The Witch-Hunt Narrative: “most of the charges brought against child molesters were grounded in some truth”

Research By the Dozens
By Lawrence Goodman  September/October 2014

….More than fifteen years in the making, The Witch-Hunt Narrative examines dozens of child sexual abuse cases from the 1980s. Over time, these cases ensnared dozens of defendants, some of whom were eventually cleared of any wrongdoing. Many experts believed these prosecutions came about when interrogators asked young children leading questions, resulting in a witch-hunt in which wrongful accusations were made against thousands of people.

Thanks in part to the work of Brown students, Cheit reviewed all the so-called witch-hunt cases and concluded that most of the charges brought against child molesters were grounded in some truth. At the very least, he says, there was enough credible evidence to begin police investigations.

Cheit, who holds a law degree and is also a professor of public policy, believes we are far too quick to dismiss the accounts of young children. “We have, over the last twenty years,” he writes in The Witch-Hunt Narrative, “discounted the word of children who might testify against sexual abuse. We have become more worried about overreacting to child sexual abuse than we are about underreacting to it.”….
http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/view/3759/31/

Horrific truths of treatment emerge from Catholic mother and baby homes, Norwich child abuse inquiry police charge woman with rapes, The Witch-Hunt Narrative By Ross E. Cheit

Horrific truths of treatment emerge from Catholic mother and baby homes
Niall O’Dowd June 14,2014

There are some undeniable facts about the unmarried mother’s homes in Ireland from the time they were established in the 1920s until they were closed sometime in the 1960s.

Children died needlessly by the thousands in them. Many, possibly 800 in Galway, were buried without coffins, thrown in the earth, some in a septic tank….

Here is what happened there.  A conscientious health official, Dr .James Deeny, visited, and here are his exact words written in 1951:

“Shortly afterwards, when in Cork, I went to Bessborough. It was a beautiful institution, built on to a lovely old house just before the war, and seemed to be well-run and spotlessly clean. I marched up and down and around about and could not make out what was wrong; at last I took a notion and stripped all the babies and, unusually for a Chief Medical Adviser, examined them.

“Every baby had some purulent infection of the skin and all had green diarrhea, carefully covered up. There was obviously a staphylococcus infection about.

“Without any legal authority I closed the place down and sacked the matron, a nun, and also got rid of the medical officer.

“The deaths had been going on for years. They had done nothing.”

One year later under a new regime, less than one percent of babies perished from a high of over 60 percent….

It was all a part of the punishment ritual for the poor unloved unmarried mothers who suffered horrifically. Even if their children survived they were ripped away from them and sent abroad for adoption.

They were made to cut grass with scissors, forced to endure child birth without any painkilling drugs, denied stitches when wounds were opened – all testified to by local nurses and doctors who seemed helpless to stop the horrific suffering….
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Horrific-truths-of-treatment-emerge-from-Catholic-mother-and-baby-homes.html

Norwich child abuse inquiry police charge woman with rapes 14 June 2014
A woman has appeared in court accused of raping and abusing children.

Marie Black, 33, of Atkinson Close in Norwich, was charged with 24 offences on Friday night and appeared before the city’s magistrates.

The charges relate to five victims under the age of 13 and are alleged to have happened between 2004 and 2010.

She faces five counts of child cruelty, four rapes and related offences. She was released on bail and is due before Norwich Crown Court on 27 June.

Ms Black is the ninth person to be charged in connection with the child abuse investigation.

Eight men and women were charged in connection with the case in February 2014. They are all on conditional bail to appear at Norwich Crown Court at a future date….
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-27850220

The Witch-Hunt Narrative By Ross E. Cheit
Based on a comprehensive examination of primary sources, The Witch-Hunt Narrative challenges the conventional wisdom about these cases. Ross Cheit uses trial transcripts and related court documents to demonstrate that many of the cases at the core of the witch-hunt narrative involved compelling evidence of abuse. He focuses on three major cases while also surveying dozens more, including some that involved injustice to the defendants. He finds that in many cases the conventional wisdom is significantly overdrawn.

