Dylan Farrow Speaks Out about Sexual Abuse

by Barry Goldstein

The original ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study led by Dr. Vincent Felitti included interviews with over 17,000 middle age and middle class patients of Kaiser Permanente. In a confidential survey 22% of the patients said they had been sexually abused as children. They had no reason or benefit for lying and it is likely some denied sexual abuse out of embarrassment or a variety of defense mechanisms. In other words this is certainly a conservative figure for the percentage of children sexually abused in the United States.

And yet most discussions about child sexual abuse are distorted by the issue of false allegations. There is a substantial group of people lying about child sexual abuse allegations. It is the people who have a financial or personal interest in supporting the myth that women and children often lie about sexual abuse. This group includes the priests and church officials who fought so long and hard to conceal the Catholic Church scandal; Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State administrators who protected him; Richard Gardner who concocted Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) to earn obscene amounts of money and protect pedophiles; the cottage industry of evaluators and lawyers who make their money supporting abusers; “fathers’ rights” organizations that are more concerned with the power and control of abusers than the health and safety of children; judges and court administrators who don’t want to admit how often they have failed to protect children and numerous other perpetrators. And as a letter from Dylan Farrow tells us, it includes Woody Allen. These scoundrels are comfortable accusing others of lying because they have been lying about the frequency of false allegations.

On this planet, we only get one chance at life. One chance at a happy, healthy and productive life. In this country we now know for sure that at least one-quarter of our children must live their only life as victims of child sexual abuse. They not only suffer the unspeakable violation, but the never ending aftermath. As a result of the actions of a predator that we failed to protect them from, the children will suffer more illnesses and injuries throughout their only lives. They will suffer far more physical and emotional pain throughout their one life. They are likely to use a variety of defense and coping mechanisms many of which will bring them still more harm. And their one life is likely to be shorter.

The Saunders’ study found the evaluators; judges and lawyers tend to pay far more attention to mothers’ anger and emotion all out of proportion to what it tells us about their parenting. The mothers see the pain and suffering their children are being put through by abusive fathers and the widespread failure of the courts to protect children. The mothers had been taught since grade school that our courts would protect victims and certainly children. How can they not be angry and emotional? This is their child’s one chance at life. What nerve to tell mothers and children to get over it, cooperate with the abuser, the child needs their (abusive) father, and we don’t believe you, and DON’T DARE BE ANGRY AND EMOTIONAL.

Perhaps the courts need to look in the mirror. They might be able to see that under current practices although mothers make deliberately false allegations of child sexual abuse less than 2% of the time, in 85% of these cases the alleged and really likely sexual abuser is given custody. And there goes the child for years of unspeakable abuse and with it goes the child’s last chance for a happy life. The statistics from court cases and from the ACE study confirm the courts are getting a high percentage of cases wrong and erring on the side of destroying children’s lives. AND YET COURT OFFICIALS SINCERELY BELIEVE THE SYSTEM IS WORKING.

Dylan Farrow Letter

Dylan Farrow is a brave young woman who recently released a letter describing the sexual assault against her by her adoptive father, Woody Allen. Her letter was published on a blog by New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof. This was a major news story and controversy when Dylan was seven-years-old and first revealed her father’s abuse. Shortly thereafter, he revealed a romantic relationship with a 19-year-old girl who was essentially his stepdaughter. They later married.

In her letter, Ms. Farrow described how Allen had engaged in many acts that we would understand as grooming a victim. Dylan tried to hide but he usually found her. She described some of the details of his sexual assault on her that led to her complaint. This resulted in a medical investigation, criminal investigation and custody dispute in which Allen used the common abuser tactic of seeking custody to punish the mother (actress Mia Farrow) and regain control.

The medical investigation at a hospital in Connecticut came to the conclusion that there was no sexual abuse. It is important to consider context in this case and understand that at that time, like today, many professionals do not have the expertise they need to investigate child sexual abuse claims and many professionals believe the myth that women and children frequently make false allegations. Allen sought to promote this myth by immediately claiming that Mia Farrow was pressuring Dylan to lie because of the problems in the relationship between Allen and Farrow. In her letter, Dylan revealed that the enormous pressure created by Allen caused her mother to ask if the allegations were true and told her it would be ok if she needed to recant.

The prosecutor decided not to bring criminal charges based on concerns about how serving as a witness would impact the child. At the press conference announcing the case was being dropped the prosecutor clearly stated that he believed the child. He was severely criticized for this statement and charged with an ethics violation, but it seems ethical for the prosecutor to support the victim and make the point that the lack of prosecution does not mean the allegations are false.

The custody case resulted in a rare successful outcome. Mia Farrow won custody of the three children and Woody Allen was denied any contact. This is an extremely rare outcome in custody cases as there was and still is a strong bias to include fathers in children’s lives. As mentioned before, custody courts rarely believe even true allegations of sexual abuse. Accordingly, the outcome suggests the evidence against Allen was incredibly strong.

Dylan described some of the consequences to her from Allen’s abuse. She said that she cut herself, suffered eating disorders and emotional problems. All of these issues are consistent with being a sexual abuse victim and support the validity of her complaint.

Misunderstanding of Innocent Until Proven Guilty

In her letter, Dylan Farrow discusses that the ambiguity of the outcome led many people to a view of “who can say what happened” and then continue as if nothing was wrong. This is a common problem, particularly in the case of celebrities. There is good reason to believe Kobe Bryant raped the woman, who complained about him, but after typically aggressive legal and public relations tactics, the charges were dropped and a settlement arranged. He has gone back to his old life and is generally treated as if no rape ever occurred.

The public has a fundamental misconception about the meaning of “innocent until proven guilty” that works against victims. This is a basic constitutional right that I fully support. We believe it is important that no one be convicted of a crime and imprisoned if they are innocent. Accordingly we have a standard that the crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. We are willing to accept the fact that many dangerous criminals will walk free because of the importance of protecting innocent defendants up against the immense power of the government. Even with the protections we see cases in which a defendant’s innocence is demonstrated after many years in jail.

Innocent until proven guilty is an important principle, but it applies only to the government. If there were rumors that a neighbor had molested children, no responsible parent would allow their children to play in the neighbor’s home. The rumors might be completely unfair and untrue, but the potential risk to children is so catastrophic that it would be neglectful for any parent to expose their children to the danger. No reasonable parent would say that the neighbor is innocent until proven guilty so I have to let my children play in his home. The admonition does not apply to the general public, but only to the government.

In the case of Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen, the information went far beyond the rumor stage. We have a credible victim and know that in the context of custody disputes, which applies to this case, less than two percent of sexual abuse allegations are deliberately false. Allen has claimed that the complaint was in retaliation for his romantic relationship with Soon Yi Previn. She is the adoptive daughter of Mia Farrow who at the time shared three children with Woody Allen. In other words she was the equivalent of his stepdaughter. At the very least this relationship raises issues about Allen’s sense of boundaries.

There is no proof that the allegations were false. An investigation at a Connecticut hospital found the allegations to be wrong. The prosecutor, while declining to prosecute said there was probable cause to support the complaint. Perhaps most revealing is that the custody decision gave Mia Farrow custody and denied contact for Woody Allen. Many in the public may not realize how significant this decision is. The custody courts have a huge bias favoring keeping even the most abusive fathers in children’s lives. In cases involving sexual abuse allegations, 85% result in custody to the alleged abuser. The Saunders’ study from the U.S. Department of Justice found that courts do not limit alleged abusers to supervised visitation as often as they should. So for the custody court to deny the father a relationship with his children demonstrates there was strong evidence that the allegations are true. It is important to understand that if the evidence made it 90% likely Allen molested Dylan; this would justify the custody court decision but would also justify the decision not to prosecute criminally.

Much of the public and indeed many professionals do not realize how difficult it is to prove child sexual abuse. Many types of sexual assault do not leave physical or DNA evidence and in other cases the physical proof may be gone by the time the child reveals the assault. Nevertheless, many people expect physical proof or DNA evidence and this alone can create a reasonable doubt in some minds. As the letter from Dylan reminds us, sexual assault is an extremely painful and embarrassing experience. We would not expect an adult rape victim to speak about the worst event in her life without developing a trusting relationship with her therapist and yet many professionals expect children to reveal all the details after very minimal discussion designed to create trust between the child and investigator. In this case it appears that the reluctance of Dylan to speak openly with strangers was used by Allen to try to discredit her complaint.

