HB 272 Child Custody Proceedings Amendments passed. This bill requires the court to consider evidence relating to domestic violence or abuse in child custody cases. Although this bill is largely outside of our scope, we are concerned that it will force trial in domestic violence criminal cases.

We spoke against HB 432 Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Amendments at every hearing. This bill provides that clergy members may report abuse or neglect even if the perpetrator made a confession to the clergy member. The clergy member must have a good faith belief that the abuse is “ongoing” but the statute provides no guidance as to what constitutes “ongoing” abuse, what type of information can be reported or whether a clergy person is required to warn a penitent that their statements may be subject to reporting. The bill will make it more likely that religious institutions will be sued for failures to report if they honor the traditional priest penitent privilege. We testified that allowing reporting undermines the sanctity of the priest penitent privilege and that permissive reporting may push the behavior further underground. Despite our objections, the bill passed. Other bills this session that attempted to alter this section of code failed, such as HB 131 Clergy Child Abuse Reporting Requirements which allowed clergy to report, and HB 444 Clergy Reporting Requirements which required clergy to report. HB 398 Child Abuse Reporting Amendments also failed, which would have changed required reporting to only apply in situations of "heinous" abuse and neglect and made exempt from the requirement individuals who believe that reporting heinous abuse or neglect would further endanger the child.

HB 495 Vulnerable Population Amendments passed. The original version of this bill sought to create the Vulnerable Population Abuse Registry and codify a list of registerable offenses, with misdemeanor offenses subject to a 10-year registration period and felony offenses requiring lifetime registration. The passed version of the bill is substantially different, enacting provisions which require that fingerprints of employees of care facilities be part of a “rap back” criminal history database system to notify the facilities if there is an update to the employee’s criminal history.  It also requires facilities to report all incidents of abuse, neglect, or exploitation to DCFS, Adult Protective Services, or a law enforcement agency.