Child Protective Services Laws

Definitions

Child abuse — Intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly doing any of the following: 

1. Causing bodily injury to a child through any recent act or failure to act. 
2. Fabricating, feigning or intentionally exaggerating or inducing a medical symptom or disease which results in a potentially harmful medical evaluation or treatment to the child through any recent act. 
3. Causing or substantially contributing to serious mental injury to a child through any act or failure to act or a series of such acts or failures to act. 
4. Causing sexual abuse or exploitation of a child through any act or failure to act. 
5. Creating a reasonable likelihood of bodily injury to a child through any recent act or failure to act. 
6. Creating a likelihood of sexual abuse or exploitation of a child through any recent act or failure to act. 
7. Causing serious physical neglect of a child. 
8. Engaging in any of the following recent acts:
   • Kicking, biting, throwing, burning, stabbing or cutting a child in a manner that endangers the child.  
   • Unreasonably restraining or confining a child, based on consideration of the method, location or the duration of the restraint or confinement. 
   • Forcefully shaking a child under one year of age. 
   • Forcefully slapping or otherwise striking a child under one year of age. 
   • Interfering with the breathing of a child. 
   • Causing a child to be present at a location while a violation of 18 Pa.C.S. § 7508.2 (relating to operation of methamphetamine laboratory) is occurring, provided that the violation is being investigated by law enforcement. 
   • Leaving a child unsupervised with an individual, other than the child's parent, who the actor knows or reasonably should have known: 
     • Has been determined to be a sexually violent delinquent child as defined in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.12 (relating to definitions). 
     • Has been determined to be a sexually violent predator under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.24 (relating to assessments) or any of its predecessors. 
     • Is required to register as a Tier II or Tier Ill sexual offender under 42 Pa.C.S. Ch. 97 Subch. H (relating to registration of sexual offenders), where the victim of the sexual offense was under 18 years of age when the crime was committed. 
     • Has been determined to be a sexually violent predator under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.58 (relating to  assessments) or has to register for life under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.55(b) (relating to registration). 
9. Causing the death of the child through any act or failure to act. 
10. Engaging a child in a severe form of trafficking in persons or sex trafficking, as those terms are defined under section 103 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (114 Stat. 1466, 22 U.S.C §7102). 

Sexual abuse or exploitation — Any of the following: 

1. The employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement or coercion of a child to engage in or assist another individual to engage in sexually explicit conduct, which includes, but is not limited to, the following:
   • Looking at the sexual or other intimate parts of a child or another individual for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire in any individual. 
   • Participating in sexually explicit conversation either in person, by telephone, by computer or by a computer-aided device for the purpose of sexual stimulation or gratification of any individual. 
   • Actual or simulated sexual activity or nudity for the purpose of sexual stimulation or gratification of any individual. 
   • Actual or simulated sexual activity for the purpose of producing visual depiction, including photographing, videotaping, computer depicting or filming.  
   • Paragraph (1) above does not include consensual activities between a child who is 14 years of age or older and another person who is 14 years of age or older and whose age is within four years of the child's age.     
2. Any of the following offenses committed against a child: 
   • Rape as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 3121 (relating to rape). 
   • Statutory sexual assault as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 3122.1 (relating to statutory sexual assault). 
   • Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 3123 (relating to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse). 
   • Sexual assault as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 3124.1 (relating to sexual assault). 
   • Institutional sexual assault as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 3124.2 (relating to institutional sexual assault). 
   • Aggravated indecent assault as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 3125 (relating to aggravated indecent assault). 
   • Indecent assault as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 3126 (relating to indecent assault). 
   • Indecent exposure as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 3127 (relating to indecent exposure). 
   • Incest as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 4302 (relating to incest). 
   • Prostitution as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 5902 (relating to prostitution and related offenses). 
   • Sexual abuse as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 6312 (relating to sexual abuse of children). 
   • Unlawful contact with a minor as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 6318 (relating to unlawful contact with minor). 
   • Sexual exploitation as defined in 18 Pa.C.S. § 6320 (relating to sexual exploitation of children). 

Bodily injury  — Impairment of physical condition or substantial pain. 

Serious mental injury — A psychological condition, as diagnosed by a physician or licensed psychologist, including the refusal of appropriate treatment, that:  

1. Renders a child chronically and severely anxious, agitated, depressed, socially withdrawn, psychotic or in reasonable fear that the child's life or safety is threatened; or 
2. Seriously interferes with a child's ability to accomplish age-appropriate developmental and social tasks. 

Serious physical neglect — Any of the following when committed by a perpetrator that endangers a child's life or health, threatens a child's well-being, causes bodily injury or impairs a child's health, development or functioning:  

1. A repeated, prolonged or egregious failure to supervise a child in a manner that is appropriate considering the child's developmental age and abilities. 
2. The failure to provide a child with adequate essentials of life, including food, shelter or medical care. 

Severe forms of trafficking in persons:   

• Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or 
• The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. 

Supplementary Definitions:

• Sex act: any touching or exposure of the sexual or other intimate parts of any individual for the purpose of gratifying sexual desire of any individual.
• Sex trafficking:  the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act 
• Commercial sex act:  Any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person 
• Peonage:  paying off debt through work 
• Debt Bondage:  debt slavery, bonded labor, or services for a debt or other obligation 
• Slavery:  a condition compared to that of an enslaved person in respect of exhausting labor or restricted freedom 
• “Labor trafficking:”  Labor obtained by use of threat of serious harm, physical restraint, or abuse of legal process 

Examples: 

• Being forced to work for little or no pay (frequently in factories and farms) 
• Domestic servitude: providing services within a household for 10-16 hours per day, such as, but not limited to: childcare, cooking, cleaning, yard work, gardening, etc.