Children often do not fully understand the significance of what the offender did to them. They may worry that they are at fault and might be punished. Accordingly, it is normal for them to first reveal to the person they most trust and to tell only part of the story in order to gauge the reaction. In this like many other cases the child tells her mother, but when the mother has a dispute with the alleged perpetrator, her involvement is viewed as suspicious. When more information comes out later, this is treated as undermining credibility by those unaware it is a normal response by children.

The underlying problem in this and so many other child sexual abuse cases is that society’s response is terrible. It is not easy to create an atmosphere and response system that allows one-quarter of our children to become victims of sexual assault. The press has to fail to cover scandals as they did with the Catholic Church and Penn State until long after it should have been obvious, and as they continue to do with the custody courts. We maintain the myth that women and children often make false allegations of abuse. As the Saunders’ study demonstrated, this myth results in inadequately trained professionals routinely disbelieving true allegations. The failure to prosecute or even make child protective complaints against abusers encourages their sense of entitlement and permits them to find still more victims as Jerry Sandusky did.

It is the harmful atmosphere, belief in the myth and misunderstanding of innocent until proven guilty that encouraged the public to move on with their lives, give Woody Allen a pass and let him continue to live a life filled with fame and honor. But there is an unacceptable price for giving Allen a pass. In doing so we hurt Dylan and the people who love her. Dylan’s letter demonstrates the pain caused by a Hollywood community that continues to honor Allen for his work seemingly without concern for his treatment of his daughter.

Alec Baldwin, who is specifically mentioned in Dylan’s letter, responded by saying the issue is none of his business. This is unsurprising from someone who has promoted a pro-pedophile theory that seeks to prevent accountability for abusers while destroying the one chance thousands of children had for a good life.

Our belief in innocent until proven guilty must not prevent the public from providing support for victims like Dylan. We have every right to shun Allen for what he did and what we believe he did. I used to enjoy Woody Allen’s movies, but I haven’t seen any since I heard the complaint. When I think of Dylan lying on her stomach in the attic, nothing Allen can produce will ever be funny. The public response obviously matters to Dylan, and that is enough for me, but it really has a far greater importance. Allen’s continued acceptance sends a terrible message to abusers that they can expect to get away with the most horrific behavior.

The message to children is even worse. Your one chance at a good life doesn’t matter. Don’t dare challenge someone wealthy and powerful. Men have the power to use and abuse children’s bodies. So be quiet and don’t dare to complain. If you think this is not the message consider that one of Sandusky’s victims explained why he didn’t come forward sooner. He didn’t think anyone would believe him.

We must believe our children. They lie about other issues but not sexual abuse. We cannot continue to take one quarter of our children, permit miscreants to sexually assault them and deprive them of their one chance for a happy life on this planet. It is a painful and difficult subject, but we cannot continue to hide our eyes and our hearts. We must believe Dylan. Thank you Dylan, for being the voice for so many children who have been silenced and abandoned.

Barry Goldstein is a nationally recognized domestic violence expert, speaker, writer and consultant. He is the co-editor with Mo Therese Hannah of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABUSE and CHILD CUSTODY. Representing the Domestic Violence Survivor, co- authored with Elizabeth Liu is designed to train attorneys to present domestic violence cases and was released in April of 2013. Barry can be reached by email from their web site www.Domesticviolenceabuseandchildcustody.com

For more information about the new book, including access to the first approximately 50 pages or to purchase the book go to the publisher’s web site at http://civicresearchinstitute.com/rdv.html Elizabeth Liu and I have convinced our publisher to make available the last section of our chapter about GALs that lists and explains the best practices for GALs in domestic violence cases. You can now download and print this information and share it with your GAL. Everyone is welcome to share this information. I also hope you will check out my new Face book page, Barry Goldsteins Representing the Domestic Violence Survivor. Barry’s web site, www.Barrygoldstein.net is back up and running with new material.

The Mirror Solution to Child Sexual Abuse

by Barry Goldstein

The Pennsylvania Attorney General is now following-up by investigating some of the people who helped Jerry Sandusky continue to molest boys long after he should have been discovered and stopped. A recent news report described a meeting between the young man known at the Sandusky trial as victim #1, his mother and school officials. The boy had revealed Sandusky’s abuse to his school counselor. His mother demanded the school report Sandusky’s crimes against her son to the child protective authorities. The principal is being investigated because she attempted to discourage the mother from making a report. The mother told her she was going to the authorities to make the report. Despite her obligation as a mandated reporter, the principle called child protective to tell them to expect a visit from the mother and son, but not to take the allegations too seriously.

In recent times we have seen several stories, including Newtown where teachers and school administrators showed enormous courage and literally gave their lives to protect the children in their charge and here is a principal who allegedly undermined the efforts to protect a young boy from a criminal predator. It would be nice to think her behavior was the exception, but the reality is that when it comes to protecting children from sexual abuse, particularly when it is committed by someone they know, there is an awful pattern of adults giving more concern to the alleged rapists then to the children.

Is that an unfair characterization for the response to allegations of child sexual abuse in the United States and so many other countries? Consider that by the time children reach the age of 18, one-third of the girls and one-seventh of the boys have been sexually assaulted. Although mothers rarely make deliberately false allegations of sexual abuse, in 85% of cases in which mothers raise these concerns, the alleged abuser is given custody. This means courts are sending an awful lot of children to live with their rapists. The only thing worse than raising these grizzly statistics would be for someone to say it is inevitable and we do not have the ability to do a better job protecting children.

Certainly disgusting predators like Jerry Sandusky are responsible for their crimes. At the same time this principal and so many officials at Penn State could have acted differently and stopped him sooner. But again this is more than a problem caused by a few uncaring individuals. As a society we have long tolerated and helped keep secret the widespread victimization of our children. Attitudes, beliefs and tolerance of sexism make children more vulnerable. The solution for protecting these precious children lies as close as the nearest mirror. If the level of child sexual abuse crimes was believed and considered intolerable, we could create better responses that would drastically reduce these crimes. The principal had an opportunity to protect not only the boy in her school but other boys who later became victims of Sandusky. As tempting as it is to criticize her actions and inactions, we have no authority to do so until we do what she failed to do—work to prevent more children from being victimized by the predators among us.

The Enormous Life Long Harm of Sexual Abuse

In my first book, SCARED TO LEAVE AFRAID TO STAY, I told the story about a client who was sexually abused between the ages of 3 and 8 by her brother. He would spank her and touch her during his abuse. For many years she felt guilty because some parts of what her brother did were physically pleasurable. When the brother’s abuse was discovered, he was removed from the home, but she never received therapy because her parents did not believe in it. Much later, as an adult and in a marriage with an abuser she found a good therapist. One day the therapist brought out an empty chair and told our client to pretend the chair was the three-year-old girl. “Tell the girl what she did wrong,” the therapist asked the client. In that moment, for the first time she realized it wasn’t her fault.

A few months ago I wrote an article about the health impact of domestic violence and child abuse. I discussed a wonderful book by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett. Early in the book she was discussing how these traumas shorten children’s lives and speaking of the many common illnesses caused or worsened by these traumas. And then she mentioned diabetes----and I froze.

My mother died just a few years ago at age 84 of complications from diabetes. The last several years of her life were compromised by her diabetes and her need for dialysis. It was years after I was an adult and had started my work in the domestic violence movement that I learned that her uncle had touched her inappropriately when she was a teenager. I thought about this as I read the book. I will never know, but it is possible she would still be alive if my “great”-uncle had never abused her. We cannot know how these traumas impact an individual, but we do know that many wonderful people like my mom live shorter and more painful lives because of society’s tolerance of domestic violence, child abuse and other traumas.

Predators do not fit the kind of stereotypes that would make them easily identifiable. I can remember as a kid going out on this uncle’s boat and having a wonderful time. There was never any suggestion he had done anything so harmful. He was also a popular science teacher. I don’t know if he ever abused any of the students, but he did touch other girls in our family. I believe it is long past time for society to start taking these crimes far more seriously.

