Spoiler Alert: Failure to Report Child Abuse Could Lead to Felony
Video Transcribed: We all know that we’ve got a duty to report child abuse, and if you didn’t, you saw my last video. I am a Tulsa father’s rights lawyer and you definitely have a duty to report child abuse. But what happens if you don’t report child abuse?
Well, it depends. Have you known for six months? If you have reasonably suspected or known that child abuse is occurring for a period of six or more months, then it’s a felony.
If, however, you don’t report and you’ve got reason to believe that there’s suspected child abuse, up until that six month mark, is only a misdemeanor to knowing and willfully fail to make that report and it requires a prompt reporting.
So how quickly you bring it to the attention of the authorities is important to determine whether or not they will prosecute you for this crime.
So what do you do? It’s really easy. There is a centralized hotline on the DHS website to report child abuse. You call that number, somebody will pick up the phone, they’re going to ask you a bunch of questions because they need to in order to get it started. So give them everything you know, give them a call.
It’s also important to remember that there is no contract that you can sign that will prevent you from reporting child abuse.
Finally, automatic reporters. There are people throughout the system, such as health care workers, who have a duty to report certain conditions or such as if a child was born with drugs in their system.
That was a brief video on child abuse reporting and the potential penalties for it. Now, consider that there are so many people who have to report these things. Everyone has a duty to report. You do not want to be the one who does not report.
