Sexual Abuse of Children & Penn. State

After the events of the past week at Pennsylvania State University I really need to talk about sexual predation of children.  It has been called the worst and largest epidemic on the planet and I believe that to be true.  It is the only current pandemic.

Unless you are speaking to a pedophile, you are unlikely to find anyone sympathetic to those that use children to satisfy their perverse and unnatural urges.  I will never call them 'needs', the term that pedophiles and sometimes medical practitioners use.  Their lives would go on with equal quality without indulging in their habitual crime against humanity so it clearly isn't a need.  In spite of the fact that these predators have no open allies, laws and courts fail to understand the seriousness of the crime and fail to impose penalties commensurate with the offenses.

This is even more true in Canada than in the United States.  Recent high profile cases in Canada have resulted in pathetically weak sentences.  Two years less a day.  Five years, but out on parole long before then.  When released, the offenders are free to move anywhere in the world to begin anew and little if anything is done to warn their newly adopted communities of the threat that has just descended upon them.  So the cycle continues -- this is a virtual guarantee.

Unlike many other criminal behaviours pedophilia has proven almost completely resistant to therapy.  The damage is too fundamental, affecting too many parts of the brain and too many aspects of the psyche to be repaired.  In the absence of cure, I think the world would be satisfied by repression of the behaviour, but pedophilia will not be repressed.  The irony is that some pedophiles are wracked with guilt because of their urges and actions and are still not able to stop.  I guess this is why you almost never hear of one-time offenders.  Pedophiles always seem to have a huge roster of victims by the time they are brought to temporary justice.  Often allegations against them are made and they somehow wiggle free of any repercussions.  It is only years and many victims later that they are finally made to pay for their deviance and predatory actions.

Some people think that pedophilia isn't a disease, at least not in the strictest sense.  They paint it more as similar to a bad attitude or a simple lack of morals and ethics.  Others say that it is the result of similar trauma experienced in their youth.  This is garbage!  It is not true that all pedophiles were abused themselves.  Some do it spontaneously.  Further, not every person who was victimized sexualizes children.  I contend that these apologist theories are invented by pedophiles themselves.  Also, if sexual abuse of children was simply a result of moral or ethical defect, why would so many pedophiles feel remorse?  If they were truly morally bankrupt then they would see nothing wrong with their actions (see NAMBLA) and would instead claim to be the victims of persecution by a corrupt society.  They would insist that children are supposed to be used in this fashion and those that don't do it are in fact the defective ones.  Pedophiles with this view constitute a minority of the whole, not the majority, further proof that it is not merely the result of moral or ethical deficiencies.

So, why are these cancers not treated sufficiently seriously?  Why are they not excised from society the way tumors are from a diseased body?  The answer is simple.  Money.

Short-sighted politicians, lawyers and judges, our lawmakers, are obsessed with money.  The entirety of society is obsessed with money so this is not really that surprising.  Still, we expect that people in those positions of power would be more morally upstanding.  Instead, they follow the money, and in their opinion, child predation doesn't hurt the economy so it isn't that important.  They couldn't be more wrong on multiple fronts.  By their view, taking 'productive' members of society, i.e. the pedophiles, and placing them in jail hurts the economy and costs the State further money to house, feed and care for them while incarcerated.  In their world view, it is a no-brainer.  Penalties should be token attempts to appease an angry public so that they result in as little financial impact on the government's tight budgets.  Our quiet complaints for longer sentences, which given the incredibly high occurrence of re-offending are the only logical way to protect the public's interest and safety, are ignored for financial reasons.  These same politicians have no compunctions about wasting trillions on pork barrel spending or tax cuts for multinational mega-corporations and the wealthiest citizens (or in some cases to line their own pockets) but a hundred thousand dollars a year (at most) to keep a dangerous predator off the streets is too high a price to pay.  It's pathetic and our tolerance of it is even more pathetic.

