The law says a doctor has the right to report if he deems he could prevent certain serious crimes by doing so. Rape wouldn’t fit the bill, but aggravated rape would. He isn’t allowed to report any crimes that have already happened, with the exception of child abuse. Concerning child abuse, even a suspicion obligates the doctor to report. This means social workers investigate the issue first, and a report rarely involves the law enforcement.
Any laws concerning professional confidentiality are easy enough to circumvent by making anonymous calls, and obviously cops want to protect their witnesses anyway and are enthusiastic to put “the bad guys” behind bars. There are also tricks to break the confidentiality without technically breaking the law. I think it’s also pretty easy just not to report without facing any consequences in most situations, and this actually happens very often because the current law leads to absurd situations and overloads the system.
All this being said, I don’t think changing the reporting laws would change the issue much, and it comes down to personal ethics of the professionals involved.
An example from a doctor from Finland: [...] All this being said, I don’t think changing the reporting laws would change the issue much, and it comes down to personal ethics of the professionals involved.
I don’t know the exact laws in the US but I could imaging that changing them to the Finish ones could be an improvement.
How it works in Finland:
The law says a doctor has the right to report if he deems he could prevent certain serious crimes by doing so. Rape wouldn’t fit the bill, but aggravated rape would. He isn’t allowed to report any crimes that have already happened, with the exception of child abuse. Concerning child abuse, even a suspicion obligates the doctor to report. This means social workers investigate the issue first, and a report rarely involves the law enforcement.
Any laws concerning professional confidentiality are easy enough to circumvent by making anonymous calls, and obviously cops want to protect their witnesses anyway and are enthusiastic to put “the bad guys” behind bars. There are also tricks to break the confidentiality without technically breaking the law. I think it’s also pretty easy just not to report without facing any consequences in most situations, and this actually happens very often because the current law leads to absurd situations and overloads the system.
All this being said, I don’t think changing the reporting laws would change the issue much, and it comes down to personal ethics of the professionals involved.
I don’t know the exact laws in the US but I could imaging that changing them to the Finish ones could be an improvement.