One of Pennsylvania’s most respected agencies for its work in representing the underrepresented has issued an urgent call for help, a call that should be echoed by those concerned with due process, fairness and family.

Community Legal Services of Philadelphia has shined a light on the underbelly of a law that had the best of intentions but has gone too far: the Child Protective Services Law.

The agency recently released a report disclosing that thousands of Pennsylvanians each year are placed on the state’s child abuse registry for allegations of abuse or neglect, though the allegations have not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Snagged in this dragnet are a disproportionate number of low-wage earners, people of color and their kids.

Reform is needed. Reform is overdue.

The law was changed in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University to broaden the requirement for child abuse background checks. The pool of jobs requiring these checks was expanded to include positions that range from home health care aides to school crossing guards.

It sounds like a good idea. But it’s simply too easy to end up on the registry — and to remain there for life. Placement on this registry often is based on faulty or incomplete investigations, contends CLS. “In many cases, racial, cultural or economic differences create an additional bias that factors into a caseworker’s determination of whether child abuse or neglect occurred. … [R]eform of the child abuse registry system is urgently needed,” reads an excerpt from the report.

CLS calls for commonsense and constitutional protections: due process — including legal counsel — to the accused before a name is placed on the registry; revising the registry to distinguish between the nature of the abuse, for example sexual abuse versus missed doctor’s appointments; a limit to the time a person remains on the registry; narrowing the category of jobs that require child abuse clearances. CLS also is asking for a racial impact analysis to “address structural racial bias at every step of the process.”

Children must be protected. But when the system punishes a child’s parent, it punishes the child, too. Many who are listed on the abuse registry still head their child’s household — a household with far more limited prospects for income earning. And financial struggle contributes to stress, which also impacts parents and children alike.

“There are more effective and equitable ways to protect children than relying on an overly punitive child abuse registry system,” CLS concludes.

Agreed.

Last year, the state ran nearly 370,000 child abuse clearances and about 1 in 11 returned a finding of abuse, according to CLS.

The first order of business is to establish a procedure that requires a hearing, with the benefit of legal counsel, prior to placement on a registry. This is a regulation that should be implemented by the state Department of Human Services and it should be required by the state Legislature. The current 90-day appeal period that is offered is inadequate. The appeal most often is considered by the same entity that decided to place the appellant’s name on the registry in the first place. And no legal counsel is offered.

A primary goal of child services agencies is to help troubled families. An overly broad law that brands an “abuser” without benefit of due process and limits that person’s ability to find work simply does not serve this mission.

First Published: December 4, 2020, 5:00 a.m.