PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
If anything positive has come out of Penn State University’s harrowing sex abuse scandal, it is the uptick in government attention to child abuse prevention.
In response to the recommendations of a task force on child protection convened after Jerry Sandusky’s conviction of child molestation last year, a package of six sweeping bills was voted out of the state House Children and Youth Committee on Tuesday. The legislation is likely to reach the House floor this summer. The bills aim to strengthen child abuse law by broadening the definition of abuse, requiring additional background checks for workers interacting with children and mandating more people, such as lawyers and clergy, to report suspected abuse.
If the Senate and House agree, Pennsylvania may see much-needed, far-reaching reform that could go a long way toward preventing and trying child abuse.
Pennsylvania currently lags behind other states in child abuse convictions, but that doesn’t mean the state has a disproportionately low incidence of abuse. Experts believe that Pennsylvania’s unreasonably high threshold for what constitutes child abuse is to blame.
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