useful mandatory reporters. They also fit certain roles in their communities that make them useful as mandatory reporters. And, just as importantly, there is a history of enablement among clergymen, which when combined with their authoritative roles in their communities, has created problems that are directly related to histories of abuse. And this is a real issue that contributes to the public's willingness to make clergymen mandatory reporters. It is part of the reason why mandatory reporting for clergy (often with exemptions for the confessional or something similar) in a majority of US states. There is no evidence that specifically making clergymen mandatory reporters detracts from efforts to detect abuse. This is why this particular sort of argument that you are making feels like a switch. You are arguing about one very broad thing, but substituting it for something very narrow.

53 minutes ago, smac97 said:

If you have provided evidence that "expanding mandatory reporting improves detection of abuse," please provide a link.

If you have evidence that shows that making clergymen mandatory reporters results in negative consequences, please provide it.

53 minutes ago, smac97 said:

The bullet list I provided (culled from the article) references quite a few "bad outcomes" that come from expanded pools of mandatory reporting.

No. The bullet list you provide is from bad outcomes that comes from making mandatory reporting universal. There is a difference because of what you are trying to imply - that this expansion is equal in some way to making clergy mandatory reporters. It is not.

55 minutes ago, smac97 said:

This will likely happen regardless of whether more "resources" are allocated or not.  

I think that this is not true. The article that you link to indicates and awareness of my position:

Quote

Most saliently, mechanisms to increase reporting do not necessarily include increased funding or additional personnel dedicated to children’s services.

Again -

57 minutes ago, smac97 said:

If expanded mandatory reporting requirements are so good and effective, why are these states rolling them back?

What we aren't seeing is states rolling back the addition of clergyman as mandatory reporters. We are seeing attempts to roll back the expansion of mandatory reporters that makes all people mandatory reporters. It is this specific expansion for which we have real data. To suggest that we should see the addition of clergy as mandatory reporters as being equivalent to seeing universal mandatory reporting is a fallacy.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I'm not sure the Church takes a hard doctrinal stance clergy privilege issues. 

The LDS Church has a problem here because of the internal system that the Church has that fails to align itself with traditional views of privilege. It is easy to discuss privilege in the context of Catholicism, where what is said in the confessional never goes anywhere. It is more difficult to see it in the context of Mormonism, when permanent membership records are annotated, and those annotations can be viewed by a significant number of members of the LDS Church - who were not present for the confessional, and who certainly could not be anticipated by the confessor (in a sense, the temporary nature of Church leadership contributes to this problem). Then we have the issue of Church courts, where evidence is presented - some of it privileged, and so on. So, the LDS Church cannot take a hard doctrinal stance on the issue without some self-critical reflections of its own process.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Are you really asking for "references" as to statistical data re: confessions to clergy?  How would you propose such data be collected?

This is my point exactly. Yet, you are making claims here about how the addition of clergy as mandatory reporters is somehow likely to do more harm than good ...

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I don't think so.  If clergy become mandatory reporters, those who are inclined toward confessing will be markedly less inclined to do so, thus reducing the capacity of clergy to become aware of abuse and do something about it.

It's not an "if" - most clergy in the US are already mandatory reporters (there are exclusions carved out). And realistically, I am completely fine with this - because in the context of this discussion, your take on this privileges abusers and not victims.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

This is not a contest between the welfare of the perp versus that of victims.  You know which category of people are likely to get tons of confessions of abuse?  Lawyers.  And yet does anyone claim that the attorney-client privilege "prioritize{s} the healing of the perpetrator over the healing of the victims."  Why?  Because we as a society recognize that there are times when a bad guy needs to be able to confide in someone.  

There is a difference. I am certainly willing to exclude (as I noted) the confessional. But the relationship between a lawyer and the accused is governed by our legal system. Do we really want that level of invasion into the religious sphere? And in religion, where morality is at the center, do we (Catholics excluded) believe that this need for the bad guy to have a confidant outweighs the need to protect the innocent? I don't think so.

[Teancum]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

I don't know when this happened.  We are not thirty years into the Bishop's Helpline, which is designed to help bishop's respond correctly to allegations of abuse.  And yet many critics - and even many members - seem to think the helpline is a terrible thing.

Beyond the helpline what training to bishops now receive in order to be more able to assist with sexual abuse of minors?  What training do they have regarding one who confesses such abuse?  What training do they have to give council to the one who was abused? And to council the abuser. Because when I was bishop we got exactly 0 training in these areas other than I knew there was a hotline number. I called it once. They only gave me council on the legal issues in my state, told me to not meet further with the abuser as I guess in NY I could have been called to be a witness for a prosecution. That is it.  When you were a bishop did you get training on this?  Did you even call the helpline?

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Beyond the helpline what training to bishops now receive in order to be more able to assist with sexual abuse of minors? 

I don't know.  I haven't been a bishop for quite a while.

I think most of the training likely consists of normative pastoral care (bishops aren't really equipped to provide counseling about sexual abuse), financial assistance, and the Helpline will provide guidance as to the availability of Church resources and addressing legal issues.

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

What training do they have regarding one who confesses such abuse? 

I suspect not much, except perhaps something along the lines of "Maintain confidentiality until you call the Helpline, then follow their instructions."  

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

What training do they have to give council to the one who was abused?

Specific training?  Very little.  Hence the wisdom of referring the individual out to professional assistance (and, if necessary, financial assistance).