The long-term health impact from sexual abuse can occur in many different ways: The trauma can cause depression, PTSD and other mental health problems which in turn can lead to suicide; Stress, inflammation, eating and sleeping disorders can cause many of the most debilitating and fatal diseases; The violation of trust makes it harder to create and maintain good relationships; The impact of the assault may undermine the ability to concentrate in school and get an education needed to provide needed resources; Many victims run away from home creating additional dangers and vulnerabilities. Survivors often make bad decisions resulting in risky sexual behavior, substance abuse, crime, prostitution, relationships with abusive men and other self-destructive behaviors that undermine their health. These and other problematic circumstances combine to multiply the risks and harms.

Societal attitudes towards rape tend to reinforce guilt and embarrassment. In many cases survivors are blamed for the abuser’s actions. In response to most other crimes, victims can expect support and assistance, but the experience of rape and sexual abuse is often hidden out of concern for negative responses. In most cases where the offender is a friend or relative there is a danger of additional assaults or retaliation if the attack is revealed. And as many of the Penn State victims stated when asked why they didn’t report it sooner, there is good reason in our society to fear they will not be believed.

The fact that rape and other forms of sexual abuse are enormously harmful is not new or surprising. Still, the new medical and other research that demonstrates the enormity of the harm to victims is important. This research should create an urgency to prevent these crimes and help the children heal. There are many things we can do to salvage lives, but it must become safe to come forward and reveal his abuse and the resources must be in place to provide the needed treatment and therapy. Survivors should expect non-judgmental emotional support so they are willing to reveal what he did to them and seek the help they need.

The Myth about False Allegations

One of the major factors in the decision by District Attorney Bill Delahunt to develop a series of best practices that led to creation of the Quincy Model was a finding that almost every prisoner in a nearby high security prison had a childhood history of witnessing domestic violence or suffering sexual abuse. He realized that by protecting the community from these crimes he could reduce all crimes. He created an office to focus on child sexual abuse crimes. Delahunt was aware that many people tended to disbelieve allegations of incest, but he correctly understood most complaints were true. Aggressive prosecution of incest and other child sexual abuse crimes contributed to the substantial reduction in domestic violence and other crimes in Norfolk County.

The myth about false allegations of incest has a long history. Sigmund Freud originally published a study based on his work with incest victims that confirmed its frequency. Strong opposition from parts of society and particularly those who were committing these crimes led him to concoct a theory that the complaints were based on dreams and fantasies and were almost always false.

More recently organized efforts by sexual abusers and the professionals earning money by helping to defend them led to the promotion of theories designed to dispute child sexual abuse allegations. This included allegations that were based on therapy and recovered memory as well as the custody based Parental Alienation Syndrome. As with any myth, there has to be a kernel of truth to sustain it. There have been false allegations and convictions, and these are rightfully condemned, but are rare. Far more common are true allegations that are disbelieved.

Significantly child sexual abuse is a crime and so tends to be judged based on the high standard of proof required for a criminal conviction. This is based on our values that include not wanting innocent people to be convicted and jailed. This is why proof is required beyond a reasonable doubt which is a very high standard of proof. Child sexual abuse is particularly hard to prove because many types of abuse do not leave physical evidence or the evidence may no longer be available by the time the child reveals the crime. Many judges and juries expect strong physical evidence before they will believe child sexual abuse allegations and sometimes even this strong evidence is not enough.

It is indeed a horrible experience to be accused of sexual abuse and I understand the high standard of proof needed to avoid mistaken convictions. There is no justification, however to use this same high standard of proof when the issue is protecting the health and safety of children rather than sending someone to prison. Nevertheless we have seen many cases in which the decision of prosecutors not to bring charges (which would have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt) is routinely used by child protective agencies and custody courts as proof the allegations are false. Even when this non-probative information is not cited, the extreme skepticism many professionals have towards incest allegations creates a huge obstacle that prevents children from being protected. The catastrophic consequences of exposing children to sexual abuse should require courts to err on the side of protecting the health and safety of children rather than protecting abusers.

The fact is that pursuing allegations of sexual abuse are extremely painful and embarrassing for the child and the safe parent. Children do lie about many things but rarely abuse. This is confirmed by studies that confirm deliberately false allegations made by mothers occur less than 2% of the time in contested custody cases. Nevertheless the Saunders’ study found that inadequately trained court professionals tend to believe the myth that mothers frequently pressure children to make false charges. The frequency that child sexual abuse allegations are disbelieved demonstrates both the difficulty in proving incest and the high percentage of evaluators and other court professionals attempting to handle cases without the specific training they need.

Perhaps the most damning demonstration of society’s tolerance for incest is the discrimination against children victimized by sexual abusers they know. When the alleged perpetrator is a stranger, the investigation is led by law enforcement and the purpose is to gather evidence to prosecute the rapist. The alleged offender is quickly and aggressively questioned and they seek to obtain agreement for a lie detector test. In other words they take the allegations seriously and do everything possible to protect the child.

When the alleged predator is someone the child knows, particularly a family member, the approach is completely different. The investigation is led by a social worker. They are required to provide notice to the parents which provides the opportunity for the molester to destroy evidence and silence the child. There is a delay in interviewing the child and the abuser. The purpose of the investigation is to reunify the parent and child and little effort is made to gather evidence. If the case later leads to a custody dispute, this lack of evidence caused by the substandard investigation is treated as proof the allegations are deliberately false.

Misleading Stereotypes

When the media actively covers a story about child sexual abuse it is usually about a pretty blond girl who has been raped or kidnapped by a stranger. This is one of the reasons that the stereotypical sexual predator is some stranger lurking to pick up children. The reality is that the large majority of child sexual abuse is committed by someone the victim knows. Accordingly, practices that focus mainly on strangers leave most child victims vulnerable and unprotected. The discriminatory response to child sexual abuse is based on these false stereotypes.

Closely connected to this stereotype is the common but unstated assumption that a man who is successful in other parts of his life could not be doing something so distasteful. This probably influenced the principal who knew Jerry Sandusky as a successful college football coach and founder of an organization dedicated to helping underprivileged children. She probably didn’t consider that predators often engage in activities that will bring them close to vulnerable children.

The sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was similarly abetted by this popular assumption. Dedicated priests devoting their lives to prayer and God would not abuse children. Certainly the church administrators would not tolerate priests who violated the commandments and broke the trust placed in them. This made it hard to believe the allegations of abuse by priests could be both true and as widespread as they turned out to be. Violations by Boy Scout leaders similarly tended to be disbelieved because the men involved were considered role models and leaders in the community.

These common mistakes have contributed to the failure of custody courts to believe true allegations of child sexual abuse and to protect the children. Many evaluators and other court professionals believe they can determine the truth about abuse allegations from observing the parties. They often fail to consider that an abuser acts very differently with the court professionals and indeed just about everyone else than he acts in the privacy of his home. In many cases evaluators and others have referenced glowing testimonials from friends and family as if it were proof the allegations could not be true. These witnesses are usually telling the truth, but they have no information about how he treats the mother and children in private.

At the same time, mothers may be angry, emotional and upset from the long history of their partner’s abuse and concern the court will not protect their children. The Saunders’ study found that court professionals pay far too much attention to mother’s anger and emotion; all out of proportion to what it says about her parenting. The Batterer as Parent and other experts have found that the best source of information about a father’s abuse and his likely future behavior is the mother.

Abused women pay close attention to their partners’ body language, tone of voice, choice of words and other clues that can provide early warning of his potential danger. This allows the mothers to attempt to diffuse the situation, usually by agreeing to what he wants, leave the home, call for help or shield the children, usually with her body in order to try to survive. Court professionals who rarely have an understanding of domestic violence dynamics just assume the mother is biased and fail to consider their best source of information. In many cases, this bias and ignorance has directly led to child murders after the court disbelieved the mother and provided the father with the access to the children he needed to kill them.

The fathers the courts see in custody cases do not look like stereotypical child molesters. Neither did Jerry Sandusky, the Catholic priests or the Boy Scout leaders who repeatedly violated the children in their trust. Trained professionals need to do a better job of avoiding manipulation by abusers who have long practice in fooling people.

