Online child abuse network smashed, Organizational Infidelity Amplifies Sexual Trauma, Pursuit of Truth Film

- Online child abuse network smashed
“hundreds of thousands of child abuse images”

- Organizational Infidelity Amplifies Sexual Trauma

- Pursuit of Truth Film
Adult Survivors Of Child Sex Abuse Seeking Justice
“a court system weighted in favor of perpetrators combine to make it extremely difficult for survivors to successfully assert their legal rights and far too easy for perpetrators to walk free and continue to abuse other children”

Online child abuse network smashed
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 15/03/2013
Reporter: Ben Worsley

Federal police have smashed what they allege is one of the largest online child abuse networks they’ve seen, arresting twenty one people, confiscating hundreds of thousands of child abuse images and reportedly rescuing a young victim of the network….

BEN WORSLEY, REPORTER: This scene was repeated in 40 homes across Australia in every state and territory, the AFP swooped en masse….
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3717028.htm

Organizational Infidelity Amplifies Sexual Trauma
By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on March 11, 2013

Organizational Infidelity Amplifies Sexual Trauma

A dispiriting sign of the times is human fallibility associated with hitherto “safe” environments. Previously sacrosanct institutions – universities, the military, the church, scouts — are now headline news for the wrong reason.

Researchers are now learning that recovery from sexual trauma is more challenging when an individual has been betrayed by a perpetrator within a conceptually secure setting.

In a study of 345 female university students, University of Oregon researchers found that 233 of them had experienced at least one unwanted sexual experience in their lifetime, and 46 percent of those victims also experienced betrayal by the institution where incidents occurred.

In the final analysis, researchers found, those who experienced institutional betrayal suffered the most in four post-trauma measurement categories, including anxiety and dissociation.

In the study which appears in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, investigators used a 10-item analysis tool — the Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire — to assess institutional betrayal and involvement.

“Our work on institutional betrayal has coincided with increased public awareness of the harm inflicted by unresponsive institutions surrounding traumatic events,” said researcher Jennifer J. Freyd, Ph.D….

Those reporting a sense of institutional betrayal were found to have more severe post-traumatic symptoms of sexual abuse trauma, anxiety, sexual dysfunction and dissociation.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/03/11/organizational-infidelity-amplifies-sexual-trauma/52465.html

Pursuit of Truth Film

Adult Survivors Of Child Sex Abuse Seeking Justice
Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a crime that is committed behind closed doors without witnesses and remains in the dark because children typically are unable to speak about their abuse.  This inability to come forward frequently continues into adulthood.  Regrettably, close to 90% of cases go unreported.  Thus, despite its epidemic proportions in this country – at least 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 5 boys likely to be abused before age 18 – CSA remains in the shadows, hidden from the wheels of our justice system.

The legal system itself must share responsibility for such tragic underreporting.  As presently constituted, the legal process constructs unfair barriers for survivors to overcome to achieve justice against their abusers.  Unjust laws– including arbitrary statutes of limitations (SOL’s) that effectively bar 60%-70% of survivors’ cases from even being filed, erratic police/prosecution practices, and a court system weighted in favor of perpetrators combine to make it extremely difficult for survivors to successfully assert their legal rights and far too easy for perpetrators to walk free and continue to abuse other children.

But winds of change are stirring.  There is a growing movement to change the justice’s system fundamental approach to survivors’ cases.  Reformers in a number of states have either eliminated SOL’s or expanded the filing deadlines substantially.  Activists are shining the light on the need to transform the handling of survivors’ cases by police, prosecutors, and courts so that justice can become a reality for survivors.
http://www.pursuitoftruthfilm.com/

On Behalf of 25 Child Advocacy Organizations In Support of Boy Scout Survivors on Release of “Perversion Files” – Calling on All States to Eliminate the Statutes of Limitations Keeping Child Sex Abuse Victims Out of Court

October 18, 2012
Comment by Professor Marci A. Hamilton

on Behalf of 25 Child Advocacy Organizations In Support of Boy Scout Survivors on Release of “Perversion Files”

Calling on All States to Eliminate the Statutes of Limitations Keeping Child Sex Abuse Victims Out of Court

The Oregon Supreme Court ordered the release of the Boy Scouts’ “perversion files” in Jack Does I-VI vs. Corp. of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Latter Day Saints, Corp. of the President of the Church of Latter Day Saints and Successors & The Boy Scouts of America, et. al (Or. June 14, 2012), available at http://media.oregonlive.com/portland_impact/other/S058601%5B1%5D.pdf  .

