The Penn State Scandal: What! A nice guy like that?!

Image courtesy of pibillwarner.wordpress.com.

^{Frank Bruni’s article at the NY Times offers a painful reminder of the vulnerability of young children to sexual predators.  Bruni zeroes in on the recent scandal at Penn State University, which he links to similar widespread and prolonged abuse of young boys in the church, Boy Scouts, and other supposedly safe venues.} 

^{But if we simultaneously hold in our minds the fact that “1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or other otherwise abused during her lifetime,” we must face the reality that we can’t take for granted the safety of children of either gender – anywhere.}

^{In the Molester Next Door, Bruni writes:}

The longest, most exhaustively researched article I ever wrote for a newspaper or magazine was about a child molester who had sexually abused a little boy living down the street. The abuse went on for more than two years, beginning when the boy was 10.

The arrest on Saturday of a former Penn State University assistant football coach — who is accused of sexually abusing eight pre-adolescent, adolescent and teenage boys — brought this all back to me. I wonder if people who know the coach and saw him working with kids will comment on how genuinely nurturing he seemed and how this surely prevented or discouraged suspicions about him.

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Protecting our children from abduction or other heinous crimes

Photo credit: public domain

Patricia Garrison’s post at the New Agenda is in response to the murder of a child who got lost and asked a strange man for help:

The horrifying murder of an 8-year old boy in a protective Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn has sent parents in the tri-state area reeling.  Allowed to walk home from a nearby day camp for the first time, Leiby Kletzky got lost.  He asked a man for help – a man that looked like most of the other men in his neighborhood.

 Leiby never made it home.  The police found his butchered remains in the refrigerator of the alleged murderer.  The community’s grief and disbelief have spread to all of us that live and work in the region, forcing us to once again question the best ways to safeguard our kids. 

Arguing that teaching our children not to speak to strangers is unrealistic, Garrison urges parents to teach children when they are in need of help to ask a woman because statistically men are the most likely to commit crimes:

Despite research showing increases in female crime, the fact is that women are a small percentage of the criminal class.  According to statistics, between 95% and 99% of child molesters are male and more than 85% of all murders are committed by men. Virtually all serial killers are male, and males represent close to 90% of all people in US prisons.  For the same reasons I prefer female baby-sitters, there is far less risk of danger from a woman.

Garrison makes some good points, and at the same time, it reminds me of an incident I encountered while shopping at Target the other day. As I was walking down the aisle, I saw a little girl standing alone, twisting and turning, obviously bored and uncomfortable, while her mother, several yards away, chatted on her cell phone. The little girl stopped me, and we visited for a few minutes. She told me her name was Marcy, and she was five years old.

When I told her I had to go, she said, “No! You stay here and talk!”

I relented and stayed with her until her mother finally got off the phone and took her by the hand and led her away.

When I shared this experience with a friend, she immediately replied, “Marcy could easily have been abducted!”

At a minimum, the mother in this scenario was guilty of child neglect, and she certainly was putting Marcy’s life at risk.

I mention the incident here as a wake up call to parents or others who have children in tow in public places: those children deserve your full attention and protection, so get off the phone and take care of them. Who knows? You just might enjoy their company. I found Marcy to be a delightful little girl!