The High Cost of Silence

Child sexual abuse is an unpleasant, painful and embarrassing topic, but our silence only makes it easier for the bad guys. The research about the enormous health consequences of tolerating child abuse and the unconscionable prevalence of these life-altering crimes demands that good people speak up and demand responses that will effectively protect our children.

In recent years we have seen effective “good-touch-bad-touch” programs that make young children aware of the dangers. Predators use many effective tactics to scare and silence children. This makes it particularly important to do everything possible to encourage children to report abuse or anything that makes them uncomfortable.

We have seen in the Sandusky case, Catholic Church and many custody cases how the practice of disbelieving children’s complaints discourages victims from revealing his abuse and allows these scandals to continue much longer. The use of these flawed practices encourages abusers because they correctly expect to get away with most of their crimes. Approaches that treat incest as a private family matter increase the risk to children.

Community silence is also devastating to our children. When we consider how devastating child sexual abuse is to the victim and the community it should be shocking to see the difficulty in obtaining laws and practices designed to protect children. Many states have had laws or practices that treat incest as less of a crime than assaults by strangers. Attempts to strengthen enforcement and eliminate incest exemptions have not had the near unanimous support they deserve. Campaigns to reduce or eliminate statute of limitation obstacles to victims suing their abusers have met significant opposition and have not always succeeded. This is important because children may have lost the memory of the abuse, as a defense mechanism for survival, or continue to face threats or risks for revealing the abuse. In some cases survivors have faced retaliation when they complain about their abuser.

This silence has been particularly deafening in response to the widespread failure of the custody courts to protect child sexual abuse victims. The media has failed to expose this scandal. The legislatures have failed to pass laws that require courts to make the safety of children their first priority. Professional organizations have failed and refused to discipline members who make a living ruining children’s lives by protecting the predators. Many judges have retaliated against protective mothers and professionals who criticized them for placing children in danger. And the public has stood by while the children’s lives are ruined and they are subjected to unspeakable pain and cruelty.


Child Sexual Abuse and Abortion

I personally believe that the government has no business telling women what to do with their bodies and it is particularly offensive for male officials to interfere with the medical needs and most fundamental privacy rights of women. At the same time I have many friends who sincerely believe that abortion is wrong and I respect their dedication. I am touching this issue, which I usually would not discuss in an article like this because of some interesting findings in the ACES and related research. The studies find that girls who are sexually abused are more likely to have abortions. This is not only because they might want to abort a baby conceived from rape, but the impact of sexual abuse often leads survivors to engage in risky sexual behaviors.

We have seen politicians focus on rare types of abortions and spend enormous attention and money seeking to ban these abortions despite the impact on the health and privacy of women. The research concerning the connection between child sexual abuse and abortion means that those who wish to prevent abortions could create laws and practices that would result in a larger reduction of abortions without interfering with the privacy of girls and women. Indeed, encouraging best practices to prevent rape and molestation of girls will make the lives of all girls and women much better. It should be a rare instance in which both sides of the abortion debate could agree. Once this connection becomes better known, the response of politicians and those who are working to prevent abortions will demonstrate the sincerity of their beliefs. How could they fail to take advantage of this research to prevent abortions by preventing child sexual abuse? For those who sincerely oppose abortion, protecting girls from incest and sexual assault should become a major priority.

Custody Courts Still Protect Sexual Predators

When mothers raise concerns about possible child sexual abuse during a custody case they frequently face responses from their attorneys refusing to present the evidence or strongly discouraging the moms from voicing their concerns and protecting their children. The attorneys’ motives range from disbelieving the allegation or not wanting to present it to concerns about the sufficiency of the evidence and the likelihood the judge will deny the allegations and punish the mother for making them. With few exceptions, these attorneys are not aware of the research that 85% of these allegations result in custody for the alleged abuser. Rather this response is based on their experience that judges generally do not want to hear about child sexual abuse and often respond in ways that hurt the mother and children. In some cases the lawyer is concerned the judge will be angry at them for presenting the information. This, of course, constitutes a conflict of interest as the attorney is undermining the client’s case to protect their personal and professional interests, but it is not the kind of ethics violation that courts or bar associations tend to take seriously.

This common response is an accurate reflection of the hostile reaction custody courts make to requests that they protect children from sexual abuse. Some of this reaction is caused by many years of listening to evaluators who are part of the cottage industry that makes large incomes supporting abusive fathers. Some of this reaction is caused by the frequent lack of training or research to inform decisions about domestic violence and child abuse. The bogus Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), based not on any research but rather a belief system by Richard Gardner that included many public statements that sex between adults and children can be acceptable. At the heart of the reaction that mostly fails to protect children is reliance on the myth that mothers frequently make false allegations of abuse.

While courts claim that protecting children is their highest priority, the results and their standard responses tell a very different story. I appreciate that there are many reasons for the courts’ failure, just as there are reasons for the frequency children in this society are subjected to sexual abuse. Nevertheless, if this was a genuine priority the responses would be very different and children would be much safer. It should not take the ACES study about the enormity of harm caused by child abuse, but if that is what it takes, let’s use it to protect the children.

Domestic violence experts often speak about the importance of context in understanding domestic violence cases. This is one of the many failures in the custody court system that tends to look at each issue and incident separately. The courts also look at each case separately and assume based on stare decisis that once a decision is made it must be correct. In many cases they won’t even consider new evidence which taken together with the previous evidence demonstrates the pattern of abuse. If custody court officials would look at the pattern of courts giving sexual predators access to the children and the research about how rare it is for mothers to make false allegations it would be easy to see that most of these decisions are catastrophically wrong.

Unfortunately we have seen extreme defensiveness and too often retaliation when concerns are raised that judges mishandled a case. This is particularly true in sexual abuse cases where it would be so distasteful for judges to realize they are responsible for the children being subjected to such vile behavior. We need the courts to be open to the new research, better practices and the need to rely only on professionals who have genuine expertise specifically about child sexual abuse.

Conclusion

When the scandals in the Catholic Church and Penn State finally broke, the public was rightfully outraged that so many children were left unprotected for so long. It was fair to blame the perpetrators and the administrators who failed to do their job and make protection of children the first priority. Many of us hoped that the exposure of these scandals would encourage reforms in the custody courts’ response to child sexual abuse because the same flawed practices and responses are involved. Thus far we have been disappointed.

Just as it would be helpful to custody courts to look for the patterns in abuse cases, the same is true for society’s failure to protect children from sexual predators, particularly close friends and family. As I mentioned earlier, by the time they reach the age of 18, one-third of the girls and one-seventh of the boys have been sexually abused. This presents an unmistakable pattern of society’s failure to protect its children.

This is a society that claims to treat children as precious. If a consumer product kills or injures a few children, it is big news, the product is recalled and the media is all over the story. So why do we continue to tolerate the much more widespread, life-altering trauma caused by sexual abuse? For this we must look in the mirror.

This is a topic we are uncomfortable discussing. Many people wish to disbelieve the allegations even though children rarely lie about abuse. How could respected judges, lawyers and psychologists even consider forcing children to live with their rapists? It is much easier to blame the mother for being vindictive. Is it any less shocking that respected priests could molest children and leading administrators would cover it up rather than making children’s safety the first priority? There came a point where the church denials and minimizations were overwhelmed by the evidence and huge number of children proven to be victims.

The public and the parishioners remained silent for far too long. We have reached the point with the custody courts that the research and evidence is so overwhelming that only shutting our eyes and closing our ears to the desperate pleas for help from the children and their mothers can permit the latest scandal to continue. It is time for the media to start doing their job of exposing court malfeasance and misfeasance. It is time for the courts to start discussing this problem with more than the usual suspects who have failed the courts and often make large incomes by doing so. Court administrators need to look at the research including the Saunders’ study and the ACES medical findings. Most of all it is time for all of us to look in the mirror and tell our children what we are doing to make them safe.

