Vote for Wayne Krieger

HB 2183 passed the House with all 30 Republicans and 7 Democrats supporting it.

Now it is in the hand of the Senate and I was able to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It is now coming to the Senate floor.

Why was this bill brought forward?  During the interim I was contacted by a lady who had been the victim of the filing of a false report.  This report was made by the person knowing it was false.  False reports are not new or unusual and have ruined many lives.  We had heard of several.  It was then that I decided to summit a bill to protect those that were innocent.  It would be a controversial bill, but as a member of the House Judiciary Committee for the last 11 years that was not new either.

The Oregon Statutes make it a crime to initiate a false report to a fire Department or Police agency.  This statute does not include knowingly making a false report to DHS.

This type of false report most often arises out of a divorce and then custody fight or domestic conflicts.

Knowingly making a false report of child abuse tarnishes the reputation of the accused and puts them in jeopardy of felony charges.  It puts a strain on someone’s reputation that can be hard to erase.

No one should be discouraged from reporting suspected child abuse. Let me emphasize that the bill only penalizes people “who file a claim they know is false.”

Those who are mandatory reporters are not required to prove that child abuse has occurred; only that something leads them to believe it might be occurring.  It is completely different than a known false report.

Hopefully HB 2183 will help reduce the number of false claims of child abuse by those who know the claims to be false.

There were groups that claimed that this would create “even greater barriers for our citizens to protect kids” and some claimed it to be “incredibly dangerous for children” and “that child abuse is already seriously under-reported”.  This is nonsense and unfounded.

This bill would make it a violation punishable by a fine of up to $720.00 to Knowingly accuse someone of child abuse. Hopefully, making a separate crime for false child abuse reports would help discourage anyone from filing a false report and it would give the District Attorneys a tool to protect the innocent.

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