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

And to council the abuser.

Again, this is why the Helpline is so useful.

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Because when I was bishop we got exactly 0 training in these areas other than I knew there was a hotline number.

I received some training materials, but I can't recall the particulars.  That said, I did not run into any problems.  I had several encounters with abuse allegations.  I provided what pastoral care I could, referred victims out to professional counseling (and provided financial assistance as necessary), and called the Hotline and followed instructions as to the particulars of to-report-or-not-to-report.  When reporting was required, the Hotline actually did it for me.  

I had one instance that was a bit thorny, but with my own reckoning, and help from the Helpline and the Stake President, we got through it.

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

I called it once. They only gave me council on the legal issues in my state, told me to not meet further with the abuser as I guess in NY I could have been called to be a witness for a prosecution. That is it.  When you were a bishop did you get training on this?  Did you even call the helpline?

Yes, several times.  I found it quite useful.

Thanks,

-Smac

[MustardSeed]

As a therapist, I have been through hours and hours (not to mention months during school) of training to be able to do the work of healing with survivors and offenders.  In fact when I was living in Salt Lake City, I worked at a halfway program for prisoners finishing their sentence for SA. I still after all of my training feel sometimes like I don’t know enough to address the situation sitting in front of me.

A helpline for an untrained person is woefully inadequate. IMO. I would like to think that every last one  of these cases are referred out for professional care, including perpetrator, including family, including victim. 

Edited February 12 by MustardSeed

[Teancum]

59 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't know.  I haven't been a bishop for quite a while.

I think most of the training likely consists of normative pastoral care (bishops aren't really equipped to provide counseling about sexual abuse), financial assistance, and the Helpline will provide guidance as to the availability of Church resources and addressing legal issues.

I suspect not much, except perhaps something along the lines of "Maintain confidentiality until you call the Helpline, then follow their instructions."  

Specific training?  Very little.  Hence the wisdom of referring the individual out to professional assistance (and, if necessary, financial assistance).

Again, this is why the Helpline is so useful.

I received some training materials, but I can't recall the particulars.  That said, I did not run into any problems.  I had several encounters with abuse allegations.  I provided what pastoral care I could, referred victims out to professional counseling (and provided financial assistance as necessary), and called the Hotline and followed instructions as to the particulars of to-report-or-not-to-report.  When reporting was required, the Hotline actually did it for me.  

I had one instance that was a bit thorny, but with my own reckoning, and help from the Helpline and the Stake President, we got through it.

Yes, several times.  I found it quite useful.

Thanks,

-Smac

And you wonder why the church gets law suits?  If more training is not provided in 2024 perhaps the lawsuits are valid. I would have thought you might be aware of whether or not more training is provided in this area since it seems to be  rearing its ugly head more and more and you are active in the Church. 

[smac97]

1 minute ago, Teancum said:

And you wonder why the church gets law suits? 

No, I have a pretty good idea why the Church gets sued.  I go out of my way to keep tabs on such lawsuits.  Some are reasonably and justified, some are markedly less so.

1 minute ago, Teancum said:

If more training is not provided in 2024 perhaps the lawsuits are valid.

I did not say that "more training in not provided."  I said I don't know.  I haven't been a bishop for quite a while.

The training I received (2013-2018) seemed pretty good.  Between it and the Hotline, and the Stake President, and my own noggin, it seems like we did all right.

1 minute ago, Teancum said:

I would have thought you might be aware of whether or not more training is provided in this area since it seems to be  rearing its ugly head more and more and you are active in the Church. 

Yes, I'm active, but I'm not a bishop.

Moreover, the lawsuit in this thread is about conduct that happened some years ago.

I see no evidence that the Church has been lax in this area, and plenty of indications that it has been doing a pretty good job.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Teancum]

13 hours ago, smac97 said:

Yes, I'm active, but I'm not a bishop.

Moreover, the lawsuit in this thread is about conduct that happened some years ago.

I see no evidence that the Church has been lax in this area, and plenty of indications that it has been doing a pretty good job.

I do not think what you describe as training is sufficient at all. And what evidence do you se that the church is doing a pretty good job when it comes to the sexual abuse of minors?

[Pyreaux]

14 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Beyond the helpline what training to bishops now receive in order to be more able to assist with sexual abuse of minors?  What training do they have regarding one who confesses such abuse?  What training do they have to give council to the one who was abused? And to council the abuser. Because when I was bishop we got exactly 0 training in these areas other than I knew there was a hotline number. I called it once. They only gave me council on the legal issues in my state, told me to not meet further with the abuser as I guess in NY I could have been called to be a witness for a prosecution. That is it.  When you were a bishop did you get training on this?  Did you even call the helpline?

I never was a Bishop, but a little experience with Mental Health Care professionals and therapy groups, I remember that if someone is about to confess to a crime, like if a conversation goes into a certain direction, they will often forewarn the person that they are required to report crimes. Like if they start to use names. That way they can proceed to council the person and avoid informing the law.

They favor confidentiality and protecting their clients, though as they might rather say, it's a cornerstone of effective therapy because it helps build trust. If the confession includes details like names or that a crime happened or there is a risk of future harm, the therapist may be legally obligated to take steps, even if that means breaking confidentiality. However, even if a client simply confesses to a past crime without indicating any imminent threat to anyone, a therapist usually maintains confidentiality. I wonder if Bishops will get training like this as Mental Health Care people do.