Barry Goldstein is a nationally recognized domestic violence expert, speaker, writer and consultant. He is the co-editor with Mo Therese Hannah of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABUSE and CHILD CUSTODY. Representing the Domestic Violence Survivor, co- authored with Elizabeth Liu is designed to train attorneys to present domestic violence cases and was released in April of 2013. Barry can be reached by email at Barryg78@aol.com

For more information about the new book, including access to the first approximately 50 pages or to purchase the book go to the publisher’s web site at http://civicresearchinstitute.com/rdv.html Elizabeth Liu and I have convinced our publisher to make available the last section of our chapter about GALs that lists and explains the best practices for GALs in domestic violence cases. You can now download and print this information and share it with your GAL. Everyone is welcome to share this information. I also hope you will check out my new Face book page, Barry Goldsteins Representing the Domestic Violence Survivor. Barry’s web site, www.Barrygoldstein.net is back up and running with new material.

Yes…What DID We Learn From Sandusky Verdict?!?

by Lavinia Masters

I am a subscriber of the Cause, Society Against Child Abuse and every so often I get an email that further enlightens me about the devastating acts of sexual abuse against our children or interesting facts or breaking news of childhood sexual abuse in our society. I normally read through the emails and find myself not really moved by the requests to view, share or add comments to the site as I am convinced that my perspective is the same as everyone else’s and who really cares about my comments anyway.

I know it may be a poor attitude to take especially with me being an advocate against childhood sexual abuse or any sexual violence for that matter but I feel that I could take that same energy and really try to make a positive impact in some victim’s life that has been interrupted by sexual violence. However, today was different as I opened my email that I received from this Cause and it read, “The Jerry Sandusky Verdict: What Have We Learned?” I was like wow, what have we learned from this verdict…what did we take away from this entire ordeal as a society?

Well, I decided I was not going to even open the email as I did not want my personal thoughts or feelings to be altered or influenced by the contributing writer as I knew then that I was to suppose to seize the moment and ask the world exactly what did we learn from this verdict? What did we as a society walk away with as we watched this saga unfold? What hidden lessons were so openly revealed as we watched in anticipation the fate of Jerry Sandusky? I am sure the writer and I share many of the same thoughts maybe even see the same lessons but just in case you do not subscribe to the Cause emails please allow me to enlighten you on one of the most important and valuable lesson that you should have learned from the Sandusky Verdict.

First and one of the most important lessons that you should have taken from all this was that all monsters are not hideous in appearance. Evil does wear many disguises and unfortunately these types of monsters come in the form of those that you know and trust. These monsters are helped created by you as you allow your children to spend more time with this individual than yourself. They share more time with your children in school, extracurricular activities, in their homes and doing all the “fun” things that you don’t have time to do with your child. You allow this person to become your child’s best friend, “adoptive” parent, confidant and then their “secret sharer” and because it appears that you have neglected your own child this monster takes on full form and convinces your child that you are indeed the enemy and they are the friend. They saw the opportunity…they seized the moment and now they preyed upon the weak and unsuspecting.

Although there are monsters that lurk in alleys and dark places waiting on its next victim, unfortunately there are those monsters that not only groom our children to be their next victim, but we as a society also help groom them to become the next monster. We do this by not paying attention to the warning signs that our children clearly display in their presence or how their attitudes or demeanor may have changed. We use to regard our children as our treasure here on earth and would keep them safe and sound locked up in our cute little treasure chest but now we have gotten so busy and so quick to pass our responsibilities off to those that we know and trust that we have literally given them the keys to the chest, and with everyone else having full access to our treasures how are we suppose to effectively guard and protect it? Those things that we deem valuable we should protect at all cost, and I am not saying that we should live in a state of paranoia around those that we trust and love but, I am saying that we should live in a state of awareness around everyone.

I am convinced that when a monster has taken on its full form that it has also acquired an insatiable hunger for the things that has caused it to become a monster and it will not stop until that hunger is fed because unfortunately it will never be satisfied…so just like all other monsters in horror movies…they must be destroyed. When a monster has taken on its full form it does not care who it hurts or the consequences of its destruction. Its hideousness is not seen by the naked eye but is seen in its actions, its victim’s pain and the aftermath of its terror.

I know many may say, but Sandusky was a good man that has done many wonderful things for underprivileged youth in his lifetime… well thank goodness I am not God because I’m not condemning him as a man, but I am condemning his hideous acts and I am seeking to torch the monster that helped destroy so many young men lives. This monster has to be stopped and thank goodness society felt the same way as they delivered a verdict that not only exposed the monster for whom he really was, but gave each victim some sort of relief in knowing that this monster is no longer on the streets terrorizing other unsuspecting and innocent young men.

So now that I have given you my perspective on this verdict and the saga behind the Sandusky drama…tell me… what did YOU learn? 

Lavinia Masters is the Founder of S.A.V.E Ministry, a survivor of childhood sexual assault, a speaker for RAINN, and a faithful advocate. She has appeared on all major news network shows, has been instrumental in passing legislation in Texas, and is the author of "Breathe Again." SaveMinistry.Org 

Tips for the Prosecution: Jerry Sandusky

By Roger A. Canaff

Editor's note:  Roger Canaff's following post was written on June 7, and since then the prosecutors were able to get their conviction of Jerry Sandusky. Roger's advice is excellent and it's interesting to look back on the trial to see how many of the following points were used. 

 June 7, 2012

The lead prosecutor in the Sandusky case, Senior Deputy AG Joseph E. McGettigan, probably doesn't need my help. He began his career at the Philadelphia DA's office around the time I turned 15, and he's done and seen it all. But if he's as good as his reputation, then he's probably the type who never treats the opinion of a fellow professional as beneath him.  The good ones, like the legendary Dan McCarthy I wrote about a few months ago, are never too egotistical to listen.

My hope is that McGattigan's team stays focused on five basic tasks that often make the difference in child sex cases:

1. Have a theme, and weave it through the entire case. This, they are doing well so far. A theme in a criminal case is a psychological anchor that you want the jury to be repeating- literally- in deliberations. It's a phrase, a quote (often from a victim) that captures in essence the wrongness of what was done. It needs to be woven into every aspect of the trial where it can be uttered; voir dire, opening, direct examinations, and closing argument.

2. Craft direct examinations of the victims to recreate the reality of the crime. Crafting a direct means much more than writing out the questions and prepping based on them. It's taking victims through sensory detail- smells, sounds, physical sensations- that drives home the reality so that jurors won't gloss over it or accept defense arguments that it was concocted.  This works only when victims are treated with dignity, support and compassion. Thankfully, it's also the right thing to do.

3. Appeal to common sense and fight myths.  The defense's strategy is to appeal to oft-cited but baseless myths. They'll suggest Mike McQueary didn't see a child being raped because he didn't intervene. But the idea that even most of us would intervene in a situation like that is preposterous. It's tempting to say "I would have beaten Sandusky and saved the boy," but the fact is none of us know how we'll react until we face a traumatic event. Ask any combat veteran.

They'll suggest the kids McQueary and the custodian before him saw being raped don't exist because they haven't come forward. Nonsense- very few child victims ever report, and if the children in question are aware of the case and haven't come forward, it's for common sense reasons. They'll suggest the victims are lying for a civil payoff, or because they are "troubled." Garbage. "Troubled" is why Sandusky targeted them through Second Mile- they were less likely to report or be believed.  The idea that its typical for individuals to falsify allegations and endure the the process of criminal litigation for money or spite is baseless.  It almost never happens, least of all in male on male cases. Finally, to suggest that three high ranking officials at PSU would never have acted as they did when facing allegations that threaten the football program is laughable.

4. Corroboration.  This is not a "he said-she said" case; indeed, any good sex crimes prosecutor knows there is no such thing. As a mentor Victor Vieth taught me years ago, there is always corroboration if investigators and prosecutors are willing to think creatively and then dig for it. Witness' memories- when the witnesses are handled correctly- are goldmines of information that can be independently verified. In any event, victims are carrying enough of a burden during the litigation process. No case should rest solely on the testimony of a victim; this is unnecessary and the sign of a sloppy, lazy prosecution.