What lawmakers fail to understand is that the victims of these crimes are given a life sentence.  They carry the scars of abuse their entire lives and you better believe that it keeps them from realizing their full economic potential.  Millions of hours of productivity are wasted due to sick days, sometimes called mental health days, caused by the stress that they cannot escape.  The fact that society seems to care so little makes this stress much, much worse.  Each time a pedophile is slapped on the wrist the victims and their families (if they even know about the abuse) receive blows to the gut.  Each time a pedophile is released or is found to have re-offended the victims suffer more than the criminal.  The cost to the health care system for the scars of abuse is incalculable.  Also, victims are often left with such despair that they believe that their only remaining course of action is to kill themselves.  Suicide also has a negative economic impact.  So, lawmakers' apathy and failure to examine the issue in stark detail leads them to believe that they are taking the financially prudent course of action, i.e. minimal consequences for pedophiles.  And in doing so, they are actually hurting the economy.  Another job well done by our elected officials!

Another indictment against the government and courts is that children are not adequately protected.  The punishment doled out for a man who rapes a woman is almost always greater than what is levied against those that commit the same crime against children.  (The gender of the child is not relevant.)  How is this logical?  Are crimes against children more palatable, tolerable or more understandable?  Few people, if any, would suggest that children aren't more helpless, powerless and vulnerable than women, yet our protection of them is weaker.  We like to call children "our future" but by our lack of detemination seemingly  have no compunctions against exposing "our future" to the worst forms of abuse.

The only reason I can come up with for this illogical policy is that children cannot vote.  Children cannot make politicians pay for their inaction.  Sure, they grow up and eventually have the right to vote.  I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if their tendency to waive that right was much higher than in other populations due to complete disillusionment with the system.  And who could blame them?  Whether they grow up to vote or not politicians are banking on two outcomes.  First, politicians hope that by the time child victims are old enough to vote they will be caught up in political ideology and will vote and lobby for reasons other than their nightmare experiences.  Second, politicians are gambling that they will have left politics by the time the children are granted an electoral voice so no political price can be paid.  In other words, by and large, politicians, like most human beings these days, will do every single self-interested thing that they think they can get away with and on the other hand will do nothing more for others than they absolutely must for survival.  Under this microscope, we don't seem to be a very moral or ethical society.  We hardly seem like a society at all!  Where have civility and civilization gone?

In Penn State, a member of the athletic department staff has been accused of sexually abusing many boys over the past 15 years.  This is terrible but is hardly international news.  What makes this situation news is the fact that rumour of this activity has been floating around for almost all of the years in question!  Assistant coach Sandusky 'retired' in 1999 at the age of 55.  This is incredibly young for a college coach to retire.  Actually, it is the prime of life in terms of coach careers.  The first rumours of his clandestine activities came up just prior to his 'retirement'.  This begs many questions.  Did he retire or was he forced to resign?  If the univeristy knew of these activities and forced the resignation/retirement doesn't that mean that they knew of the allegations?  Further, while Sandusky was no longer an assistant coach at Penn State he still had full access to the university's campus and athletic facilities.  Why?  Sandusky was the leader of the children's charity he founded in 1977, The Second Mile (which it seems may have served as the vehicle for him to access children to prey upon).  Was this sufficient reason to continue to allow Sandusky access at all levels?  Why did the charity need access to college facilities?  Aren't allegations cause enough to force the university to disavow all connections to the man?  Or was this just Old Boys' Club mentality at its worst?

I'm going to point out what I consider a formality.  Everything that has emerged falls under the category of allegations.  Officially, until a court of law has determined his guilt Sandusky has done nothing wrong.  Had there been one allegation, I would concur.  A couple of days ago the number of boys that have made claims of abuse was reported as eight.  Since then the number has grown reportedly to about 20.  In my mind, with this many grievances it becomes difficult to maintain sterile objectivity and continue to maintain the innocence-until-proven-guilty-they-are-only-allegations posture.  Almost impossible, actually.  To say things don't look good is a huge understatement.

