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hyporational comments on Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Mandated reporter laws and the sex offender registry were intended to be trade-offs, but unexpected consequences have made them bad for kids too.
The discussion here doesn't even mention the effect on pedophiles. Pedophiles who are concerned they might offend against children with low probability know that if they tell a therapist about their attraction, they might be reported, if the therapist decides they are an imminent danger. Most pedophiles don't know what criteria their therapist would use, they don't want to risk it, so they do not seek help.
In some cases victims are discouraged from reporting too. Suppose a girl is being abused by her uncle. She doesn't experience it as terrible but she wants it to stop. But she doesn't want to face a formal investigation, which involves endless interrogations for her, embarrassing publicity, family strife, and perhaps sending her uncle to prison for 10 years. If she knew there could be a way of handling the situation privately in accord with her needs and wishes, she may be more likely to report it and get it to stop.
Sex offender registries often make it very difficult for an ex-offender to find a place to live. Here is Wikipedia's take on it. Here is a specific in-depth example. Once ex-offenders are breaking the law by going underground and feeling maltreated by society, there is less reason to obey other laws too, including ones against molesting children.
How it works in Finland:
The law says a doctor has the right to report if he deems he could prevent certain serious crimes by doing so. Rape wouldn't fit the bill, but aggravated rape would. He isn't allowed to report any crimes that have already happened, with the exception of child abuse. Concerning child abuse, even a suspicion obligates the doctor to report. This means social workers investigate the issue first, and a report rarely involves the law enforcement.
Any laws concerning professional confidentiality are easy enough to circumvent by making anonymous calls, and obviously cops want to protect their witnesses anyway and are enthusiastic to put "the bad guys" behind bars. There are also tricks to break the confidentiality without technically breaking the law. I think it's also pretty easy just not to report without facing any consequences in most situations, and this actually happens very often because the current law leads to absurd situations and overloads the system.
All this being said, I don't think changing the reporting laws would change the issue much, and it comes down to personal ethics of the professionals involved.
I don't know the exact laws in the US but I could imaging that changing them to the Finish ones could be an improvement.