FLORIDA
ABC News
By ALYSSA NEWCOMB (@alyssanewcomb)
Oct. 9, 2012
The Penn State scandal helped shape a new Florida sexual abuse reporting law that has been called the toughest in the nation, holding universities and individuals financially and criminally liable for failure to report suspected abuse.
Under the law, which went into effect Oct. 1, colleges and universities that “knowingly and willfully” fail to report known or suspected child abuse or prevent another person from doing so will be slapped with a $1 million fine for each failure.
“We learned is we didn’t want to take a chance on [them],” said Ron Book, president of Lauren’s Kids, a nonprofit that helped spearhead the legislation.
That began with mandating schools report all allegations, not just conduct their own investigations. Book pointed to allegations from Penn State, Syracuse University and The Citadel that were known to administrators but not reported to authorities.
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