When it comes to reports and confessions of abuse, lay leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are instructed to limit the flow of information.

Only the global faith’s governing First Presidency can authorize the addition of a red flag (called an annotation) to members’ records indicating, among other things, a past of threatening or harmful behavior. Even then, the three leaders (made up of church President Dallin H. Oaks and his two counselors) typically do so only after individuals have confessed or a court has ruled against the members, a recent Salt Lake Tribune investigation found.

Meanwhile, lay bishops of congregations come and go about every five years, leaving their fresh-faced successors dependent on outgoing leaders and summary reports from headquarters to inform them of known risks.

When it comes to informing congregants, the church’s General Handbook instructs bishops and regional leaders known as stake presidents — all men who lack formal training — that “if a person’s predatory tendencies put others at risk, the bishop or stake president may give warnings to help protect others.” That is, as long as they don’t reveal anything “confidential.”

How well does this approach stack up against best practices?

Not terribly well, according to Robert Peters, who spent years prosecuting child abuse in West Virginia before joining the nonprofit Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, or GRACE. As the director of institutional response, he works “extensively” with faith communities from an array of denominations on developing policies around known offenders.

[Read The Salt Lake Tribune’s investigation of the church’s internal annotation system.]

The Utah-based church has repeatedly stressed, as it put it in a recent statement to The Tribune, “its unwavering commitment to protect the innocent.” For instance, it instructs bishops not to extend assignments with youth to known child abusers.

Indeed, the presence of a tracking system is, by itself, an advantage the church holds over many other faith organizations. But as Peters pointed out, tracking known abusers is not the same as preventing them from inflicting further harm.

Peters, who has also developed and delivered trainings for the nonprofit Zero Abuse Project, stressed that he is not an expert in the Latter-day Saint-specific context. Nonetheless, he was emphatic. Keeping congregants safe — offenders included — requires timely transparency and, in most cases, not only identifying but removing known threats.

Here are excerpts from The Tribune’s recent conversation with him, edited for length and clarity:

In an ideal world, what information would the bishop have?

Local church leaders would have significant information about the offense itself because that’s relevant to the local flock and prevention of abuse.

He would know the age range of victims, for example, and the nature of the offense, if it’s a violent offense. If you have no knowledge except that it’s something to do with kids, there’s a lot of information missing both in terms of protecting the congregation and, I would argue, for the spiritual care of the offender.

It is not a benefit to an offender to avoid addressing what are not only crimes but also serious sins. We know that offenders are very adept at minimizing their offense and shifting blame. And all too often, faith leaders really fall hook, line and sinker for those distortions.

So if you don’t have the complete context — say, a probation or presentence report, which you may not always have access to, depending on the jurisdiction — there’s a benefit there from a spiritual care perspective. The leader is empowered to help the individual take accountability.

In an ideal world, what would congregants know?

They would have information necessary to identify and prevent abuse itself and the grooming process.

For instance, parents may have no idea that an individual committed, say, criminal child sexual abuse and the victim is the same age as their child. Suddenly the abuser takes an interest in their child and appears as a mentor and offers childcare. All of this is happening off the radar of leadership. Those parents are completely lost in terms of really important information to protect their child.

That doesn’t mean all the details need to be disclosed. The goal here is not to create hysteria. But from a safety aspect, general details are important.

Besides informing congregants, what steps should faith leaders and communities take to protect congregants from a known or credibly accused abuser?

Initial grooming can be immediate, a matter of seconds. So something to wrestle with is whether you have the resources for trained, knowledgeable chaperones — or do you need to engage in ministry to that individual outside of the walls of the building?

So in the case that a person has been credibly accused — maybe not convicted but credibly accused — of child sex abuse, you would say that individual probably shouldn’t be in the pews.

In most situations, no.

There are theoretically systems in which a well-trained, well-informed congregation and church leadership team could implement that could reduce, though not eliminate, risk. But in most situations, faith communities are not equipped to implement those really well. What tends to happen is you have a small group of individuals who know of the risk in some vague way and over time — years, decades even — there are lapses in oversight.

And when we’re talking about child sexual offenses, these are individuals who are typically actively looking for those opportunities. So, in most situations, there’s simply not going to be a safe way to minister to an individual within the physical walls when vulnerable children are also present.

Now, I, as a practicing Christian, would hasten to say that does not mean you don’t minister to that person. It means that the ministry context needs to shift in a way that doesn’t put the vulnerable at risk. And not just the vulnerable but the accused as well. It doesn’t do them any favors to put them in a position where they’re able to harm others.

Some argue that we need abusers to come forward to their lay leader for the sake of their souls and for the protection of others. After all, it’s better for the bishop to know than for no one to know. And to encourage that confession, we have to reduce the risk of their being ostracized and so restrict the flow of information. What do you make of that?

I’ve not seen any credible literature that’s consistent with that. What I have seen is that sentiment coming from a variety of institutions seeking to minimize culpability, in some cases liability. But I’ve yet to see that concept receive any sort of evidence-based support.

There’s a way you can raise these issues within a congregation that respects the dignity of all involved, offender included. But maintaining offender dignity and access to resources can’t come at the cost of others’ safety and, regrettably, that seems to be what happens.

What do you make of churches that say we would do more to inform congregants and report to law enforcement, but our hands are tied because of state clergy-penitent privilege laws shielding confessions?

I would say that’s been tremendously overstated. And sometimes it’s been overstated for self-serving reasons, for liability-protecting reasons and because oftentimes reporting is not in the best financial interest of the institution.

Sometimes you see institutions pointing to protections covering a particular type of communication and misstating that to say, “Oh, we can’t report.” That’s oftentimes not what the law says. Usually what it’s saying is that it’s not compulsory to report. But it’s not a prohibition against reporting abuse as it’s sometimes spun. All jurisdictions that I’m aware of, which is quite a few, have some sort of protection for reporting abuse.

I would also step back and say that, from a spiritual and theological perspective, there is some nearsightedness in elevating a faith’s teaching on clergy-penitent privilege or confidentiality over the core tenets of the faith. And if you look at any faith, the Mormon faith included, there are some very clear statements by Christ about the safety of children — about what should happen to those who harm children and about our obligations toward the vulnerable. And so any efforts draped in legal language that prioritize wolves over sheep are inconsistent with the faith itself, regardless of what legal shields are in place.

What about those who argue mandatory reporting is somehow harmful to victims?

That’s just an absurd contention on its face.

The church operates a help line that bishops and stake presidents are instructed to call in cases of reported abuse that gives them access to church attorneys who guide them through their response. In your experience, how effective are internal systems in addressing harms and protecting the vulnerable?

What’s the quote from James Clear in his book, “Atomic Habits”? It goes, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Systems that are internal protect internal systems. That’s just their nature. It’s what they do.

If you have a system that’s internal, the incentives of that system are not necessarily the safety of vulnerable individuals, especially vulnerable individuals who aren’t within the leadership structure. The incentive is to protect itself — its financial resources, legal risks.

What I’ve seen — and, again, I don’t claim any familiarity with the LDS system — but inevitably, what happens is that an internal system becomes window dressing. It’s not particularly substantive in its assistance to victims, but it sort of looks like it is. So there’s a P.R. component to it.

Or what also seems to happen is it becomes a mechanism for legal protection in and of itself. So the type of guidance given is going to be minimization of liability, minimization of risk. That’s a fundamentally different paradigm than victim protection and prioritizations, and leads to drastically different results.