These files establish that the Boy Scouts knew about predators, but instead of protecting children by going to the authorities, they kept their identities secret and let them abuse more children. Marci Hamilton, one of the nation’s leading experts on child sex abuse in institutional settings, states, “The Boy Scout files, like the Philadelphia Grand Jury Reports on abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese and the grand jury report on abuse by Jerry Sandusky, document how yet another institution has covered up child sex abuse. They kept records and knew more than anyone else in the country about the recidivism of abusers, yet, they did not go to the authorities.

They enabled perpetrators and endangered one child after another. Internal records and investigations are never enough. Nor is sending the perpetrator away, with no notice to the authorities and the next community at risk. Sadly, the statutes of limitations for the vast majority of the Boy Scout survivors in many states likely have expired, making it difficult to prosecute or sue the perpetrators, or to bring the organization to account for endangering children. The Boy Scout’s perversion files are another stark reminder to our elected representatives that laws in many states favor the organization, aid the predator, and put children at risk. Right now, there are untold numbers of hidden child predators who are preying on one child after another, because the statutes of limitations have been configured to give them that opportunity.

It is a fact that approximately 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 5 boys are sexually abused. Thus, there is an iceberg of victims across the country, including many Boy Scout victims, who have no access to justice. Under the current statute of limitations in many states–which halt criminal prosecution and civil cases long before most victims are ready to come forward — those who caused the abuse or created the conditions for the abuse are being given a free ride.

The Boy Scouts of America is just the latest organization whose failure to report abuse led to justice denied. Now is the time for every state to look hard at its SOLs and to give child sex abuse victims a chance at justice.”….
http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/uploadedFiles/Cardozo/Profiles/hamilton02-447/PressReleaseBSA2.pdf

Syracuse Child Abuse Cases Spur Calls To Reform New York Statutes Of Limitations

Subcommittee Hearing – Breaking the Silence on Child Abuse: Protection, Prevention, Intervention, and Deterrence
Committee: Subcommittee on Children and Families
Date:  Tuesday, December 13 2011, 10:15 AM
http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=12f57f31-5056-9502-5d46-d6c877eaa515

Syracuse Child Abuse Cases Spur Calls To Reform New York Statutes Of Limitations  by John Rudolf 12/13/11
NEW YORK

On Dec. 7, William Fitzpatrick, district attorney for Onondaga County in upstate New York, said he found credible the allegations of two former Syracuse University basketball team ball boys that Bernie Fine, the team’s long-standing assistant coach, molested them in the 1980s.

“These two victims are believable,” Fitzpatrick said at a press conference.

But state prosecutors won’t be bringing any criminal charges against Fine for the alleged abuse, which the coach adamantly denies. The statute of limitations in both cases expired nearly two decades ago — just two years after his accusers, now in their late 30s, passed their 18th birthdays.

Fine can’t be sued either: under state law, the two men needed to file a civil suit against him before they turned 23.

“There is no remedy,” said Jeff Dion, director of the National Crime Victim Bar Association. “Because of New York law, a child molester is going to get off scot-free.”

Fine would not have fared nearly as well elsewhere in the country. In a growing number of states, legal reforms now allow victims of childhood sexual abuse to seek civil damages and criminal charges against their alleged abusers many years after reaching adulthood. The reforms are an acknowledgement of substantial research demonstrating that abuse victims often require an extensive period of time before they are ready to confront their abusers.

“People are so messed up that they don’t get the courage and the gumption to do anything until they’re in their 40s — if then,” said Thomas Neuberger, a Delaware attorney who has represented hundreds of victims of childhood abuse. “It takes a person decades before they get the courage to speak out.”….

In the last week, two lawmakers announced plans to introduce legislation extending the time period when victims of childhood abuse can seek criminal charges and civil restitution against their abusers. A previous bill to reform New York’s child abuse laws passed the Assembly three times, but was repeatedly stymied in the state Senate after heavy lobbying by Catholic bishops, who vigorously opposed a key provision to temporarily lift the civil statute of limitations for decades-old abuse.

Yet the intense publicity now surrounding the Syracuse and Penn State scandals may finally push the vote for a reform bill over the top in New York, according to Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and a long-time advocate for child sexual abuse victims.

“I do think in the next year or two or three, it’s going to be impossible for legislators to maintain statutes of limitations that favor predators,” Hamilton said. “The public outrage is building.”

The proposed reforms would bring New York closer in line with many other states, which afford child abuse victims special rights not given to other crime victims or civil plaintiffs.

Delaware has no criminal statute of limitations at all for any sex crime against a child. In Pennsylvania, victims have until their 50th birthday to seek criminal prosecution against an abuser. Six other states, including Connecticut, Louisiana and Missouri, allow criminal prosecutions of child sex abuse for at least 20 years after victims turn 18. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/syracuse-and-penn-state-child-sex-abuse-statute_n_1146138.html