Cheit’s years of research also revealed a history of minimizing and denying abuse, and a surprisingly lenient response to many child molesters. Those trends continue into the present, where there are pockets of overreaction to sexual abuse in a sea of under-reaction….

This powerful book shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with the grim reality of sexual abuse. The Witch-Hunt Narrative is a magisterial account of the social dynamics that led to the denial of widespread human tragedy.
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/sample-page-2/
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/

Blind to Betrayal The Book, How often do Child Molesters go on to Reoffend?

– Blind to Betrayal Preface
– Blind to Betrayal – Chapter 1
– Speaking Our Truth Chapter Discusses Jennifer Freyd’s presentation at a professional conference “Personal and Theoretical Perspectives on the Delayed Memory Debate.”
– Recidivism: How often do Child Molesters go on to Reoffend?

Blind to Betrayal The Book  

Betrayal is fundamental to the human condition.  Betrayal is everywhere and yet because of betrayal blindness often not seen. Drawing on empirical research, clinical thought, and real stories, we will explore with the reader central questions about betrayal and betrayal blindness: What is betrayal? What is its scope? Why are we often blind to it? What are the mental mechanisms that underlie betrayal blindness? What are the effects of betrayal blindness? How should we overcome the effects of betrayal and our blindness to it? How do we become aware of it and heal from its effects? We can create a better world together by facing betrayal and learning to trust ourselves and each other.   https://sites.google.com/site/betrayalbook/the-book

Blind to Betrayal Preface
“Betrayal violates us. It can destroy relationships and the very trust we need to be intimate in our relationships. It can and does damage the social fabric that creates the bonds for a healthy society.

In the case of children, the effects can last a lifetime. Betrayed children may grow into adults who fail to trust the trustworthy or who too readily trust people who further betray them. Whether being too willing or too unwilling to trust, difficulty with trust not only interferes with relationships, but also eats away at a strong sense of self. Those who were betrayed as children often suffer severe self esteem problems, as well as depression, anxiety, and even psychosis.”
http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/blindtobetrayalpreface.pdf

Blind to Betrayal – Chapter 1
“betrayal occurs in many domains besides infidelity. People can be betrayed at work, in the family, and in society. Betrayal can occur at the individual and at the societal level. Betrayal can be the act of a terrorist or the act of a friend. Parents can betray by abandoning or abusing their children. Treason is betrayal. Social injustice and oppression often entail betrayal and betrayal blindness, as will be illustrated in the next chapter by the case of Kevin, who remained blind to being a victim of racial discrimination for so many years. Although not all betrayal involves blindness, ongoing or repeated betrayal is intrinsically linked with unawareness.
Ongoing betrayal can occur only when there is some deception that is not fully detected.”
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/09/04706044/0470604409-124.pdf

Speaking Our Truth – Chapter 13 Discusses Jennifer Freyd’s presentation at a professional conference “Personal and Theoretical Perspectives on the Delayed Memory Debate.”  She discusses her personal relationship with her parents, their false memory organization and her accounts of privacy violations and inappropriate relationships.

Blind to Betrayal  March 11th, 2013
Professor Jennifer Freyd has a new book with Pamela Birrell called Blind to Betrayal. The book, officially published today, explores various case studies involving betrayal, its effects and how victims come to grips with it.  Most relevant to the Recovered Memory Project is the chapter about the False Memory Syndrome….
http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2013/03/11/blind-to-betrayal/

Recidivism: How often do Child Molesters go on to Reoffend?

Some people claim that child abusers can’t be cured and invariably reoffend. Others suggest that recidivism rates are low and that sex offenders are less likely to reoffend than those who commit other types of crimes. What is the truth?

Overall, follow-up studies typically find sexual recidivism rates of 10%-15% after five years, 20% after 10 years, and 30%-40% after 20 years (see, Hanson, Morton, & Harris, 2003).

However, these numbers are conservative because not all offences are detected….

