34 hours ago · Most rape crisis centers have professionals who can help you through the rape reporting process. It is never too late to report a rape although some prosecutions are barred after a certain number of years, depending on the state. Ideally, a report will be made right after it happens and while medical attention is being given, but days or even months later a rape can … >> Go To The Portal
If the victim is an adult – counselors do not report rape. Rape is a crime. We do not report crimes unless there is a legal exception to confidentiality that requires us to report something.
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13 • The Department of Human Services is required to report all cases where an applicant for child support or public assistance appears to be a victim of statutory rape.
109 Cases involving victims under 13 years of age found to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease should be reported to the Department of Health. 17 Public assistance workers encountering applicants who they suspect to have been victims of statutory rape must notify the appropriate law enforcement agency and district attorney general.
Inclusion of statutory rape in reporting requirements Mandated reporters are required to report all cases where they have reasonable cause to suspect abuse. 11 The definition of an abused child includes children who are subjected to sexual abuse, 1
However, a hospital must inform law enforcement that a probable crime has occurred. If you are an adult, the report can be made without providing your name. Question: How long do I have to decide whether to report an assault to police?
Hospitals rarely report allegations to law enforcement because patients rarely are believed. Bedside caregivers usually report patient complaints to a nursing supervisor, who assumes that the patient was dreaming or hallucinating because of the effect of medication. Typically, the supervisor who interviews the patient has been given no investigative training by the hospital. The Human Resources representative who interviews the accused staff member rarely has any training for investigating a complaint of assault. All too often the patient complaint is considered “resolved” and no further action is taken. A report of the complaint and resolution may be placed in the employee’s personnel file. When another complaint about the same employee is made at a later date there may be a new supervisor who has no knowledge of the initial complaint. At that point the interview and resolution begins again; thus, a serial predator has been created as a result of hospital negligence.
Hospitals often respond to allegations of sexual abuse by denying and rationalizing patient complaints of sexual assault. Patient complaints of abuse often are dismissed as hallucinatory post-anesthesia or medication-induced events, or the patient’s misinterpretation of routine patient care because nursing staff hasn’t adequately explained to the patient what is or will be occurring in the caregiving process.
When hospitals fail to limit access to patient rooms, and nursing staff fail to challenge and oversee visitors, this failure creates an opportunity for outside predators to assault vulnerable patients. Policies and procedures should include sign-in sheets and stick-on name badges for visitors, specifically noting the room number and the name of the patient the visitor is authorized to visit. Limiting access to nursing units in this manner, and requiring nursing staff to respectfully engage every person who enters the unit, by acknowledging their presence and verifying their destination, demonstrates a sense of priority to maximizing patient privacy and protection.
Licensed staff, as well as supervisors and administrators working in hospitals , are considered “mandated reporters” under the California Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act. When a mandated reporter has observed or has knowledge of an incident that reasonably appears to be abuse, the incident must be reported to the Department of Health. However, hospital policies often conflict with this requirement, and instead direct that allegations of sexual assaults be handled through the hospital incident-reporting mechanism. Because an allegation of sexual assault is an allegation of a crime, hospitals should establish policies to ensure that there is timely involvement of law enforcement so that allegations can be professionally investigated. The alleged perpetrator must be placed on suspension and isolated from all patient interaction until the investigation is complete.
A climate that encourages sexual assaults is created when nurses and nursing supervisors do not fully understand their reporting responsibilities when receiving a complaint alleging sexual assault. Elements of discovery in sexual-abuse cases. The perpetrator’s employment application;
When this fact pattern is demonstrated, the hospital is exposed to punitive damages because hospital leaders knew or should have known of the prior instances had they been properly investigated.
The default priority of hospital administrators and senior staff is to protect the reputation of the facility, which may shield the predator, effectively enabling serial predators to continue to abuse patients, even when multiple complaints are received by administrators and senior staff. Continuity of concern regarding an individual predator is often disrupted when supervisors change jobs, leave the facility, produce poor documentation or fail to review prior complaints, while the predator remains in place. In these circumstances new supervisors, when faced with a complaint of sexual assault, absent specific staff records to the contrary and having no historical context or knowledge of previous complaints, presume that the alleged predator has a clean record and will give the employee the benefit of the doubt.