5. Point. While I wish I could say I learned this on the job, I read it in Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent long before I had a law degree. In it, Turow's protagonist describes a whiskey-breathing, grizzled vet of an ADA who suggested it to him. I never failed to implement it. Point at the defendant when you make your opening statement and your closing argument. Point at him, look him in the eye, and approach as far as the judge will allow. "If you don't have the courage to point, you can't expect them to have the courage to convict."

Godspeed, Mr. McGattigan and team.

A widely known child protection and anti-violence against women advocate, legal expert, author and public speaker, Roger Canaff has devoted his legal career to the eradication of violence against women and children.

Roger Canaff: Anti-Violence Advocate, Child Protection Specialist, Legal Expert Blog: WCSV (Women, Children, Sex, Violence: Outcry, Analysis, Discussion) www.rogercanaff.com

The Catholic Church, Penn State, Syracuse & the Custody Courts: The Pattern of Powerful Institutions Protecting Pedophiles

By Barry Goldstein

Domestic violence experts understand the importance of looking for patterns in order to recognize and understand domestic violence. The scandals involving the Catholic Church, Penn State and Syracuse University did not involve domestic violence, but the principles are the same. The church scandal may have involved 100,000 victims while the scandal at the colleges impacted many additional children. We can and should provide support, compassion and compensation for the victims, but can never return them to their old lives. The abusers who committed these acts are reprehensible, but the many responsible leaders of these respected institutions who failed to stop them caused even greater harm. If society fails to learn from these mistakes and use the patterns to prevent additional children from suffering the same fate we are all no better than others who covered up this abuse.

The abuse of children at these institutions is not an isolated event. It is well established that by the time children reach eighteen one third of the girls and one sixth of the boys have been sexually abused. The popular stereotype of a rapist or pedophile is some stranger lurking somewhere in a raincoat, but 83% of sexual abuse is committed by someone the victim knows just as it was at these respected institutions. This is an extraordinarily painful and uncomfortable subject, but society cannot protect children unless it examines the patterns that have facilitated these tragedies and create responses designed to prevent such scandals from ever happening again.

The Catholic Church sex scandal continued over many decades. By some estimates two percent of priests engaged in child molestation. In many cases church administrators including the most influential leaders reassigned pedophiles to new positions with access to more child victims or sent them for treatment and then permitted them to regain access to children. In some cases victims and their parents were silenced by threats or promises. In this manner the scandal was covered up for more than a generation until exposed by lawsuits and eventual press coverage.

At Penn State a respected assistant football coach is accused of sexually abusing at least several children. In one case a graduate assistant witnessed an assault and informed Coach Paterno but nothing was done to protect the children. At Syracuse University the alleged abuser was an assistant basketball coach. When initial complaints surfaced the school asked the law firm that helps them with compliance with NCAA regulations to investigate. The firm has no expertise in sexual abuse issues and there is no indication they hired anyone with this expertise to help with the investigation. The result was the coach had more years to abuse additional children.

Looking at the Patterns

In all three cases these are powerful and respected institutions. They had the trust and admiration of many in the community. Although children rarely make false allegations of sexual abuse, denials by these institutions tended to be believed. The media and law enforcement have relationships with these institutions and were willing to give them the benefit of any doubts. The problem was compounded by the myths and misinformation related to child sexual abuse.

These institutions are also wealthy. The Catholic Church was able to pay for the treatment of pedophile priests and keep the information secret. Syracuse University could afford to hire a law firm to protect their interests and create the illusion of a reasonable response. The ESPN sports network received evidence of the coach’s abuse and failed to report on the story for many years giving the coach the opportunity to abuse still more boys. ESPN has a financial interest in covering the sports program at Syracuse. Could their financial interest influence their decision against covering the issue at least subconsciously?

The institutions also had a strong moral reputation especially the Catholic Church. Who would believe that a church that aggressively seeks to prevent sex outside of marriage and especially sex between consenting same sex partners would tolerate and protect priests who raped young boys? Penn State and Syracuse University had the reputation of running strong and ethical athletic programs and so it was difficult to believe they would tolerate or cover-up for coaches sexually abusing children. Their moral stature made their denials all the more believable.

At the same time the victims had none of these advantages and this was not a coincidence. In most cases the predators deliberately selected victims who were vulnerable and less likely to be believed. Their victims were young, had no influence in the world and not likely to be given credibility. For obvious reasons the pedophiles abused the children at a time and place where there would be no witnesses with few exceptions. Even when an incident was witnessed at Penn State, the failures of the university permitted the coach to continue his abuse.

Sexual abuse has profound negative effects on children. This experience often contributes to the child making poor choices even into their adulthood. These poor choices often get them into trouble which further undermines their credibility. Many aspects of sexual abuse, like domestic violence are counterintuitive which makes it harder for non experts to recognize and believe valid complaints. Throughout the scandals at the three institutions we heard journalists, law enforcement and other professionals without training about sexual abuse making statements to the effect that the long time it took the children to report the abuse made the reports less credible. In reality, this is a normal response for many reasons including threats, fear, embarrassment, guilt and the realistic danger that no one will believe them. This widespread ignorance from professionals and the general public (who will serve on any juries) gives sexual abusers an additional advantage.

Difficulty of Proving Child Sexual Abuse

There are many reasons why child sexual abuse is hard to prove and this applies to custody cases, criminal cases and tort cases. There are rarely witnesses to the assault for obvious reasons. Many forms of sexual assault leave no physical evidence and when there is evidence it may have disappeared by the time the child reveals the abuse. One of the biggest obstacles to proving sexual abuse in a court of law is the widespread myth that women and children often make false allegations of abuse. This is especially problematic in custody cases where most evaluators and court professionals are given inadequate domestic violence training and those without proper training are more likely to believe the myth.

Children face a lot of pressures not to reveal the abuse. Abusers often threaten to harm them or their family if they tell anyone. They are also threatened that no one will believe them and the frequency with which professionals disbelieve valid complaints by children supports this threat. When the abuse is committed by a father or other family member, the child may still love their abuser or not want to get him in trouble. Revealing something that is so painful, embarrassing and uncomfortable is difficult and often requires a lot of support which the child may not have. Children (and adults) respond to traumatic events with a variety of defense mechanisms. This is a survival mechanism that may be the best way to cope with an impossible situation. This may cause the child not to remember or otherwise delay the reports. Many people including unqualified professionals often believe the delay raises doubts about the victim’s credibility. It is common for victims of abuse to engage in illegal or other unwise behaviors that further undermine their credibility. One of the alleged Syracuse victims is charged with molesting another boy.

An important factor that helped the scandals in the Catholic Church, Penn State and Syracuse University as well as the custody court system continue as long as they did is the widespread disinclination to believe that someone who is successful in other parts of his life could do something so disgusting. This applies to the priests who assaulted children, the assistant coaches at the two universities and many of the fathers in custody court cases. Many professionals cannot imagine that people like this could commit these crimes and so never conduct an effective investigation. This factor probably contributed to the lame investigations by police and the media regarding Syracuse University as well as the investigations by Penn State and Syracuse Universities. In the custody court, the frequent use of mental health professionals without expertise in child sexual abuse and use of the bogus Parental Alienation Syndrome contribute to the widespread failure of court professionals to believe valid allegations of child sexual abuse. Initial complaints by victims in the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal were probably taken less seriously because they were made against clergy who would be expected to maintain high moral standards.

When child sexual abuse complaints are investigated, most are initially investigated for purposes of criminal prosecution. In the Syracuse University case, for instance it appears some of the allegations were investigated by the police and the law firm and the failure to find sufficient evidence to be able to convince a jury of the validity of the complaint beyond a reasonable doubt led to closing the case which was widely interpreted as establishing the complaints were invalid. This is part of a widespread problem about the lack of critical thinking in responding to abuse complaints.

Consider a fundamental question of what is the purpose of investigating allegations of child sexual abuse. For law enforcement the purpose is to determine if a crime has been committed and if there is sufficient evidence to bring charges. For other institutions such as schools, religious institutions, custody courts or child protective agencies, the primary purpose should be to determine if the alleged offender presents a risk to children and if so to take steps to make sure the children are protected. Too often when law enforcement believes it cannot prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt and closes the case, other institutions treat this as if the perpetrator has been vindicated.

