Should psychotherapists be required to report patients who look at child porn?
For years, California law required psychotherapists to report any patient who admitted developing, duplicating, printing or exchanging material depicting an obscene act involving a child.
The therapists accepted that requirement. They regarded it as an obligation to report producers and distributors of child pornography.
But when the Legislature amended the law in 2014 to reflect new technology, many therapists balked, complaining the new wording required them to inform on patients who posed no threat to others.
The amendment requires therapists to tell police of patients who have admitted streaming or downloading sexually explicit material involving minors.
That means that the crime of looking at child porn online must be reported. Failure to report may result in a criminal fine against the therapist and revocation of his or her license.
The California Supreme Court will soon decide whether to revive a challenge to the law brought by therapists who treat people for sexual compulsions. Instead of helping children, the therapists argue, the new reporting requirement will discourage people from seeking help for porn addictions and other sexual proclivities.
Discover more from Florida Action Committee
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Amerikan big government is just dumb and so are the vast majority of “people” who live in Amerika who support them. All Americans need to rise up against nanny big government (NBG) and shrink them down to something reasonable. Get NBG out of our lives.
IF NBG/we were smart and actually cared about $EX crimes, NBG/we would provide 100% FREE, anonymous counseling to anyone who was even thinking about abusing a child or anyone else. And get this part – the abuse wouldn’t even have to involve $EX!!! It could be any kind of abuse. I’m freaking crazy, I know.
NBG/we could/should focus on preventing crimes before they happen. But that’s no fun, am I right?! So much more fun to just list people on hit lists and try even harder to get “those people” to commit crimes.
Amerikan big government is just dumb. Take a look at their completely failed War on Drugs. Do they care that it’s done more harm than good? Nope. It’s a business for them. It keeps them big and feeling happy and useful in life. Drug deaths are higher than they’ve ever been. Why do drug cartels exist? Drug gangs? Drug violence? All of that is the fault of NBG. Stop the NBG drug business and all of that vanishes. I don’t need NBG AT ALL to fake “protect” me from drugs or “$EX offenders”. I need them to protect me from fake problems that NBG has caused themselves!
In an actual free country, no drug would be illegal. It is not my business what my neighbor decides to put into his/her own body. If it were, I want to outlaw potato chips and cigarettes. Because THAT is what is really freaking killing people.
The War on Drugs is a business. The War on “$EX Offenders” is a business. All idiotic, thoroughly counterproductive nonsense.
With NBG, if you think the problems are bad, you should see the solutions.
I would love to see everything you said here in a printed article online that goes viral for all to read.
Best comment of the past week^
“That means that the crime of looking at child porn online must be reported. Failure to report may result in a criminal fine against the therapist and revocation of his or her license.”
This is what America is about now, locking EVERYONE up that they can, because, well, Lawmakers need jobs right? Who else is going to sit for 8 hours a day figuring out how to further erode personal freedoms in this country except Lawmakers?
Well said.
What happened to doctor patient privilege?? Your doctor is not allowed to give your spouse or anyone else any info on your condition without your written consent but they have to give it to Joe Blow at the police station??? And we hand pick the idiots that make our laws.
Our privacy is fast eroding in this country.
Medical info is privileged. Commission of a crime is not.
This is precisely why sex offenders on probation are required to admit they have a problem in court ordered therapy to therapists employed by the probation departments. It’s a trap! If an alcoholic kills a child in a drunken car crash, they get therapy to hopefully prevent it from happening again without bad choices being disclosed to LE. But with porn and other abuses, report it all to LE for monitoring purposes? Outrageous!
Next they will require Attorney’s to report their clients crimes. I agree that if someone has willingly sought out counseling, they are trying to get help. If they are reported they will never trust a counselor or anyone else for that matter, again.
I am sure there would be some exceptions we would all agree to, say if they were admitting to actively abusing a child.
If we could see through God’s eyes, 75% of the population would be behind bars.
Each jurisdiction has its own code of professional conduct for those practicing law, but MOST require a lawyer to report a client only when there is a credible threat to the life or safety of an identifiable victim.
Do they report drug addicts when they show up for rehabilitation this is absolutely ridiculous. If a therapist starts with the disclaimer that he must report whatever a person says to the cop’s people will just not go
In 2016, I read that if someone with impulses toward children, but who never acted on those impulses, went to a counselor or therapist in the U. S. for help with controlling these impulses, the counselor/therapist is required to notify the police. The person is not arrested, but they will be on the radar of the police. In Europe, however, a person is allowed to reach out for help without the police having to know anything about it.
In Europe, everything has been turning toward rehabilitation and prevention for all inmates. Prison is not punishment there but a place to receive rehabilitation in order to successfully reintegrate back into society as a productive citizen. 60 Minutes did a segment on this issue showing prison wardens from the U. S. visiting Europe to observe firsthand how Europeans are shrinking their prison populations and recidivism rates for all crimes. The U. S. prisons are bursting in some areas, while Europe’s have been shrinking. Clearly U. S. wardens are not trying to implement what they have learned from the Europeans, or at least their superiors are not allowing them to do so.
Prison in the US is a for profit industry and if it’s not about money it’s about power or both
I wish I could move there. I’m a disabled vet, get a check from the VA thankfullly otherwise I couldn’t live. But things are just getting intolerable here. They say it gets worse before it gets better. Only problem is you never know how bad it’s going to get first.
Sarah hit it right on the head every time a foreign countries does a well-funded study on rehabilitation and safety America smirks ,all data except their own is thrown away you’ll see this over and over again.
There was a study a couple of years back that determines one out of every three Americans could use psychological therapy. With a ratio that strong I would not exclude therapist from that percentageg.Nowadays since it’s not a conflict of interest for a therapist or a politician to own stock in privatized prison systems I would highly suggest if you are seeking therapy ,which is a great thing to do if you need it, is to do therapy online with a country that does not have this type of corruption..
Personally I try to stay away from our current medical establishment I find them arrogant and lazy.
Since we have mainly a prophet drivinmedical system we have profit minded doctors I highly suggest you educate yourself on all issues I find an international site simply called Nature.com will put you way ahead of the game.
What do you guys think of FAC publishing a list of let’s call it Safe Haven Therapist for our members and the public?