The vast majority of sex offenses are never reported. For instance, the National Women’s Study surveyed a representative sample of over 4,000 adult women in the United States . Three hundred forty-one (8.5%) of these women were victims of at least one rape prior to the age of 18; however, only 11.9% of these women reported the rape to authorities (Hanson et al., 1990). And it must be remembered, of the few offenses reported, an even smaller number result in convictions.
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/rcd.html

What Scout abuse scandal teaches us

What Scout abuse scandal teaches us
By Patrick Boyle, Special to CNN
September 20, 2012

(CNN) — After being smacked in the face by wave upon wave of sex abuse scandals for the past decade, it’s easy to feel nothing but angry or numb.

So Joe Paterno’s statue came down, a slew of dioceses went bankrupt, and thousands of once-secret documents about molesters in the Boy Scouts will soon be made public. It’s fair to ask: Have we learned anything?

That makes it a good time to step back and look beyond individual villains to the big picture. When you put together the stories of Penn State, the Roman Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts and other organizations hit by abuse scandals, you see they reacted in much the same way. Their behavior was shocking, but it was more common than we knew.

Thanks to lawsuits and news reports, we now see this: For decades, some of our most trusted institutions — from schools, camps and sports leagues to correctional facilities, foster care agencies and religious groups — have inadvertently enabled child molesters at the expense of victims. While leaders in many youth-serving organizations have confronted the abuse problem head-on, others routinely erred on the side of molesters, ignored the extent of abuse in their ranks, hid abuse from authorities and misled the public.

Why? To protect the good work of their organizations. They lost their perspective on where organizational protection ends and child protection begins….

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/20/opinion/boyle-boy-scouts-abuse-scandal/index.html

A Critic at Large – In Plain View How child molesters get away with it

A Critic at Large – In Plain View
How child molesters get away with it.
by Malcolm Gladwell September 24, 2012

In a 2001 book, “Identifying Child Molesters,” the psychologist Carla van Dam tells the story of a young Canadian elementary-school teacher she calls Jeffrey Clay. Clay taught physical education. He was well liked by his students, and often he asked boys in his class to stay after school, to do homework and help him with chores. One day, just before winter break, three of the boys made a confession to their parents. Mr. Clay had touched them under their pants. The parents went to the principal. He confronted Clay, who denied everything. The principal knew Clay and was convinced by him…..

“We weren’t really prepared to call the police and make it into a police investigation,” one of the mothers told van Dam. “It was an indiscretion, as far as we were concerned at this point. It was all vague: ‘Well, he put his hands down there.’ And, ‘Well, it was inside the pants, but fingers went to here.’ We were all still trying to protect Mr. Clay’s reputation, and the possibility this was all blown up out of proportion and there was a mistake.”

The families then learned that there had been a previous complaint by a child against Clay, and they took their case to the school superintendent….

The allegations against Clay, he thought, were simply the result of the fact that he was “young and energetic.” Clay threatened to sue. The parents dropped their case. Clay was a man repeatedly accused of putting his hands down the pants of young boys. Parents complained. Superiors investigated. And what happened? The school psychologist called him a victim of hysteria…..

We now know what Sandusky was really doing with the Second Mile. He was setting up a pipeline of young troubled boys. Just as important, though, he was establishing his bona fides. Psychologists call this “grooming”—the process by which child molesters ingratiate themselves into the communities they wish to exploit. “Many molesters confirmed that they would spend anywhere from two to three years getting established in a new community before molesting any children,” van Dam writes. One pedophile she interviewed would hang out in bars, looking for adults who seemed to be having difficulties at home. He would lend a comforting ear, and then start to help out….

The pedophile is often imagined as the dishevelled old man baldly offering candy to preschoolers. But the truth is that most of the time we have no clue what we are dealing with. A fellow-teacher at Mr. Clay’s school, whose son was one of those who complained of being fondled, went directly to Clay after she heard the allegations. “I didn’t do anything to those little boys,” Clay responded. “I’m innocent. . . . Would you and your husband stand beside me if it goes to court?” Of course, they said. People didn’t believe that Clay was a pedophile because people liked Clay—without realizing that Clay was in the business of being likable….