Beyond a reasonable doubt is a heavy evidentiary burden to meet under the best of circumstances and even more difficult in cases that are notoriously hard to prove. Our system of justice deliberately makes it difficult to prove because the consequence can be taking away someone’s liberty. I certainly don’t advocate reducing the standard of proof in criminal cases, but there is no legal or moral reason to use that severe standard as a precondition for protecting children. Indeed when the issue is the safety of children any reasonable doubt should be resolved in favor of protecting children.

Given the high level of proof required and the added obstacles to proving child sexual abuse, circumstances that are normal to child sexual abuse cases and information that is of little or no probative value are often sufficient to convince police and prosecutors to close cases with true allegations. The necessary reliance on the testimony of a young child, the myth of frequent false allegations, the lack of physical evidence, the delay in reporting the abuse, inappropriate later behavior by the victim and a continued relationship with the abuser are all common circumstances in child sexual abuse cases, have little or no probative value but any one of them alone can be used to claim a “reasonable doubt.”

The widespread false assumption that the failure of law enforcement to press criminal charges means the allegations were probably false automatically eliminate most valid cases. This encourages the institutions discussed in this article and others to take no steps to safeguard children from a possible or even likely sexual offender. Using the beyond a reasonable doubt standard to determine who goes to jail is reasonable, but using the same standard to decide whether to protect children is unconscionable. We see a similar problem with many child protective agencies that can either determine abuse allegations are unfounded or indicated. When the caseworkers believe there is not enough evidence to bring charges they are required to close the case. In many cases the evidence is ambiguous or a fair assessment is they are not sure whether or not the allegations are true. Many agencies do not have the option of saying they cannot determine the validity of the allegation and leave the case open. The result is that many children are exposed to dangerous abusers in this way. Even worse, artificial deadlines, limited resources, the use of unqualified professionals and flawed practices undermine the ability to establish the evidence needed to protect children.

Custody Courts

It took the media far too long to expose the long and sordid history of widespread sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. It appears some members of the media had strong proof about sexual abuse by the assistant coach of the Syracuse University Basketball team. In each case they failed to expose the scandal and protect children. When the press did start covering the scandals at the Catholic Church, Penn State and Syracuse University they became major stories. In many ways the biggest part of each of these stories was not the sexual abuse committed by employees of these institutions but the cover-up that many of the leaders of these institutions participated in. The stories and the effect on the institutions would be far different if the leaders had quickly investigated the allegations, reported the abuse and taken steps to protect children.

It appears the cover-up by the Catholic Church is responsible for approximately 100,000 children suffering from attacks by the clergy. In fairness to the custody court system, the complaint is not that judges are sexually assaulting children but they are sending children to live with dangerous abusers. Current scientific research establishes that every year 58,000 children are sent for custody or unprotected visitation with dangerous abusers. This is caused by the widespread flawed and discredited practices used in the custody courts and the extreme defensiveness in responding to complaints from protective mothers and professionals supporting them. These tragedies have continued since at least the late 1970s although the numbers were probably significantly lower in the earlier years before the male supremacist movement and the cottage industry of professionals who earn their living supporting abusive fathers made going after custody the leading tactic to prevent battered women from leaving their abusers. A significant portion of the 58,000 children victimized each year by flawed practices in the custody court system are not sexually abused but abused physically or witness their mothers’ abuse by their father. Nevertheless the number of children subjected to sexual abuse through the practices in the custody court system is probably much higher than the number abused in the Catholic Church.

We know the custody courts are getting a very high percentage of their contested sexual abuse cases wrong because they are giving custody to the alleged abuser in 85% of the cases despite the research that establishes deliberately false complaints by mothers and children is extremely rare. In a majority of the cases with sexual abuse allegations the charges are true, many others involve boundary violations that do not have to disqualify the father for normal visitation but certainly should discourage giving him custody. The problem is that when the court disbelieves the abuse allegations it tends to punish the mother by taking custody away from her and often limiting her to supervised or no visitation. These are decisions that are extremely harmful to children. Most attorneys have little or no expertise about sexual abuse and yet they routinely discourage mothers from making sexual abuse allegations even with substantial proof because they know the likely result would be for the mother to lose custody.

Perhaps even more convincing than outcome studies is the routine use by custody courts of deeply flawed practices that give judges little chance to protect children from sexual predators. The new Department of Justice study found that most evaluators and other court professionals have inadequate training concerning domestic violence and those with inadequate training are likely to believe the myth that mothers frequently make false allegations of abuse and in turn make recommendations that harm children. In custody cases with sexual abuse allegations this means many of the evaluators and other professionals the courts rely on consider only the possibility that the allegations are true or the mother is making deliberate false allegations to undermine the children’s relationship with their father. The difficulty in proving child sexual abuse, widespread failure to use best investigative practices and the bias caused by the myth cause these professionals to routinely assume false allegations even when there is strong evidence supporting the mother’s allegations. Although boundary violations (which can cause children to act out in sexualized ways) and ambiguous information that may be inconclusive are far more likely than deliberate falsehoods, the inadequately trained professionals rarely even consider these possibilities and jump right to punishing the mothers by removing custody and often restricting visitation. This not only increases the risk to children but helps abusive fathers silence the children so that their continuing abuse is unlikely to be revealed.

Although the burden of proof in custody cases is typically preponderance of the evidence which translates to something just over 50%, as with the other institutions discussed in this article many court professionals use the failure of law enforcement to bring criminal charges as evidence the charges are false. Similarly they also use the failure of child protective agencies to press charges as proof of false charges. Of course the inability to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt does not establish it cannot be proven by a preponderance of the evidence. Significantly over forty states and many judicial districts created court-sponsored gender bias committees that have found widespread bias against women including requiring women to meet higher standards of proof than men. The frequent use of the lack of criminal or child protective charges as if it were proof of false allegations is a common example of placing an illegal evidentiary burden on protective mothers.

When children are sexually abused it is a painful and embarrassing experience. Like women who are raped, it is not something children are comfortable discussing. Accordingly best practices for therapists or investigators would be to take the time to develop a trusting relationship with the child before expecting the child to discuss truly painful experiences. For younger children it is particularly useful to use play therapy. This permits children to reveal whatever happened unconsciously which has the added advantage of preventing parents or others from influencing what they say. Unfortunately court professionals rarely use these best practices. We often see cases in which the caseworker or other investigator asks a few general questions like favorite food or how they like school and quickly ask questions about the alleged abuse. When a child refuses to discuss the issue or otherwise deflects the question the professional often assumes the allegations are false or at least cannot be proven.

One of the problems with custody courts’ response to domestic violence is their reliance on a half sentence. The part they have heard often is that children do better with both parents in their lives. The rest of the sentence is unless one of the parents is abusive. Having missed the critical remainder of the sentence, court professionals are often particularly anxious to actively involve the father in the children’s lives. In many cases with allegations of sexual abuse the court will initially limit the alleged abuser to supervised visitation, but there is tremendous pressure to make sure the father resumes normal visitation as quickly as possible (tellingly the courts don’t seem to feel the same pressure when mother’s are limited to supervised visitation based on alienation claims or mental health diagnoses that don’t seem to impact other parts of her life or her ability to parent the children). Accordingly the professionals rush to complete investigations, fail to use best practices and seek to reunite the father and children as quickly as possible. This results in the frequent denial of valid complaints and quickly gives the father the opportunity to silence the children. If children’s safety were the first priority as it should be and as I believe most judges would say they favor, the outcomes would be very different.

