The Maryland Senate tentatively approved a bill setting criminal penalties for teachers, health professionals and others who fail to report child abuse or neglect. The senators rejected objections that the bill would make criminals out of people who failed to recognize when abusewas occurring.
“There are a lot incidents that have been unreported,” said Sen. Brian Frosh, chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee. “We have mandatory reporters who are not telling social services [about abuse], and kids are getting killed. Whatever sanctions we have in current law are not being used.”
Maryland law requires teachers, health care professionals, social workers and police to report suspected abuse, but there is no penalty for not reporting suspected abuse, other than disciplinary action by professional certification or licensing boards. The bill (SB243) would make such failure a misdemeanor subject to a fine of up to $1,000.
The bill also adds coroners, medical examiners, parole and probation agents and computer technicians as professionals who must report child abuse.
Frosh points out that 39 states make failure to report abuse a criminal offense.
“This is not a knowing violation,” said Sen. Bobby Zirkin, a Baltimore County Democrat, who sought to take the criminal penalties out of the bill. “They may be negligent, but they?re not criminals.”
Zirkin said the legislation would encourage those mandated “to report everything, otherwise you could be a criminal.”
“This is a huge step,” Zirkin said. He noted that the Senate had rejected similar measures in previous years.
Sen. Lowell Stoltzfus, R-Lower Shore, said the bill “makes a criminal out of a teacher,” and teachers already have a difficult job. “These teachers will feel tremendous pressure” to report “every little thing,” Stoltzfus said.
Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat, said the intent was to encourage the professionals to go to the trouble of reporting suspected abuse, not to try to prosecute them.
Zirkin?s amendment “guts the bill,” Frosh said. The Senate rejected the change, 39-8, with several additional Republicans opposing the bill. A final vote on the bill is expected in a few days.
