UNITED STATES
FindLaw
By MARCI HAMILTON
hamilton02@aol.com
Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005
Towns in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and elsewhere are currently considering whether to create what I will call "Pedophile-free Zones." The usual gambit is to prevent convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 or even 2,500 feet of a school, playground, or other area where children might be.
The lawmakers' motives are pure, but this approach will not work. Indeed, it would create the dangerous illusion of safety, while leaving our children right where they are now - at an unacceptable level of risk. Fortunately, however, there are other, far more effective means of protecting our children. ...
There are ten legal reforms that need to be put into place if we are to ensure that children will be safer tomorrow than they are today, and they have nothing to do with zoning. They are as follows:
1. The law should require that professionals with access to children turn abusers in. We must make all professionals (doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, teachers, and clergy) strictly liable - that is, subject to liability regardless of proof of fault -- if they fail to report suspected child abuse.
While the rest of us were ignorant of the scope of childhood sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and other congregations, the religious leaders were lobbying to be exempt from reporting child abuse. Now that we know the facts, it is irresponsible for any state to exempt clergy from these reporting requirements: They are often the only ones who know about child abuse, and, it turns out, are utterly ineffective in stopping it; indeed, they may end up acting to, in effect, shield the perpetrator, allowing him to strike again and again. It cannot be said often enough: Self-policing does not work.