Reasonable Suspicion of Child Abuse
Most state child abuse reporting laws employ the “reasonable suspicion” standard as the threshold above which mandated reporters must report the case. However, the definition of this term is not widely understood. As a result there is large variation in the rates of child abuse reporting in different states, from a low (in Pennsylvania) of 8/1000 children/year to a high of 125/1000 children/year (in District of Columbia).
References.
1. Levi, B.H. and S.G. Portwood, Reasonable suspicion of child abuse: finding a common language. J Law Med Ethics, 2011. 39(1): pp. 62–9. 2. Levi, B.H. and K. Crowell, Child abuse experts disagree about the threshold for mandated reporting. 2011. 50(4): pp. 321–9. 3. Flaherty, E.G. and R. Sege, Barriers to physician identification and reporting of child abuse. Pediatr Ann, 2005. 34(5): pp. 349–56. 4. Kids Count Data. 2009.
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Famous quotes containing the words reasonable, suspicion, child and/or abuse:
“Look, we are all reasonable men here. We don’t have to give assurances, as if we were lawyers.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)
“Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“A child of three cannot raise its chubby fist to its mouth to remove a piece of carpet which it is through eating, without being made the subject of a psychological seminar of child-welfare experts, and written up, along with five hundred other children of three who have put their hands to their mouths for the same reason.”
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—Ralph J. Cudworth (1617–1688)