The results of the 1998 investigation are surprising given the fact that seemingly nothing was done.  Sandusky admitted to having showered with boys and even to have hugged a boy while in the shower.  Presumably both were naked at the time.  He admitted that this was wrong and said he would no longer shower with boys.  While it is true that hugs are not inherently sexual doesn't taking showers with boys and naked hugging speak of colossally bad judgment?  Isn't this type of decision making cause to force the termination of whatever relationships allowed Sandusky access to boys in the first place.  In this case, the campus polive and child welfare agency didn't think so.  The fact that this matter was investigated primarily by campus police is ludicrous.  Didn't anyone suggest that any campus organization lacked sufficient separation from the matter to be completely objective?  One of the boys was identified as "victim 6" in the police reports.  That means that in 1998 there were already at least 6 boys that had made allegations against Sandusky.  The system completely failed these boys and all the boys since.

It has been suggested that Penn State is far too politically powerful in State College, PA to be held accountable for anything.  Over the years it seems that these is cause to believe this.  With the mess hitting the fan this past week the university has shown itself unused to, if not unable to, act decisively and ethically regarding this scandal.  Last night they took a huge step in addressing that criticism by relieving both the university president and head coach Joe Paterno of duties.  All that remains is for them to cancel the upcoming game, the three remaining games on the season, suspend the football program indefinitely and perhaps cancel the playoff game that is scheduled to take place in State College and they will have addressed matters to everyone's satisfaction.  It's called damage control and ensuring the safety of the players, coaches and fans.

Everyone's satisfaction except apparently the students of Penn State.  They demonstrated last night against the firing of coach Paterno.  Paterno was made aware of the crimes that were taking place in the showers in 2002 when a graduate assistant reported having witnessed a sexual act between Sandusky and a boy.  Paterno took this information to university administration.  The university seems mostly to have buried the information.  They did bar Sandusky from holding youth sports camps on campus, but did nothing when he merely relocated his camps to the university's Behrend campus, just outside Erie, PA, which continued until 2008.  Paterno also seems to have done nothing after handing off to the university administration.  At no point did his moral compass or even his curiosity compel him to follow up on his report to see what was happening.  He was apparently satisfied that the matter as closed since Sandusky continued to have access to the university's facilities.  Yesterday, Paterno said "I wish I had done more", and that the entire situation was  "one of the great sorrows of [his] life."

In spite of logic, morality and Paterno's contrition, Penn State students demonstrated in protest of Paterno's dismissal.  My reaction to this is to suggest that their parents immediately demand a total refund for all tuition paid over the course of these students' academic careers are Penn State on the grounds that they haven't learned anything!  They are completely clueless.  They are placing the good of the football program and the legacy of coach Paterno above the health and safety of at least 8 boys over the course of at least 40 counts of sexual impropriety.  They somehow think that Paterno's dereliction of duty and failure to meet his moral obligations are not grounds for dismissal presumably since he officially met his legal obligations.  The law is a strange thing.  It is a living thing.  Its development often lags behind the needs and desires of the society it is meant to serve.  To argue that Paterno's satisfaction of his legal obligation allows him to wash his hands of all guilt is both naïve and offensive.

Obviously, crimes of this nature happen becomes criminals feel the need to offend and victimize others.  But looked at from another viewpoint, crimes of this nature occur because we let them.  On the one hand we rail against the crime and cry out for justice and/or punishment.  Less often, we call for protection of children and less often still we call for compassion and understanding for the victims.  When presented with vague evidence or some other indication of potential wrongdoing we tend to be evenly split.

Some of us act immediately.  Those that have experienced the terror of this crime personally or secondarily flock to this banner as do most people who generally advocate on the behalf of children.  The rest of us do what is easiest for us, which is nothing.  In other words, we act solely in self-interest and laziness.  "Don't rock the boat."  "It's not my problem."  "Let someone else do it."  "It's probably not true anyway."  "If it is true, it will come out without my action/intervention/sticking my neck out."  Other motivators include disbelief.  It is uncomfortable for us to think that the people close to us are bad or are doing bad things.  That would reflect poorly upon us.  After all, we chose to associate with these people -- if they are bad, we too must be bad, and that can never be admitted however true it might ring.  In short, we make excuses.  We come up with excuses to ignore our responsibilities and we all suffer as a result.

