I am working on a post about what the current gold standard is for prevention and mitigation of sexual abuse.
Until then, I’m sharing some information on mandatory reporting.
Typically, a mandatory reporting law will also have a clause and explanatory text that states:
“The duties of mandated reporters are individual and no supervisor or administrator shall impede or inhibit the reporting duties, and no person making the report shall be subject to any sanction for making the report.”
Generally, if there is someone who has impeded or inhibited reporting they should be reported to the police for inhibiting the reporting.
With children, abuse includes:
Sexual exploitation of a minor
Invasion of privacyThat can mean asking inappropriate sexually charged questions of a minor.
If there was more reporting of inappropriate communication and more reporting every time someone was threatened and told not to report (especially since that sometimes happens in writing), you would get a lot less sexual exploitation by inappropriate verbal contacts and a great deal fewer threats.
I don’t understand why there is not more of a focus on educating people about the law. Though I had a friend who taught others about reporting (with the tag line “you will report or I will see you in jail”) and he is now stake president Mark Romney in the Dallas area.
So there is that potential downside.
I’ll eventually get my “gold standard” essay finished.
Until then I just have questions.
- What do you think?
- How would you educate members about reporting abuse —mandatory and otherwise?
- What have your experiences been?
- How well do you think most people understand mandatory reporting laws?
Wheat & Tares 
Stephen, my experience in leadership with mandatory reporting within the Church has thankfully only been theoretical, but I do recall a stake training meeting where the issue of sexual abuse of children was raised and the vast majority of bishopric members across the stake didn’t realize that they were mandatory reporters in our U.S. state. I also mentioned that if we really wanted to focus on prevention of child abuse, we would do well to pay special attention (including Youth and Primary leaders) to blended families in our respective wards. A member of the stake presidency asked what I meant and I explained that in my experience as a prosecutor, (which included not only the cases I prosecuted but also reading and citing to a large number of appellate decisions on sexual assault cases) an outsized number of child cases involved stepfathers and stepchildren (more often stepdaughters but certainly not exclusively so). The presidency member replied that that seemed hard to believe (I’m not sure if he thought I was lying or merely misinformed), but luckily another member of the high council who had been a prosecutor once upon a time piped up and backed up my experience.
I share this not because of some animus against blended families (far from it and let me emphasize that the likelihood of such occurrences in absolute numbers is extremely low), but as evidence that many local leaders have zero clue about this issue and that their instincts about sexual assault are going to be wrong for more often than they are right.
I was also asked to do a presentation to the youth of our ward on sexual assault, and I included a slide with pictures of various Church leaders (mainly local) who had been prosecuted (and excommunicated) for sexual assault. The point was that being a member of the Church and being ordained to priesthood office are no guarantee that a given individual is not predator. The leaders and parents in the room about fell out of their seats when I related the story of George P. Lee.
Child abuse, whether it be physical or sexual, is one of the twin relics of barbarism that must be abolished in every civilized society. All must perform their legal and moral duty to report such abuse.
Everyone will claim that the protection of a child from abuse should be our #1 objective when discussing this topic. But we all know that the protection of the institution (i.e., the “Church” and / or the Priesthood holder”) is also an important objective to some people. Too important for some. For me the bottom line is that the COJCOLDS is a large corporation that happens to be in the religion business. And it should be treated like any other business. So should its members. If I had a colleague who was in a leadership position at IBM and who was abusing a child, I would not hesitate to report him in order to protect IBM or his position in the company. Same goes for Church members / leaders.