First, many state statutes mandate law enforcement notification when patients who are victims of certain crimes present to the emergency department. These include gunshot wounds, stab wounds, battery, assaults with weapons, child abuse, elder abuse, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. For these crimes, ED personnel are classified as mandated reporters.
But just because a state law mandates reporting does not mean the patient has to speak to police. It is well within the rights of the patient to refuse to cooperate with law enforcement. Police understand this discrepancy between the law and the victim’s autonomy. Police officers may also be able to better explain to the patient all of their options regarding sexual assault reporting and investigation as well as the benefits and potential downsides of reporting. Sometimes officers develop a rapport with patients and may convince them to report the crime.
be a reportable offense under the child abuse code if the person who perpetrated the crime was not responsible for the care of the child.
In the interest of clarity, the report also uses standard labels for the participants in the offenses discussed. “Defendant” refers to the alleged perpetrator or individual who would be subject to prosecution under the statute in question. “Victim” identifies the individual on whom the act was allegedly perpetrated. Although these terms may be overly simplistic, they communicate the legal role each party plays with respect to the laws discussed in the report.
The wide variation among states in terms of the relationship between the different criminal offenses and reporting requirements necessitates close examination of the individual state summaries.
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) within HHS, and its federal partner agencies, are focusing on three federally funded programs that have contact with adolescents: Title X family planning clinics, Health Resources and Services Administration-supported health centers, and child protective services. ASPE contracted with The Lewin Group, a health and human services consulting firm, to conduct a multi-phase, descriptive study to collect information about state laws, federal guidance to programs, and grantees’ and local offices’ practices. Lewin is assisted in the study by an advisory group composed of representatives from each of the three HHS agencies on which the study is focused: The Office of Population Affairs, the Children’s Bureau, and the Health Resources and Services Administration.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is concerned about the health of adolescents, including unwanted sexual contact at a young age. For example, research finds that:
It relies on the most recent information available; however many of the state statutes referenced were unannotated. That said, every effort was made to search additional resources to learn of recent changes in the law or applicable case law and attorneys’ general opinions affecting the statutes.
Work on this project was funded by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a contract to The Lewin Group. This report benefited greatly from the oversight and input of Jerry Silverman, the ASPE Project Officer.
The questions may be difficult, but the answers will help the nurse collect evidence and ensure accuracy of lab testing. Some questions about your sexual history are meant to help a nurse accurately fill out a report and make lab staff aware of consensual partners who may have interacted with you before or after an attack. Again, you can opt out of any portion of the exam.
An emergency room with a sexual assault nurse examiner, or SANE, is best. These specially trained nurses are available to help, even if you do not plan to report the attack to law enforcement. They also can conduct a forensic exam to collect evidence if you wish to prosecute.
Answer: After the exam is complete, you will be given toiletries for washing and new clothing to wear home from the hospital. Nurses and other hospital staff often donate clothing for victims.
Answer: Testable evidence can be recovered within 96 hours of an assault if you are an adult and within 72 hours if you are a child less than 13 years old. If you have not showered since the assault, that window of opportunity might be wider. You can still come in for medical care at any point.
For instance, if you passed out or show signs that you could have been drugged, urine may be collected for lab tests that can determine what, if any, date rape or other drugs might be in your system. Those tests can detect whether you were a victim of a Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault.
Otherwise, police can be called after the treatment and examination, or you can make a report later at a police station. There is no requirement that you talk to police. However, a hospital must inform law enforcement that a probable crime has occurred. If you are an adult, the report can be made without providing your name.
Answer: You must be offered emergency contraception or be referred to a facility that offers it. You also will be offered medications to prevent a number of sexually transmitted infections. Ultimately, you make the choice of whether to take those medications.
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Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction all sorts of inappropriate sexual contact between an adult and a child might be reportable. But the victim does not need to be a child to make this a reportable occurrence. If the victim is a senior citizen that is reportable in lots of places.
Financial abuse of the elderly, that gets reported most of the time. There are rules about when but remember it is the abuse, not the financial crime that is getting reported.
If the victim is an adult – counselors do not report rape. Rape is a crime. We do not report crimes unless there is a legal exception to confidentiality that requires us to report something. As far as I know, rape is not one of those crimes that get reported. If the victim is an adult they should report it.