Tangent:
The back-story or origin behind the popular comic book character Spider-Man provides an allegory for this dynamic.  Peter Parker, the man who has become Spider-Man uses his miraculous abilities to seek fame and fortune.  He is presented with an opportunity to stop a burglar from stealing the money made from ticket sales and gambling on the wrestling matches in which he just competed.  He was there to get paid for his performance.  Instead of stopping the burglar, something he could have done with minimal effort given his new abilities, he gets out of the way and allows him to escape.  This burglar goes on to kill a man while trying to make his getaway.  That man turns out to be Peter Parker's uncle Ben Parker.  By his own inaction, Peter had enabled the murder of his uncle.  This is exactly what happens when we take the easy path and look the other way when wrongs occur, thus ignoring our moral responsibilities to look out for one another.
End tangent.

The bottom line is that each of us is 100% responsible for everything we do, or don't do.   Further, we are completely responsible for all the consequences of our actions and inaction.  No one would suggest that you can assume that other drivers on the road will look out for your safety -- it is up to you to assume 100% of the responsibility for your safety since you can count on others (eventually) failing to live up to theirs (intentionally or otherwise), putting you in mortal peril.  This concept applies universally.  Even Smokey the Bear had it right -- "Only you can stop forest fires."  Don't wait for someone else to do it.  If you have no qualms about letting others handle it you can rest assured that others will do the same allowing heinous and horrible things to happen.  It is in our power to stop it, but only if we stop passing the buck.  Politicians need to be pushed to do what is right, because what is tends not to be politically easiest..  So, go push!  Force the powers that be, representatives that we elect to wield our power, to do what is right.  Increase the penalties for crimes that are being taken too lightly.

In passing, I say the following without endorsing it.  It is my attempt at thinking outside of the box.  If the only way to protect society is to incarcerate offenders indefinitely, and this is deemed a budgetary impossibility there is one other option.  We can turn our back on the Ten Commandments and other moral/religious imperatives and utilize the death penalty.  It's a double-whammy.  We kill, violating Commandment #5, and we judge harshly violating Matthew 7:1-2 ("Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.") Oh, right.  Many of us already utilize the death penalty.  Ironically and hypocritically, it is often the case that the more fervently religious the person, the more likely they seem to support the death penalty.

Currently, the death penalty is even more expensive a proposition than life terms without the possibility of parole.  The cost for state-appointed (and funded) lawyers and court time for near endless appeals and requests for clemency often dwarf the cost of incarceration.  If we are going to kill criminals/people (and I don't think we should) there is a way to make it cost-neutral or even a money maker.

Televise it.

The Romans had the gore and violence of the Coliseum as a fate of choice for criminals and enemies of the State.  The modern day equivalent is television.  Put it on Pay-Per-View and recover the costs of applying the law by letting the private citizen pay the burden of those costs.  There is no question this would attract an audience.  Primarily the viewers would be proponents of the death penalty. Who better than they to foot the costs of execution?  Executions the world over are already public.  Clearly we don't object to people seeing state-imposed / state-sanctioned killing.  How is airing it any different than admitting a gallery?

We flock to watch boxing and mixed martial arts.  Some people watch auto racing hoping for the spectacle of a lethal crash.  Many people watch hockey simply in hope of watching a fight.  Traffic jams abound when there is the slightest form of accident because other drivers can't help but rubberneck looking for carnage.  We have a nearly insatiable appetite for violence.  Some would relish such telecasts, a fact which scares me.  Friends and families of victims will watch to witness 'justice'.  Some will watch to witness what they consider a state-sanctioned crime of the worst order.  Others will watch out of simple curiosity.  It is a disgusting option for sure but is it really any more violent than the contents of popular movies?  Is it more violent than the news?  There have already been (inadvertent and live) depictions of execution by terrorists (including beheading) on television and society managed to move on.  I imagine that we'd manage to get past this proposed practice as well.

I guess I'm saying to let everyone stand witness to the practice of killing criminals.  Perhaps, we will become so outraged when confronted with the reality of execution that we will turn around and finally end the barbaric practice.  What a moral victory that will be!  I mean, isn't it high time we moved beyond the Hammurabic Code?  Sadly, as far as public budgets go, we'll be back at square one.  I think this would be a small price to pay for an end to moral relativism and/or situational ethics.