LEV481 In the United States, there are laws directing a person's reaction to the sexual abuse of a child. Every state has a law mandating "professionals"--including doctors, nurses, therapists, welfare personnel, and teachers--to report such abuse, but only in three states is failure to report considered a felony. In thirty-nine states, not reporting the sexual abuse of children is only a misdemeanor. Eighteen states have a law requiring non-professionals to report such an act, with no specification for those failing to report. In contradistinction, the attitude and ruling about this crime in Judaism is very definitive. Not acting and/or not reporting is a clear sin, and reporting the molestation of a child fulfills one of the 613 Commandments in the Torah, as Judaism forbids any person, not only professionals, from standing by and doing nothing [this verse]. Maimonides records this law with specific examples, including any sexual acts against a person's will (Maimonides, Hilchot Rotze'ach 1:15). In addition to reporting, a Jew's first obligation is to prevent an imminent act from occurring, or stopping an act that he or she witnesses. The Code of Jewish Law goes one step further and even requires a Jew to hire others to stop the act if the witness cannot do it by himself (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 426:1). This applies to any situation in which one person is harming another person, but certainly when the victim is a defenseless child.