Child Safety Requires More than Strict Mandated Reporter Laws

Experts attribute a spike in child abuse cases in Pennsylvania in part to expanded mandated reporter laws without any expansion in resources. The legislature in 2013 responded to the Jerry Sandusky scandal by radically expanding mandated reporter responsibilities in the state. The legislators, however, stopped at that feel-good move and never did the hard work of funding the agency that receives all of the reports. The result is that a lot of reports simply fall through the cracks.

A report from a year-long study of the state's child protection system also found “vast inconsistencies in how such reports are handled from one county to the next, leading to a lack of reliable data and questions about how individuals are relegated to the child abuse registry.” The report called for better standards for gathering and reporting data, and a pilot program to connect front-line workers to specialized resources for vulnerable children.

Once again, a review of actual evidence tends to show that simply broader or more strict mandated reporter laws do nothing by themselves to protect children. They have to be part of a comprehensive, and often expensive, set of services in order to truly be effective.

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