If a counselor believes an adult client has abused or neglected a child, dependent adult or elder person, the therapist must report the crime. He also must report anyone he reasonably suspected to have viewed or downloaded child pornography.
But if he told his therapist that he can’t stop thinking about raping the teenage girl next door, she is legally required to report the crime to the girl’s parents or the police. These kind of limits to therapist confidentiality in criminal cases are not limited to the informed parties either.
Therapist Confidentiality: Crimes Involving a Psychologist. Additionally, the limits to therapist/patient confidentiality mean that a mental health professional is not required to keep discussions confidential if a patient tries to use them in order to commit a crime.
While therapists do not need to report crimes that have already happened in most cases, there are exceptions when it comes to therapist confidentiality in crimes involving crimes against children, the disabled or the elderly. This applies to both adult clients who may have committed crimes against their children or clients under 16 who have had ...
If the patient is a minor under 16 and the therapist has reason to believe that she has been the victim of a crime and the therapist believe s it is in her best interest to report the crime, the therapist can choose to break patient confidentiality.
The most famous limits to therapist confidentiality and criminal situations is when a therapist is legally required to break confidentiality if he or she believes the patient may hurt himself or someone else. While the most obvious example of this is the mandatory institutionalization of someone who is likely to commit suicide, psychologists are also require to report patients to the police or victim if the patient indicates he or she will commit a crime against someone else.
The only time a therapist is obligated under law to reveal a client’s confidence is called the Tarasoff exception to client/patient privilege.
It’s important to tell your therapist everything that hurts you. That’s the start of healing. After telling, you are no more alone with your secrets. They start to lose their power on you. As time goes by they don’t even look so big and terrifying.
There is only one rule a patient must follow in a psychotherapy.
In almost any jurisdiction, a therapist is subject to HIPAA and other privacy rules. Most are under the same rules as any doctor - patient confidentiality, which means they cannot even be subpoenaed by the police.
If your therapist thinks a crime is going to be committed or that you are in danger, then he/she is lawfully required to report it, keeping your confidentiality as well as possible.
The therapist works for the patient. If the patient reveals a crime against themself, the therapist is under no obligation to inform law enforcement
No all is confidential. The law states disclisure for hearing of current child abuse, terrorist activity, danger to self or third party. We always discuss with client first if it comes within the law. Disclosure can be to a doctor childrens services or the police. Very often a client is relieved to have us take it over, others will take charge themselves.
If the circumstances are such that your therapist feels that your abuser may currently pose a threat to another individual in a protected group, they may break confidentiality and file a report in order to protect other potential victims. Examples: if you were abused by a parent and you have younger siblings who are still living at home; if you were abused by a teacher who is still working with children.
Any abuse/assault of a protected class must be reported. This is called mandated reporting. Specific rules may differ by state and will always include minors. In most cases the burden is a “credible suspicion" of abuse.
The only time a therapist is obligated under law to reveal a client’s confidence is called the Tarasoff exception to client/patient privilege.
In Australia for instance if you’re under the age of 16 its a mandatory report to child protection services, no matter how long ago it occurred. If you disclose after you turn 16 its at your discretion and your therapist doesn’t report on it (you can report it yourself, or keep it quiet). Some services will still report in Australia regardless of your age if the person who sexually abused you has access to young people (if they are currently teaching, working with kids, dodgy, etc.) - to get around this just don’t give identifying information for the perpetrator (I feel awful saying this, but it is an option). Know some services still report for anyone aged under 18 (schools mostly). It’s all about safety for young people who could be hurt in the same way. If you’re an adult in Australia and its reported you could be asked to give a statement - this is voluntary and you can decline. If unsure I think some countries have national legal advice phone numbers people can ring anonymously. You could ring one to find out your rights in your country.
They will investigate thoroughly. Maybe you believe that you can keep your mouth shut while they interrogate everyone in your life. You will see them look at your parents and siblings with the eyes of suspicion and judgment.
And the rule is: the patient must speak about whatever comes to their mind, in the session, avoiding any sort of self-censorship or previous selection.
There is only one rule a patient must follow in a psychotherapy.