By MAGGIE LEE – mlee@macon.com

As part of a long to-do list this year, Republicans in the state Senate say they will resubmit a bill that requires nearly anyone who witnesses child abuse to report it to authorities.

“With the recent allegations that have happened in Pennsylvania, I think now is a good time to bring that bill back forward,” said state Sen. Renee Unterman, R- Buford, author of the forthcoming bill, referring to suspected unreported child sex abuse by a former Penn State University football coach.
The law would cover anyone who has actual contact with a child, such as coaches or family. It does not include casual passers-by.

Currently in Georgia, only certain professionals, including teachers and doctors, are so-called mandatory reporters. It’s now a misdemeanor for them to fail to report.

Unterman’s bill would strike the list of professionals required to report and “open it up for anyone who acknowledges or sees child abuse.”

The law would put Georgia in the roughly one-third of states that mandate reporting from credible witnesses, according to a 2010 survey from the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
The rest specify a list of mandatory reporters.

“We want to know whenever possible if a child is being abused or neglected,” said state Department of Human Services Commissioner Clyde Reese, whose agency investigates child abuse allegations.

And “we want mandated reporters to be credible,” he said.
But he also added, “we don’t want vindictiveness,” that is, people inventing allegations out of spite.

The draft bill does not include any punishment for making a false report in bad faith. Unterman said there’s no punishment for any report that turns out false because “you always want to err on the side of the child.”
But if “there is any possible substantiation, that’s why we’re here, to look into it,” Reese concluded.
Similar to some other states, Unterman’s proposal exempts clergy and people with an attorney-client privilege.

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