By Barry Nolan, 6/25/2012
Boston Magazine
After the verdict came down in the Jerry Sandusky
case, Linda Kelly, the Pennsylvania State Attorney General, stood before the
assembled press and said something very important. She said: “One of the recurring
themes of the witness’ testimony was … ‘Who would believe a kid?’”
Yes indeed, who would take the word of a mere child
over that of a beloved coach like Jerry Sandusky about sexual abuse? Even though
we know that such terrible crimes are far too common and the numbers are
staggering, we can’t believe it. So, from 2005 to 2006 about 135,300 children were sexually
abused.
Who would take the word of a child against a
respected adult even though we know that in up to 93 percent of the time, the child knows his abuser
and as many as 47 percent of the perpetrators are family members.
Who would take the word of a child even though in the
vast majority of cases the only witness to child sex abuse is the child?
The ugly truth about child sexual abuse is that we
really don’t want to hear about it. And far too much of it happens after an
initial complaint about a perpetrator has been made and it’s not investigated
thoroughly.
Take the tragic sex abuse scandal in the Catholic
Church, and just imagine how things could have been different if there had been
real listening and forceful action early on. There were 10,667 complaints of sexual abuse
against 4,392 priests and deacons between 1950 and 2002 and yet no serious
or thorough investigation took place. And so the abuse was allowed to continue.
Until the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning series
compelled self-examination and change. That scandal has so far cost the Catholic
Church more than $2.3 billion in costs and
settlements.
The first child to make a complaint in the Sandusky
case came forward 14 years ago. But who was going to
believe a kid over Jerry Sandusky? So the complaint was not thoroughly
investigated and, tragically, the abuse continued.
And so a jury heard a full weeks worth of
gut-wrenching stories about all of the awful things that a seemingly decent man
did to so many vulnerable children in all those intervening years.
Reporter Diane
Dimond was in the courtroom covering the trial for The Daily Beast. She provided some
of the most well-written coverage you will find. I first came to admire Diane’s
work way back in 1993 when she broke the story of the sexual molestation charges against
Michael Jackson.
Back in 1993, most people simply didn’t want to
believe the awful things a kid had to say about what Jackson did behind closed
doors. After all, Michael Jackson was a lavishly talented and beloved public
figure. But Dimond, and a few others, listened carefully and pursued leads and
looked at the evidence. And the awful truth began to come out. The boy in that
case would eventually accept a settlement from Jackson that was widely reported
to be in the range of $20 million.
I asked her for her thoughts on the bigger picture,
the Sandusky case, the scandal in the church, and the Jackson matter. Here is
part of what she sent me in an e-mail:
“Pedophiles are really the very
person you think they could never be. They are the most charming, personable,
charitable, and kid-friendly people you would ever want to meet. They pay their
taxes, they go to church, they cloak themselves in acts of charity and they say
they just want to help you raise your child by being a positive influence in
their lives … Too often detectives believe the perpetrator’s version of events
and they are freed to violate again.”
We know that this is true about pedophiles. And yet,
nearly every day, in family courts across the country, people who should know
better choose not to thoroughly investigate charges of child sexual abuse —
because the allegations come from a kid and they are lodged against someone who
is “respectable.” The charges aren’t investigated, and the child continues to
have contact with someone who is hurting them. Touching them. Raping them. It’s
what some experts call the process of “growing your own victims.”
Watch this
video and read the account of Damon, a young man who pleaded with a family
court judge when he was a child not to force him to go on visits to the father
who was sexually abusing him. But the judge wouldn’t listen to him. After all,
Damon was just a kid. And so Damon kept going on those visits. And kept getting
raped. For years.
Or read the accounts of these courageous kids who have now “aged out” of court
supervision and tell similar stories about not being believed by the family
court and of being sentenced to a life of abuse.
Courageous victims like the ones in the Sandusky
trial deserve our collective thanks and our respect for stepping forward and
telling us the truth, even though it’s too late for them. They have the courage
to try to stop others from being abused.
If enough of them come forward and enough of us start
to listen, maybe one day one day when the question is asked — who would
believe a kid? — the answer will be different.
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