Compliance

SUNY's Mandatory Child Sexual Abuse Reporting & Prevention Policy

SUNY Mandatory Child Sexual Abuse Reporting & Prevention Policy

Background: On December 17, 2012, the State University of New York Board of Trustees adopted a new policy to mandate the reporting of incidents of child sexual abuse on University property and at University-sponsored events, and to take steps to prevent such incidents. The SUNY policy goes above and beyond all reporting requirements currently mandated by New York State law. 

The purpose of this new policy is to further protect minors who are present on SUNY campuses or participating in SUNY-sponsored activities by ensuring that what should be a moral obligation also becomes a legal obligation. The policy should be enforced as any other conduct rules on campus. All members of the University community have a role to play in preventing sexual abuse of children and providing University Police with relevant information about the victim and assailant so that law enforcement consequences will be triggered. It is a violation of the policy for a member of the University community to attempt to handle a case of sexual abuse “in house,” within a department, residence hall, or athletic team, for example. All reports must be brought to the attention of University Police for further investigation and handling as a criminal matter. Importantly, the Board has stressed that there shall be no retaliation or retribution against anyone based on making a report under this policy.

With the new policy, the Board directs all SUNY campuses to adopt local procedures to:

• Mandate reporting by employees, students, and volunteers to the University Police Department when there is reasonable cause to suspect any sexual abuse of a child occurring on State University property or while off campus during official State University business or University-sponsored events;
• Require the University Police Department on campus, upon receiving such a report, to promptly notify the Commissioner of University Police at SUNY System Administration, who shall report such incidents to the Chancellor for periodic reporting to the Board of Trustees;
• Provide employee and student training on the identification of such crimes and proper notification requirements; and
• Ensure that vendors and others using University facilities, where children will be present, have procedures in place aimed at preventing child sexual abuse.

 Campus Compliance with New Policy

Campus:  Each state-operated campus must adopt local procedures which implement this policy. This will require amendments to campus student conduct codes and appropriate notifications to students, employees and volunteers.  Campuses must also train members of their communities on these new reporting obligations and to ensure that vendors and others using University property also have procedures in place to protect minors.

Individuals: Members of the campus community must make a report to the applicable University Police Department (UPD) when they either witness or have reasonable case to suspect that child sexual abuse has occurred.

Police: Along with initiating its standard investigatory procedures and notifications to other campus offices (such as Human Resources or Student Affairs), UPD, in turn, must notify the SUNY Commissioner of University Police, Dr. Bruce McBride, of the receipt of such a report.

Notice on Confidentiality:

• This policy makes no changes to the state of the law regarding information obtained by college officials who have a statutory privilege that forbids disclosure.
  • In New York State, privilege is a requirement, created in law, that certain information held by certain individuals be kept private except in specified circumstances. Certain information created by, or shared with, individuals in the following professions may be privileged: physicians, psychologists, dentists, podiatrists, chiropractors and nurses. The privilege only exists when there is a professional relationship with the patient, the information is acquired while treating the patient in a professional capacity, the information is necessary to enable treatment, the patient did not waive the privilege and the communication was intended to be confidential. Privileges also protect confidential information shared with social workers, rape crisis counselors, clergy and attorneys. If not specified in this list, then information held by other professionals is not confidential under the New York law of privilege.

• This policy makes no change to the requirements of the Clery Act, which has similar exceptions from disclosure for pastoral and professional counselors who learn otherwise reportable information while serving in their role as a counselor.

• • Note that the Clery Act Handbook specifies that the college official must be so serving when they learn of the information. An official who is also a religious or professional figure, but not so acting when they learn of information in their role as a college official, must still comply with the reporting requirements of the Clery Act and this policy.  For instance, if an individual under the age of 17, defined as a child in this policy, tells their treating psychologist or religious leader, who happens to also work at a SUNY college, about sexual abuse, including statutory rape, that psychologist or religious leader is bound by the confidentiality rules enacted in statute and their professional codes. This policy makes no change to those rules.

Policy on Mandatory Reporting and Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

Any employee or student of or volunteer for the State University of New

York who witnesses or has reasonable cause to suspect any sexual abuse of a child  occurring on State University property or while off campus during official State University business or University-sponsored events shall have an affirmative obligation to report such conduct to the relevant University Police Department immediately. Such report should include the names of the victim and assailant (if known), other identifying information about the victim and assailant, the location of the activity, and the nature of the activity.  Upon receiving such a report, the applicable University Police Department shall promptly notify the Commissioner of University Police at SUNY System Administration who shall report such incidents to the Chancellor for periodic reporting to the Board of Trustees. In addition, to aid in the prevention of crimes against children on property of the State University of New York and/or during official State University business at events sponsored by the State University of New York, relevant employees

should be trained on the identification of such crimes and proper notification requirements. Vendors, licensees or others who are given permission to come onto campus or to use University facilities for events or activities that will include

participation of children shall ensure that they have in place procedures for training, implementation of applicable pre-employment screening requirements

and reporting of child sexual abuse. For purposes of this policy, the applicable definitions of child sexual abuse are those used in the NYS Penal Law in Articles 130 and 263 and Section 260.10 and “child” is defined as an individual under the age of 17.