This is standard child-molester tradecraft. The successful pedophile does not select his targets arbitrarily. He culls them from a larger pool, testing and probing until he finds the most vulnerable. Clay, for example, first put himself in a place with easy access to children—an elementary school. Then he worked his way through his class. He began by simply asking boys if they wanted to stay after school. “Those who could not do so without parental permission were screened out,” van Dam writes. Children with vigilant parents are too risky. Those who remained were then caressed on the back, first over the shirt and then, if there was no objection from the child, under the shirt. “The child’s response was evaluated by waiting to see what was reported to the parents,” she goes on. “Parents inquiring about this behavior were told by Mr. Clay that he had simply been checking their child for signs of chicken pox. Those children were not targeted further.” The rest were “selected for more contact,” gradually moving below the belt and then to the genitals….

Sandusky started with wrestling, to make physical touch seem normal. In the shower, the boy initially turned on a showerhead a few feet from Sandusky. Sandusky told him to use the shower next to him. This was a test. The boy complied. Then came the bear hug. The boy’s back was touching Sandusky’s chest and his feet touched Sandusky’s thigh. Sandusky wanted to see how the boy would react. Was this too much too soon? The boy felt “weird” and “uncomfortable.” Sandusky retreated. The following week, Sandusky showed up at the boy’s home, circling back to test the waters once again. How did the boy feel? Had he told his mother? Was he a promising lead, or too risky?….

Horsing around in the shower? That was Jerry being Jerry. It did not occur to them that the goofy, horseplaying Sandusky they thought they knew was another of Sandusky’s deceptions. Those who put all their ingenuity and energy into fooling us usually succeed. That is the lesson of a world-class swindler like Bernard Madoff, and of Donald Silva, in his parents’ bed with a ten-year-old boy and the woman he later married—not to mention Jeffrey Clay. Clay, van Dam writes, got his teaching certificate reactivated. He went on to teach the handicapped and take foster children into his home. “Needless to say,” she adds, “his expertise, enthusiasm, and exceptional generosity to those who are needy has been very much appreciated by the community in which he now lives.” Tim Curley and Gary Schultz currently face criminal charges. Graham Spanier was forced out of office last November, a few days after the grand-jury indictment of Sandusky was released…. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/09/24/120924crat_atlarge_gladwell

Child Abuse Concerns Spur Federal Takeover at North Dakota Indian Reservation
September 17, 2012 by Sarah Childress

The Bureau of Indian Affairs said Monday that it will take control of social services on a North Dakota reservation, amid concerns from federal officials that the tribe’s mismanagement of the agency led to the abuse of children on the reservation.

The reservation, home to the Spirit Lake tribe, a group of roughly 6,600 people living in a remote area of the northern United States, has been under scrutiny since August 2011, when federal officials from the bureau began working with tribal authorities to improve child safety after the local BIA office reported “serious deficiencies” at the agency. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/biographies/kind-hearted-woman/child-abuse-concerns-spur-federal-takeover-at-north-dakota-indian-reservation/

Prosecution rests in Philadelphia Archdiocese child sex abuse trial

Prosecution rests in Philadelphia Archdiocese child sex abuse trial
Dave Warner Reuters May 17, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – The prosecution rested its case on Thursday against Philadelphia Archdiocese Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior U.S. clergyman to go to trial in the Roman Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal.

During nearly eight weeks of startling testimony about the lurid lives of predatory priests, Lynn, a former secretary of the clergy, has sat stoically in his clerical garb as the case unfolded in an often-packed courtroom.

Lynn, 61, is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy over accusations he covered up child sex abuse allegations against priests, many of whom were simply transferred to unsuspecting parishes.

He faces the possibility of 28 years in prison if convicted.

The trial that started on March 26 has drawn a spotlight on the Philadelphia Archdiocese, the nation’s sixth largest with 1.5 million members, in a case experts say is likely being watched by the Vatican.