I am personally aware of too many instances of abuse cases among Church members in which local Church leaders dismissed, downplayed, covered up or otherwise failed to act, and a few rare cases in which the leaders themselves were the abusers (supposedly called by God). Because of this, I no longer believe in the “power of discernment” at all, especially the idea that those with priesthood keys are entitled to enhanced levels of the supposed power. Any training of bishops and SPs about recognizing abuse needs to start there–that God is not going to whisper in your ear whether little Jimmy is being abused by his uncle, but there are other, more reliable indicators that a leader needs to be watching out for. Additionally, they need to be taught that revelation is no substitute for background checks when extending callings. When an incident occurs, protecting victims should be the first priority, followed by bringing the abuser to justice. Defer to the judgment of, and fully cooperate with law enforcement authorities, social workers, professional counselors, etc. and don’t interfere or undermine their work in any way. Protecting the Church should not factor into the bishop’s or SP’s decision-making process at all.
I would also remind bishops and SPs that they are all expendable and replaceable, and the Church will not hesitate to throw any of them under the bus the protect the institution’s good name.
Child abuse of all types should be reported so it can be stopped. Or at least be stopped from being committed by repeat abusers.
Although many states exempt religious leaders from reporting in some circumstances, that should not be. For a good analysis of why it shouldn’t be, see
https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2020/05/13/when_should_clergy_report_child_abuse_491322.html
My experience includes, as one example, a RS leader who believed a teenage girl was being abused by her father, & that the girl had told her so more than once. I asked if she was aware of the law requiring individuals to report suspicions to the police. She said she reported it every time – to the bishop. The bishop said he asked the father point-blank about abuse, & the man denied it. The bishop said he couldn’t report a he said/she said situation to the police. I was disgusted.
No names were mentioned in my conversation, but I told the RS leader that knowing all this, if any minor approached me about any abuse, I would report that directly to the police, as the law required.
Back when Sam Young’s Protect the Children movement was in full swing, I wrote a guest post about controls. I spent a lot of time back then thinking through what a strong control program would look like. Training is definitely one layer of an effective protection program for safeguarding our most vulnerable, especially children.
I recommend three tiers of training:
1.) a basic (20 minute) video all members should be asked to take
2.) an asynchronous, interactive online learning course with a proficiency test at the end that all leadership and teachers are required to take BEFORE they can act in their calling
3.) a virtual, but synchronous instructor-led training course required of every leader who will conduct one-on-one interviews with minors BEFORE they can act in their calling. I recommend this course be spread out over several days with homework assigned between sessions. Leaders should be compensated for their time in this training session to encourage them to take it seriously
I have a lot of thoughts too about the content of these trainings and the other layers of an effective control program if you’re curious 😉
In my experience, information about mandatory reporter status is only available to bishops and stake presidents after they call the helpline. Previously, the church did not have any mandatory training that told bishops and stake presidents about the helpline, so not only did most not know whether or not they were mandatory reporters but some also did not know about the helpline and so proceeded to handle abuse cases with disregard for the law.
To more directly, answer your question Steven, the only place I know where the church’s motive was addressed was in an Infants on Thrones podcast where Matt Long who was a prosecutor in Arizona, related that he asked a Kirton and McConkie attorney why the church did not train their leaders. It was one of those cases where a bishop did not report. The reported answer of the attorney was that not training gave the church more control over what bishops did. Apparently if people were informed of the law, they may choose to act independently without supervision by helpline attorneys, which if done improperly could increase legal risk to the church.
The fact that members are trying to groupsource some information about the policy and why it exists is a demonstration that the church model of its relationship to its members is deeply disfunctional, which is to be expected because it is an authoritarian system. Members don’t have any say in the policies that affect their children’s safety! That can only happen in undemocratic institutions. Without democratic representation, the interests of parents can’t possibly be integrated into the details of abuse policies. When we participate in an authoritarian system, we collude with the creators of sub-par policies that have permitted many preventable cases of abuse to occur.
The reason people created blogs, etc. is to have the kinds of discussions that are not permitted in the organization. Russell Nelson has dissed the bloggernacle. The discussions here are not approved of, since we should all be quiet, especially if we know of cases where the policy has tragically failed.In a healthy organization, it would be possible to have extended public dialog with representatives of the organization and we would know how individual apostles and FP members said about different policy proposals. Then there would be a vote by members to choose one of several abuse policy options.
