PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
April 09, 2013|By Steve Esack, Call Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG — A computer system that does not track child abuse complaints among counties. Hospital lawyers who keep doctors from sharing medical information on children they suspect are abuse victims. Low pay and high burnout for young, inexperienced social workers.
Those are three main reasons the training and laws governing how and when child abuse claims are handled need to be overhauled, according to Senate testimony Tuesday by members of the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection.
“Child abuse is an extremely real problem in this commonwealth as it apparently is in our society and our nation,” said the panel’s chairman, Bucks County District Attorney David W. Heckler.
The Legislature started the 11-member task force to examine the state’s patchwork of child protection laws after Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach, was arrested in 2011 on charges of sexually abusing children. In November, the task force called for rewriting Pennsylvania’s child protection laws to streamline the reporting process, create new statutes and increase penalties for crimes such as possession of child pornography.
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