You want to be a bit more specific. The parents in question caught their kids in some form of act and then committed violence towards minors. In both cases, the victims were boyfriends of stepdaughters. In both cases, the parent overreacted. Again, this goes to guidance and trust and allowing children, particularly girls, to positively learn.
That seems silly. On the other hand, this sounds like a mighty dicey conviction ... the alleged memories of a 3 year old, a hostile ex-wife, and a strange statement made during a high-pressure interrogation. There have been a lot of innocent people whose lives have been ruined by false accusations of child molestation. It's something of an American mania - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria
That list leaves off Jordan, Minnesota, where in the early '80s 24 people where arrested and tried and... eventually, exonerated. But only after being financially and in many ways socially ruined. Edit: I'd never heard of this one: Dale Akiki[edit] Main article: Faith Chapel Church ritual abuse case Dale Akiki was a developmentally-delayed man accused of satanic ritual abuse in 1991. Akiki, who has Noonan syndrome, was along with his wife a volunteer baby-sitter at Faith Chapel in Spring Valley, California[disambiguation needed]. The accusations started when a young girl told her mother that "[Akiki] showed me his penis", after which the mother contacted the police. After interviews, nine other children accused Akiki of killing animals and drinking their blood in front of the children. He was found not guilty of the 35 counts of child abuse and kidnapping in his 1993 trial.[1] In 1994, the San Diego County Grand Jury reviewed the Akiki cases and concluded there was no reason to pursue the theory of ritual abuse.[46] On August 25, 1994, he filed a suit against the County of San Diego, Faith Chapel Church, and many others, which was settled for $2 million.[47] Akiki's public defenders received the Public Defender of the Year award for their work defending Akiki. All hail those public defenders!
People get off on the idea of children being sexually assaulted. Thus the mania/phobia. Look maybe this guy is guilty as hell. Just saying.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/3/31/Harvard-sexual-assault/ Well worth reading, a first-hand account from a victim of a rape some participants in this thread have not deemed to be "real" rape.
Maybe they've adjusted for the fact that he might not be guilty since this stuff is so hard to determine, and people have been railroaded in the past. I do agree that the judge's comment seems silly.
Well, it's not just an American mania. Where I come from somebody might get beaten, perhaps even to death, over such an accusation.
Yeah, but does this mean that the assumption should automatically arise that the claims might be false?
Absolutely the claims might be false. That of course is true with the allegation of any crime, but in particular when the allegation comes from a 3 year old.
I would guess that such false claims by a 3-year old would be fairly rare. In any case, there will be experts brought in who can give a fairly good assessment of the veracity of a child's claims. You start from a very weird and dangerous place if you assume that the victim might be lying.
Actually, they are common. That is why so many people ended up in U.S. jails for ludicrous satanic ritual crimes that they did not commit.
I agree with you in general, but on the other hand... in those cases in the wiki article that JohnR posted those "experts" often wound up coaching the kids into some really, really bizarre -- and false -- charges. Not saying that's what happened with the rich guy: but it has happened quite a bit in the not too distant past.
What is "quite a bit"? It has to be statistically relevant for that to apply. I would guess that it is still far more likely for a real child molester to get away with his crime than for one to be falsely accussed. I would wager that the ratio would be massively skewed towards the former.
This is what put those poor people in jail 30 years ago -- the fervor to go after the crime of child molestation, a crime deemed to be more horrible than other crimes and thus more worthy of pursuing. Plus, why would the kids lie?
This is quite a bit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria and it's this kind of hysteria that makes it even more likely that a molester will get away with his or her crime. And contrary to American Brummie's view, I don't think statistical relevance means much to someone in a case like the one below: Wee Care Nursery School[edit] Main article: Wee Care Nursery School In Maplewood, New Jersey, in April 1985,[1] Margaret Kelly Michaels was indicted for 299 offenses in connection with the sexual assault of 33 children.[36] Michaels denied the charges.[37] "The prosecution produced expert witnesses who said that almost all the children displayed symptoms of sexual abuse."[38] Prosecution witnesses testified that the children "had regressed into such behavior as bed-wetting and defecating in their clothing. The witnesses said the children became afraid to be left alone or to stay in the dark."[38] Some of the other teachers testified against her.[38] "The defense argued that Miss Michaels did not have the time or opportunity to go to a location where all the activities could have taken place without someone seeing her."[38] Michaels was sentenced to 47 years in the "sex case."[39] Michaels "told the judge that she was confident her conviction would be overturned on appeal."[39] After five years in prison her appeal was successful and sentence was overturned by a New Jersey appeals court. The New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision and declared "the interviews of the children were highly improper and utilized coercive and unduly suggestive methods."[40] A three judge panel ruled she had been denied a fair trial, because "the prosecution of the case had relied on testimony that should have been excluded because it improperly used an expert's theory, called the child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome, to establish guilt."[41] The original judge was also criticized "for the way in which he allowed the children to give televised testimony from his chambers."[41] Again, this probably has not much to do with the DuPont heir, but it does mean that the testimony of three year olds isn't always what we would like it to be in a court of law.
Plus it stands to reason that Satanic ritual child abuse will become extremely common if not treated quite severely. Especially now that we have the anti-Christ in the White House. And don't get me started on flying kids out of state for abuse but getting them back in time for their 2:30 parental pick up...
I'm starting to regret that, just last week, among the boxes of books I donated to a book sale at my wife's college, was this classic of the period...
As the father of a 20 year old daughter attending college, this incident both frightens and angers me.
I have no flipping idea how a reported crime can be dropped because it doesn't violate some school policy. That is a reported crime.
There was a case in Mexico City several years ago (I forget when) in which one police officer was beatten to death as another was fighting off the crowd. They were investigating a Mafia guy who had been kidnapping children. Of course the rumors were that the police were in on it, so this Mafia guy saw the police comming to arrest him, but got everybody think that the police officer was really trying to kidnap somebody's child. Yeah, a rather handy weapon.
In the last year, I've heard some comments about Harvard specifically that make me not want to become associated with the institution in any way.