Defense lawyers promised to begin their case on Tuesday to bolster Lynn’s argument that he acted responsibly, reporting allegations to higher officials, but was overruled.

Lynn served in essence as the personnel director of the archdiocese under the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, the long-time archbishop of Philadelphia….

A grand jury that indicted Lynn and four others said in its January 2011 report that “Over the past two decades, Msgr. Lynn has put literally thousands of children at risk of sexual abuse by placing them in the care of known child molesters.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-crime-churchbre84g1hd-20120517,0,5467080.story

Penn State Officials Face Trial In Abuse Case, radio interview on child molesters

Penn State Officials Face Trial In Sex Abuse Case
by Jeff Brady
December 17, 2011

Accused of trying to cover up Penn State’s child sex abuse scandal, two former administrators will face a trial on perjury charges. A judge made that decision at a preliminary hearing on Friday, as NPR’s Jeff Brady reports. Warning: This segment contains language that may not be suitable for all audiences. http://www.npr.org/2011/12/17/143886780/penn-state-officials-face-trial-in-sex-abuse-case

Penn State officials to stand trial in abuse case
By Mark Shade HARRISBURG, Pa  Fri Dec 16, 2011

(Reuters) – A judge ruled on Friday that two former senior Penn State officials must stand trial on charges of lying to a grand jury about what they knew of sexual abuse allegations against former coach Jerry Sandusky.

District Judge William Wenner decided there was enough evidence against former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and finance official Gary Schultz that they should be brought to trial. The ruling capped a court hearing where a key witness, Mike McQueary, testified in public for the first time that he saw Sandusky in a sex act with a 10-year-old boy in 2002.

The explosive allegations against Sandusky have shocked the university and the college-sports world, and focused national attention on the serious problem of child sex abuse. The story told by McQueary, a graduate assistant in the university’s football program at the time, is key to the case against the two Penn State officials and Sandusky.

This is because McQueary testified that he personally witnessed the abuse and then told his boss, former head coach Joe Paterno, who in turn told Curley. Even though McQueary’s account was passed up the line of authority at Penn State, no one told police and Sandusky’s alleged behavior continued for years.

Curley and Schultz deny that they lied to the grand jury and say that Paterno and McQueary only told them in general terms about the incident and not in graphic detail. Sandusky has been charged with 52 counts of child sexual abuse involving 10 victims over 15 years. The identity of two of the victims, including the boy in the shower, remains unknown, prosecutors said. Sandusky has said he is innocent….

“I believe he was sexually molesting the boy,” McQueary testified at the hearing in the Dauphin County Courthouse on Friday. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/17/us-crime-coach-pennstate-idUSTRE7BF01R20111217

Radio talk show host Keith Hansen interviews researcher and former therapist, Lynn Crook, M.Ed., on current issues related to child molesters.   Where do we find them?  How do they operate?  When should we decide what to do if our child is molested? http://vyzygothraw.com/audio/crook.mp3

Supreme Court Grants Justice Dep’t Request to Reject Child Victims

Supreme Court Grants Justice Dep’t Request to Reject Child Victims
By James R. Marsh on December 6, 2011

Last week the United States Supreme Court ignored the extraordinary pleas of three nationally recognized child advocacy groups and granted the Justice Department’s request to dismiss a child sex abuse victim’s appeal for criminal restitution.

The case now returns to the district court which must follow the DC Circuit’s holding that the victim in this case, Amy, does not have a clear and indisputable right to full restitution, but must instead trace precisely how her losses were “proximately” caused by each of the thousands of child molesters and pedophiles who collect and trade her child sex abuse images.

The Supreme Court’s rejection means that a child pornography victim’s right to criminal restitution in the federal courts will continue to be limited and denied in sixteen states and territories, including California, New York and Washington, DC. Only in the Fifth Circuit—encompassing the states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi—is restitution still mandatory.

The Court’s denial—and the Justice Department’s stubborn refusal to abandon a legal standard which the influential Ninth Circuit concluded “present[s] serious obstacles for victims seeking restitution in these sorts of cases”—leaves child sex abuse victims like Amy with scant chance for justice in the federal courts.