The Catholic Church, Penn State and Syracuse University had years of opportunities to take action to stop the abusers, protect children and save their reputations. Instead they waited until criminal charges, civil suits and massive publicity forced them to respond. Ironically the desire to protect their reputations was probably an important motivation for staying silent but that silence magnified the harm to the institutions a thousand times over. The custody court system is now in a similar situation that the other institutions confronted immediately before the scandal broke. For many years protective mothers and later abused children after they aged out of custody orders that subjected them to more abuse complained to the courts. Current scientific research is now indisputable that the use of flawed and discredited practices has resulted in custody courts sending children to be raped and beaten by abusive fathers. The exposure of the scandal is taking longer because judges and some other professionals are largely immune from civil suit, they have some control over the criminal court system and with a few exceptions the media has viewed the scandal as a dispute between mothers and fathers and have avoided covering and exposing the scandal. The problem is that they have failed to look for patterns so they could understand what is happening. The custody court system has reacted extremely defensively often threatening and retaliating against mothers and professionals who sought to inform the public of the courts’ failures. Like the Catholic Church, Penn State and Syracuse University, the custody court system is a powerful institution with substantial resources and a strong moral reputation. This has helped them put off the day they will be exposed. Their advantages have provided extra time but inevitably a sensational case or a prize winning journalist will expose the continuing scandal and the rest of the media will jump onboard. As someone who worked within the custody court system for thirty years I still hope and believe that they can recognize the problem, reform the flawed practices, retrain the professionals it relies on and start protecting the children in its care. They would probably take some criticism for waiting so long, but nothing like the coverage of the Catholic Church, Penn State and Syracuse University. Making the reforms voluntarily instead of responding only after the scandal breaks would save the court system a lot of trouble, money and damage to their reputation. I believe the scandals we have discussed in this article make it more likely that some reporters (and perhaps more importantly their bosses) will be ready to break a story that I believe has Pulitzer Prize written all over it. In other words the custody courts need a sense of urgency in creating the needed reforms for their sake and to protect the children.

Preventing Sexual Abuse of Children

This is a painful and unpleasant topic to discuss. This discomfort probably contributes to the failure of the media to expose these scandals more quickly. I am hopeful that the massive coverage of the tragedies discussed in this article will encourage the media to perform its role in exposing scandals and particularly crimes, and flawed practices that place children in danger. Already I have seen a wonderful article by Wendy Murphy, who every year makes a provocative presentation to the Battered Mothers Custody Conference, about the importance of accountable language in discussing stories about offenders’ rape and abuse of children. The media often describes events in ways that blame the children, invisibilize the perpetrators and describe the brutal and demeaning acts as if they were pleasant or titillating. The media makes similar errors in writing about domestic violence cases often creating a sympathetic description of men who murder their partners and sometimes their children.

One of the problems is that journalists, like judges, lawyers, mental health professionals, college administrators and the public do not have the training or expertise to understand and respond appropriately to domestic violence or offenders’ rape and brutalization of children. There is a specialized body of current research and there are wonderful professionals who have the expertise to assist courts, journalists and survivors. This expertise was not always available so society needs to get into the habit of seeking this expertise when confronted with these issues. There are mental health professionals who have this expertise, but it is not based on their academic training but on extensive practice with survivors and familiarity with current research. The media should not shy away from covering these stories even if they make themselves and the public uncomfortable, but they should make it a habit of seeking assistance from genuine experts.

Journalists need to provide context for their stories. Many people believe that women and children frequently make false allegations of abuse and that a delay in reporting the abuse is an indication of a false report. The news stories should include interviews with experts or references to research that provide accurate information in order to challenge the myths and stereotypes that are so prevalent. When the sexual assault case involving Duke lacrosse players fell apart the media failed to place the events in context by informing the public that deliberately false allegations are extremely rare and the results at Duke constituted a rare exception. They generally treated the players as completely vindicated despite what was at best obnoxious and loutish behavior.

One of the problems is the lack of clear thinking about the concept of innocent until proven guilty. We often forget that this applies only to the criminal justice system which cannot presume a defendant charged with a crime is guilty or punish him unless it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt or he admits his crime by pleading guilty. The system was designed so that guilty defendants sometimes walk free in order to make it rare for innocent defendants to be convicted. In other words there is a difference between not guilty and innocent. Innocent until proven guilty does not apply to the rest of the public or the media although the media must consider defamation laws. In the Kobe Bryant case the criminal charges were dropped and he later reached a civil settlement with his alleged victim. He has largely been treated as if he were vindicated although there is a good chance he committed the crimes originally charged. A civil settlement is not an admission. Instead it means that he may or may not have committed the crime just as a not guilty verdict does. Clearly the media could do a better job of explaining this. If the public knew there were pending or possible charges against the assistant coaches at Penn State and Syracuse University, parents could have taken steps to protect their children. This would be unfair to the coaches if they never acted inappropriately, but the safety of children should be the higher priority.

Indeed society’s response to sexual assaults against children ought to be changed to make the safety of children the first priority. There are valid justifications for statutes of limitation and charges from many years ago can be difficult to defend (and prosecute) with witnesses dead or unavailable and memories faded. Nevertheless the frequency of children not reporting these crimes for many years if at all and the frequency in which the perpetrator discouraged the reports through threats, gifts or promises supports extending the time for reporting to a more realistic time frame. As I write this the prosecutor in Syracuse stated that the charges against the assistant coach are credible but he cannot prosecute because of the statute of limitations. A court could throw out a criminal complaint if the circumstances and delay made it unfair to the defendant, but an arbitrary statute of limitations gives the court no alternative but to allow a likely sex offender to continue seeking his prey.

Communities need to have the resources and expertise available to support the survivors and develop the evidence needed to take the criminals off the streets. Child protective caseworkers and other professionals involved in these cases need better training and retraining to eliminate the widespread use of myths and stereotypes. Programs need to be developed for children to meet with trained experts who can take the time to work with the children, develop trusting relationships and give children a safe place to reveal what the perpetrator did. These professionals can then be expert witnesses to support the allegations both in criminal court and custody court. Some communities already have good programs like this. There is a cost to these programs, but what often gets overlooked is the cost to society of allowing predators to keep raping and assaulting children and of failing to provide the therapy children need costs far more in criminal, health and other costs. Attempts to save money on programs to prevent domestic violence and child abuse actually cost far more financially and in personal devastation.

The custody court system also needs to make safety the first priority starting with the recognition that the present practices are working poorly for children. Courts must stop using mental health professionals with inadequate training in domestic violence and child abuse and those who believe the myth. If court administrators do not believe they are routinely using unqualified professionals they should review the Department of Justice study led by Dr. Daniel Saunders. Other court professionals need to be retrained to stop relying on the misinformation that is so prevalent in the custody courts. They need to look to the specialized body of scientific research and genuine experts for assistance. When allegations are pending, courts must avoid custody or visitation arrangements that give the alleged abuser the ability to silence the children. Stop using bogus theories like Parental Alienation Syndrome that have no scientific basis and were concocted based on the false assumption that virtually every allegation of abuse is false.

When I was a boy, I was a big Yankee fan and my favorite player was Mickey Mantle. I did not know or understand at the time that he engaged in many inappropriate behaviors. Towards the end of his life he demonstrated remarkable courage and candor when he told his fans “Don’t be like me.” Recently, in response to the Penn State Scandal, Archbishop Timothy Dolan declined to offer advice acknowledging that the Catholic Church had done a poor job in responding to similar issues. He is right that the Catholic Church can never undo the enormous harm it caused to children in its care. Certainly they need to help the victims and take steps to make sure this never happens again, but that is not enough. I believe they have an opportunity to use their experience to help prevent other children from suffering similar life-destroying experiences. They should stand with protective mothers and their children (including many Catholics) to encourage the custody court system to make the needed reforms.

They have the influence and access to deliver their message and make sure it is heard. Priests can deliver sermons informing the congregation of the widespread failure of custody courts to protect children. They can support protective mothers and use the moral force of the church to pressure abusive fathers to stop their abuse and stop playing the custody card in ways that ruin their children’s lives. They can write about the problem in their church publications and gain newspaper columns to address this issue. Perhaps most important they can set up meetings with administrative judges. They can provide the research of how the custody courts have failed to protect children. They can explain the harm to the church of covering up for so long and like Mickey Mantle tell the judges “Don’t be like us.” I believe the moral way to respond to their history of tolerating the abuse of children is to help prevent other children from suffering a similar fate.

 Barry Goldstein is a nationally recognized domestic violence expert, speaker, writer and consultant. He is the co-editor with Mo Therese Hannah of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABUSE and CHILD CUSTODY. Barry can be reached by email at their web site www.Domesticviolenceabuseandchildcustody.com

The 9th annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference will be held January 6-8 in Albany, New York. For more information check out the Battered Mothers Custody Conference web site. I hope to see many of you at the conference.