The Truth About Child Abuse Reporting
I just had another "victim" of the Child Abuse epidemic in my office today.
"Oh" you say "that is so sad, I hate to see kids get abused."
What you've just done is fallen for the same old trap that everyone falls for these days; this trap is fed by the media, by Hollywood, by politicians, by our own sense of right and wrong and by the criminal justice "machine" itself.
You may be thinking "What's this guy talking about? All he said was he talked to a child abuse victim and I said I hate hearing about kids getting abused. So what 'trap' have I fallen into?"
The trap is this: nowhere in my original statement did I say that I talked to a child who was a victim of abuse. Go ahead, read it again. What I said was I talked to a victim of the Child Abuse Epidemic that is rampant in America.
The victim I talked with was an unjustly accused man. Since he didn't commit the act for which he was wrongly accused, HE IS THE VICTIM in this case!
Here's the scenario in this case:
* Man and woman get married.
* Man and woman have two kids together.
* The man has an affair with another woman.
* Man and woman decide to get divorced for irreconcilable differences.
* Woman wants sole custody of "her" kids.
* Woman's divorce lawyer tells her "No way, it's not gonna happen unless he is a totally unfit father, like he abused the kids or something."
* Woman (in her best "Amazing Kreskin" imitation) says "you know, he did abuse the kids."
* Woman then proceeds to tell some disjointed, general story, lacking in specifics and says she didn't tell anyone when it happened because she was scared of the man.
* Immediately, the lawyer (being a mandated child abuse reporter) contacts law enforcement and a police report is made.
* Victim's advocates start "assisting" the woman in filing for a protective order to keep the man away from her and their children.
* The woman is told that unless she cooperates with this protective order, law enforcement will interpret this as not being properly protective of her children. If that happens, law enforcement will immediately declare the children in "Imminent Danger" and will take them into State custody and put them them in foster care.
* With no warning, the man is contacted and told that he cannot return to his own home, that he cannot get clothing or other personal property and is forbidden to contact his wife or their kids in any way.
* The man is contacted by the police and because he has nothing to hide, agrees to talk with law enforcement investigators. In the interview, he denies 20 times that he ever abused his kids, but does admit that occasionally he yells at them and has spanked them "when they needed it."
* The kids are shuffled off to some type of "Forensic" interview with an "impartial" child advocacy organization.
* When the kids don't tell their interviewers about any abuse, it is immediately decided that the kids have been so systematically traumatized by their father that they are afraid to tell the truth.
* Meanwhile, the man is absolutely forbidden (by court order)to talk with the kids, so they ask their mother what is happening.
* Their mother "reminds" the kids about all the times their Dad has spanked them or yelled at them to get their chores done and stresses how wrong that behavior really is.
* Furthermore, the woman tells the kids that Dad is leaving them all; that he doesn't love them any more.
* The kids are angry, confused and even somewhat vengeful. Why won't their Dad call them and explain what happened if he's innocent?
* They are interviewed again by child abuse advocates. This time they "remember" that their Dad abused them.
* The kids' stories are still disjointed and lacking in detail, in fact they directly contradict each other in several places. This is explained away by law enforcement because the kids are "immature" and lack time references and "are still somewhat in denial."
* Law enforcement forwards this case to a prosecutor.
* Instead of analyzing the case and seeing all of the problems, the prosecutor puts the case in front of a secret "Grand Jury."
* The Grand Jury meets in private. Only the prosecutor gets to present "evidence."
* In this case the prosecutor reads the police officers' written reports aloud...that's it! The prosecutor "summarizes" the officer's written report. No defense attorney is present, the man doesn't even know about the Grand Jury hearing.
* The Grand Jury hears from the prosecutor that in this case, children are being abused. They even hear that the man "confessed" to the police that he physically abused the kids, so they render a "True Bill" of indictment and an arrest warrant is issued for the man.
* He is arrested for Child Abuse at his work and word of it spreads throughout his company by lunch time.
The Man gets an attorney and has to "find" the money for a multi-thousand dollar retainer to pay the lawyer.
The defense begins. The attorney hires someone to polygraph the man. The man is shown to be truthful on the polygraph when he says he didn't abuse his kids. Further, the attorney sees that the police reports don't indicate that the man confessed, the reports indicate he denied any abuse and only admitted that he spanked his kids occasionally.
The defense attorney contacts the prosecutor and they talk. They decide that there are problems with this case which need more investigation.
In this case, the woman is re-interviewed by investigators. By using basic interviewing approaches, she admits that the man never actually abused the kids, that she was mad at him for cheating on her. The kids are also re-interviewed and they can't remember any specific times that the abuse was supposed to have occurred.
The criminal case is dropped, but Health and Welfare is assigned by the court to "keep an eye on" this family to make sure no abuse is occurring.
When confronted, advocates of the system point to the fact that the man was cleared and the charges dropped. "Proof that the system works" is their chant.
Oh really?
1. The man now has an arrest record.
2. He had to post bond to get out of jail (you don't get bail bondsman's money back).
3. He had to move to a motel for 30 days.
4. He had to come up with a $10,000 retainer for his attorney.
5. Everyone at work knows he was arrested.
6. Those that fancy themselves as "lay legal experts" at work think he's guilty, he just got off "on some technicality."
7. His relationship with his children is strained and full of tension.
8. Health and Welfare "monitors" his visits with his children and will continue to do so for a year.
9. Every time he looks at his (now) ex-wife he remembers she had him falsely arrested, so that relationship is gone for good.
Do you think this can't happen to you? Think again, it happens every day in this country. You can be accused of any type of child abuse (your kids, grandkids, neighbor's kids, anyone's kids) and you can find yourself arrested with absolutely no physical evidence against you.
The system has evolved with one thing in mind; the best interests of the child. That's a commendable goal and well-and-good in theory, but it has gone way overboard and is being systematically abused in this country.
Ironically, we can fix the problem by doing one simple thing: make child abuse cases adhere to the same standards of proof, due process and rights as every other criminal case!
That's it, no big changes needed, just apply the existing criminal laws evenly. Legal admission of evidence, the right to confront your accuser, the right to cross-examination, the right to due process, that's all.
This is one of those things that is easy to not care about, "It can't happen to me" but it can happen to you or to someone in your family. The problem is that all of the "politically correct" pressure in our system makes it practically impossible for people in the criminal justice system to call B.S. on phony child abuse cases, even when the facts don't add up.
It's funny (in a sad way),all of the law enforcement in-service training seminars presented each year pay passing acknowledgment to the fact that there are "some" false child abuse accusations occurring. So, you'd think if that was true, there would be classes offered for law enforcement and prosecutors on how to spot false accusations, right? WRONG!
Let's take a deep breath here and examine the current system. I hate child abuse, whether it's physical or sexual abuse. It's wrong, it's horrible, it offends my sense of right and wrong, but so does getting falsely accused of child abuse. I talk with many people in my practice that have been falsely accused and they have almost no way of proving it.
Think about it, how do you prove you didn't do something?
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