Jindal enhances state’s child abuse reporting laws

It’s not always action that prompts punishment, as evidenced by reactions to allegations of child sexual abuse at Penn State University.

One of the reactions is that inaction, to a certain extent, will be illegal in Louisiana.

Alleged inaction cost a prestigious football coach his job and provoked death threats for an assistant coach at Penn State after the coaches allegedly failed to blow the whistle in front of the right authority upon learning of a colleague’s sexual abuse of children.

Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator at Penn State, was arrested Nov. 5 and charged with seven counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse after he allegedly molested and raped young boys.

In 2002, then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary allegedly caught Sandusky in the act of raping a pre-teen boy. McQueary informed head coach Joe Paterno, who made the allegations known to the school’s athletic director.

Because nobody went to the police, Sandusky was not arrested until nine years after the incident McQueary testified to witnessing. No charges have been filed against Paterno or McQueary, but both were the subject of public scorn.

In the wake of the scandal, a portion of the public has said the reporting omissions, and the systematic issues they represent, are as heinous as the crimes themselves because they provided an avenue for the sexual assaults to continue.

Louisiana’s governor recently defined similar crime-reporting omissions as criminal malfeasance.

Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an executive order one week ago that requires all employees and coaches of a Louisiana public institution of higher learning to report any incident of witnessed child abuse or neglect to law enforcement and a local unit of the Department of Children and Family Services.

The crime must be reported within 24 hours.

“The health, safety and best interests of our children is of paramount concern for all Louisianians and it is appropriate and necessary that the State do everything within its means to ensure that suspected cases of abuse and neglect of our children are reported to the proper authorities,” Jindal wrote.

Louisiana’s Children’s Code mandates health practitioners, members of the clergy, mental health and social service practitioners, teachers and child care providers, police officers and law enforcement officials, commercial film and photographic print processors, mediators, parenting coordinators and Court Appointed Special Advocates to report child abuse and neglect, according to DCFS.

“The role of mandated reporters is an essential and integral part of the entire community effort and responsibility to protect children who are at risk of child abuse or neglect,” DCFS Secretary Ruth Johnson said in a press release.

Intentional inaction from mandated reporters could result in a fine up to $500 and up to six months in jail. A reporter is not liable for legal proceedings and his or her identity is protected, the DCFS said.

Although the state’s current reporting laws do not mandate that university professors, administrators, coaches or staffers come forward in cases of child abuse or neglect, the executive order’s change will have little bearing on Nicholls State University, according to Executive Vice President Larry Howell.

The policy, he said, is already in place through a federal mandate.

All public institutions that receive federal funding are required to report to the public all crimes, including those of child abuse, as per the Clery Act.

Enacted in 1990, the Clery Act requires universities to maintain an annual security report that is sent to current and prospective students, as well as a 60-day history of reported crimes that is available for public viewing.

Nicholls employees have been and will be expected to report all crimes to law enforcement, Howell said.

“If I find somebody that stole a computer, I don’t tell my boss and not tell campus security,” Howell said. “It relates to everything, and child sexual abuse would be a lot more critical that law enforcement knew, more so than a stolen computer.”

However, Howell did say the incident at Penn State increases the university’s awareness that “there is still evil in the world.”

“I think a lot of people said, ‘Let’s do something,'” he said. “If you’ve got the policies in place, it should have already been done. You may just have to refocus your awareness.”