Attitudes of Domestic Violence Shelter Workers Toward Mandated Reporter Laws: A Study of Policy Support and Policy Impact

摘要

In order to examine attitudes in the field of domestic violence toward mandated reporter laws, a survey was administered to domestic violence shelter workers. The respondents overwhelmingly supported the mandate to report abuse of a child. However, a mandate to report child witnessing of domestic violence was opposed by a slight majority. When compared with the group opposing the mandate, the group in support perceived more frequent occurrence of a report's positive impact and less frequent occurrence of a report's negative impacts. These results have implications for advocacy efforts that are focused on mandated reporter laws.