In Australia the was a Royal Commision into “Institutional responses to child sexual abuse” its report included 409 recommendations and was tabled in the parliament in 2017.
https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/child-abuse Our church only gets a small mention.
Sexual abuse generally has been on the agenda here. The present Australian of the Year Grace Tame https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/who-will-be-crowned-aussie-of-the-year/news-story/40e47027ef5b15787d5121f82cf19518 was groomed and raped by her maths teacher when she was 15. In her state there was a law that victims of sexual assault could not be named, even by themselves. She got her abuser convicted, and the law changed, because it was also protecting perpetrators.
With Grace being in the public view other women have been coming forward including a young woman who was a political staffer raped by another political staffer just before the last election, in the office of her minister. The response by her conservative political party was to keep it quiet until after the election and then forget it. The rapist has now been charged. There have been some very awkward moments for the PM.
There have also been allergations that a minister raped a young woman when a teenager, which he denies, and says it should be a police matter. Evidence is a problem. Very few women report rape, and a small proportion of these result in convictions. Witnesses?
There have been womens marches demanding justice for women. The PM and his minister for women refused to meet with them.
The covid has displaced the abuse of women off the front page for the moment.
One of the points being made is that if power is equal abuse will be reduced.
The covid has reduced extra marital relations by 40%
Abuse of women in Afghanistan is reported to be over 80%
There are people who believe a man is justified in beating his wife if she; argues, refuses sex, goes out without telling him etc. Hopefully mostly third world?
Sexual Assault Statistics In Australia
1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted or threatened since the age of 15.
1 in 2 women aged 15 and over have experienced sexual harassment since the age of 15.
1 in 20 men have been sexually assaulted or threatened since the age of 15.
1 in 4 men aged 18 and over have experienced sexual harassment since the age of 15.
98% of women who have been sexually assaulted said that the perpetrator was a male.
I would be surprised if America was better.
There has also been a TV programme where the treatment of women in parliament was discussed and female MP interviewed. Julie Bishop who was minister for foreign affairs and deputy party leader of our conservative party, said there were a group of male MPs who were making sure she got no more power, she said the group called themselves the big swinging dicks. A youngish female senator, had a group of conservative male senators, who would call out sexual abuse whenever she rose to speak, including the names of men they claimed she had had sex with. She has successfully sued one for slander.
I think the treatment of women could be a big issue at the next election. The climate has changed. The conservative party has 20% women MPs, the Labor party 50/50.
If the climate has changed on equality for women, the church will be even more isolated. The conservative party here supports gay marriage, abortion on demand, universal healthcare, etc.
MTodd. I’d love to see your proposed training now.
I’m not in a calling that requires it, but is the Church still pushing the online child abuse training that it rolled out around 2018 or 2019?
There is mandatory training which I think has to be completed every three years. It is linked into church records so if someone in a relevant calling has yet to complete it or repeat it that gets flagged up.
JCS it appears you quoting the 1856 Republican Platform is you coming out of the closet as against historical LDS polygamy?
With children, abuse includes:
Sexual exploitation of a minor
Invasion of privacy
That can mean asking inappropriate sexually charged questions of a minor.
Question: Is this always the case, or does it depend on laws in specific states?
PWS—The way the laws are applied varies from place to place. But “inappropriate” sexual speech with a minor comes under the definition in every jurisdiction.
My work in child mental health has led me to this conclusion: When in doubt, report. And don’t pry or try to do your own investigation—just call your local child services agency or police non-emergency (unless there’s a real emergency). It’s even okay to tell the person who answers that you’re not sure what to do or what counts as abuse. They’ll ask for some details and then they’ll decide what to do about it, as they’re trained to do. Unless you’re a police officer assigned to a unit that investigates these cases, all you have to do is call and report what you saw or heard. Their job is to investigate and prosecute as appropriate.