Pedophiles, child molesters and the Justice Department are likely to seize on the high court’s rejection as a sign that criminal restitution for child sex abuse victims is all but impossible in the federal courts except under the most egregious circumstances. http://www.childlaw.us/2011/12/supreme-court-grants-justice-d.html

Obama Administration Actively Working Against Child Victims

Obama Administration Actively Working Against Child Victims
By James R. Marsh on November 16, 2011

….Unfortunately when it comes to victims of child pornography, the Obama Administration has taken a curiously activist approach which is antithetical to the best interests of children who are raped and sexually exploited in order to produce child pornography.

By advancing an un-provable standard which the government itself has almost NEVER been able to sustain, the Obama Administration has effectively prevented hundreds of child victims from receiving any money from the tens of thousands of child molesters and pedophiles who collect and trade child sex abuse images.

It’s bad enough that the Attorney General is opposing child victims in the Supreme Court. Now, in the Sixth Circuit, the Obama Justice Department is asking the Court of Appeals to SET ASIDE a million dollar award to a child victim because the legal standard which resulted in the award was too easy.

Instead, the government wants the trial court to re-consider the case and impose a higher standard WHICH THE GOVERNMENT HAS RARELY BEEN ABLE TO SUSTAIN in hundreds of cases all over the country.

What’s even stranger about the Obama Administration’s position is that when given the chance in the Ninth Circuit to challenge that court’s decision that the higher standard is impossible to prove, the Administration decided NOT to appeal.

The government is left advancing a position which the courts of appeal say is unworkable and un-provable while child sex abuse victims are left with nothing….
http://www.childlaw.us/2011/11/obama-administration-actively-.html

Child Pornography Victims Abandoned at the Supreme Court

Child Pornography Victims Abandoned at the Supreme Court
By James R. Marsh on October 24, 2011

Last week, the Solicitor General filed this brief with the United States Supreme Court which effectively denies child victims the ability to obtain criminal restitution from the thousands of child molesters and pedophiles who collect and share child pornography.

The defendant in the case currently pending before the Supreme Court, Amy v. Monzel, admitted to law enforcement that he sexually abused his granddaughter and traded images of girls being sexually abused. A search of his home uncovered more than 800 child sex abuse images including pictures of Amy, the victim in this case. The defendant pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The District court ordered the defendant to pay just $5000 in criminal restitution to Amy, a girl whose rape and sexual abuse images were found in his collection. That award was overturned on appeal. Amy then appealed to the Supreme Court where three amicus joined her in asking the Court to take the case.

Despite supporting the victims in the lower courts, the government abandoned victims of child pornography at the Supreme Court by asking the Court not to review the Court of Appeals’ denial of restitution. The Solicitor General’s position on this issue effectively strips victims of child pornography the ability to obtain criminal restitution from any of the thousands of child molesters and pedophiles who collect and share their child sex abuse images.
http://www.childlaw.us/2011/10/child-pornography-victims-aban.html

Anonymous Hackers Take Down Child Porn Websites, Leak Users’ Names
Oct 20, 2011 By Matt Liebowitz, SecurityNewsDaily Staff Writer

Members of the Anonymous hacktivist movement are claiming responsibility for taking down more than 40 secret child-pornography websites and leaking the names of more than 1,500 members of one of the illegal sites.

The Anonymous campaign began Oct. 14, when members of the hacktivist group found a cache of child-pornography websites while browsing a secret website called the Hidden Wiki, a guidebook to hundreds of underground websites invisible to search engines and regular Internet users.
http://www.securitynewsdaily.com/anonymous-hackers-child-porn-sites-1260/

Hacking Child Pornography
By James R. Marsh on October 21, 2011
A new front has opened in the battle to control child pornography on the internet. Members of the Anonymous hacktivist movement have recently taken down more than 40 secret child-pornography websites and revealed the names of more than 1,500 members of one of the illegal sites.
http://www.childlaw.us/2011/10/hacking-child-pornography.html