Prevent Child Abuse New York's Blog

PCANY Supports the Trafficking Victims Protection and Justice Act

Children who are abused at home or in foster care, who run away from home, or are kidnapped deserve the utmost in compassionate treatment. Instead, they often find themselves forced into the commercial sex trade. At the hands of both skilled traffickers and “customers”, these children find themselves subjected to further violence, manipulation and harm.

The average age for a child to enter into prostitution in the United States is 13. By definition, every sexual act a child engages in with an adult is rape. Children who are used for prostitution are usually under the control of an adult who uses whatever physical and psychological force is necessary to keep under their control, as virtual or actual slaves, and who is in charge of the commercial part of the transactions. Children commercially exploited for sex suffer enormous physical, mental and emotional harm. The criminal justice and social service systems often struggle to meet the needs of these children, and they are frequently so stigmatized by their exploitation that they struggle to re-integrate into society when they have the chance.

Toughening the penalties for purchasing sexual services from a child will decrease the demand for these services. This, in turn, will decrease the demand for traffickers to trawl for vulnerable children or to bring them in from foreign countries. It also sends a message that raping a child is never acceptable, even if that child is being prostituted. It emphasizes that children are children, and it is the responsibility of adults to protect them.

Prevent Child Abuse New York supports A.9804/S.7212, which toughens the penalties on adults who purchase sexual “services” from a child. While only one step in a long journey, we believe this bill will help move New York in the right directions when it comes to safeguarding children, the direction that we must, absolutely, head in.

One-Year Civil Suit Window for Past Child Sexual Abuse

Topic of Tuesday May 22 program at the Legislative Office Building in Albany.

As common as headlines are about adults being arrested child sexual abuse, the cases that make the paper are the tip of the iceberg. Most children who are sexually abused don’t disclose the abuse before adulthood. Why? Often the abuser manipulates or threatens the child into silence. Very young children sometimes lack the vocabulary to describe their ordeal. Some children don’t realize that what they’re experiencing is considered wrong, abnormal, or noteworthy to the outside world. Almost 40% of sexually abused children are abused by someone in their family, and family members are often reluctant to believe a child’s revelation of abuse, or are willing to dismiss it in order to prevent family upheaval.

Children generally survive acts of sexual abuse by forcing themselves to not experience it, through disassociation or other means. Victimized children get very good at blocking out and not thinking about their abuse. Before they can disclose, they must be able to survive without those coping mechanisms. They also must be able to verbalize what happened, and have someone in life to disclose to. They must be able to survive rounds of questioning by police, social workers, etc. They may need to brace themselves for living without their family of origin, a decision a child rarely can make. Thus, many children simply can’t disclose the abuse while they are children.

Changing the statute of limitations. All of that means that we often have to wait until their victims are adults if we want to arrest child sex abusers. How long do we need to wait? At the least, we should allow grown children enough time to gain complete independence from their family, and allow for them to “outgrow” those survival mechanisms that served them so well. How long does that take? Statistically, most survivors who disclose their abuse do so in their late 30’s to early 40’s. I have had the privilege of meeting one survivor who didn’t disclose until her 60’s. Currently in NY, the statue expires on a victim’s 23^rd birthday. Ideally, we should eliminate the statute of limitations or extend it for decades after the survivor reaches the age of majority.

But changing the statute of limitations will only catch tomorrow’s offenders. Crimes committed before the law was changed will not be prosecutable.

Creating a window for civil suits. An interesting solution that some states have found is to include a “civil window” in statute of limitations reform.  The “window” is a limited period of time following the law’s passage, most often one year, when survivors may file suit against their abuser, for abuse that happened at any time in the past.

Civil suit windows have seen survivors awarded money for damages. (A recent study estimated that surviving childhood abuses costs the average survivor $400,000 in increased medical expenses and decreased productivity.) They have seen court documents naming specific abusers committed to the state’s record; those documents can limit offenders’ access to additional victims. And they have given many survivors the chance to tell their story, under oath, to a judge and have the judge say “I believe you”, a phrase most survivors rarely hear.

Learn More: A panel discussion about the civil window and statute of limitations reform in New York will be held in Tuesday May 22, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Legislative Office Building, Room 104A, in Albany. Experts in the fields of law, and advocates who have brought similar legislation to other states will be in attendance.  Everyone who is interested in making New York safer for children is welcome to attend and show their support for this important legislation.  For more information about the event, contact Bob Kristan, (212) 989-1285 or Assemblywoman Margaret Markey’s office, (518) 455-4755.  

Sexual Assault Prevention and Intervention Conference

We're exhibiting this week at New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault's (NYSCASA) annual conference, Weaving a World Without Violence (pdf). The conference program looks terrific, and we're looking forward to networking and sharing information with professionals and advocates committed to ending sexual violence and exploitation. The conference is May 9-10, 2012, at the Holiday Inn at 205 Wolf Road in Albany. You'll find details and registration information here.

Spotlight on Child Sex Abuse: Minimizing the Risk to Children

The Penn State and Syracuse University child sex abuse scandals have garnered nationwide attention and understandable outrage. The sad truth is that similar, although less publicized, situations like these happen in our communities everyday. Our task now is to put our collective outrage to good use. What steps can we take to protect children? A good start is to understand where the risk comes from. As the Penn State and Syracuse University cases illustrate, the greatest risk comes from people we know—family members, loyal friends, good employees, trusted members of the community—not strangers.

It’s hard to believe someone we know and like would abuse a child. Perpetrators know this and use that knowledge to ingratiate themselves with parents, children and institutions. In a process called “grooming,” those who sexually abuse children often go to great lengths to appear trustworthy and kind. They are experts at gaining the confidence of children, parents and other adults. They look for situations where they can have easy access to children.

There’s no foolproof checklist to identify an abuser, but there are some warning signs. You should be suspicious of an adult who repeatedly prefers to spend free time with a child or teen rather than adult friends, finds ways to be alone with a child, ignores a child’s cues that he or she does not want to be hugged, kissed or tickled, refuses to respect a child’s privacy in the bathroom or bedroom, discusses sexual experiences or feelings with a child or teen, gives a child money or gifts for no particular occasion.

We must also insist that youth-serving organizations set policies that protect children. Background checks are not enough. People who haven’t been convicted will come up clean. Institutions must establish clear guidelines for adult interactions with children, including eliminating one adult-one child situations, which is where most child sex abuse occurs. They must train their staff how to identify and prevent behaviors that put children at risk. The excuses that it is too expensive or inconvenient to do so cannot stand.

Policies must include immediately reporting any suspicion to police, who are trained to investigate these cases. Right now, there are staff in schools and other institutions who are abusing children or grooming them for abuse. And right now, there are other staff members who suspect this abuse is going on and are doing nothing about it.

Some institutions argue that an internal investigation is enough. This hurts kids. Abused children often don’t respond the way people expect, so they need to be questioned by specially trained personnel. No organization should take the role of determining whether abuse actually occurred, nor should it ignore the signs when confronted with them. The children we fail to protect will suffer the consequences for the rest of their lives.

It is not enough just to believe that the sexual abuse of children is repugnant. If we don’t change our approach—if we don’t take the time to prevent it, or take the risk to believe a child and act on that belief—kids will continue to be hurt.

As part of our commitment to reducing the risk of child sex abuse, our upcoming statewide conference features several workshops on the topics of sex abuse treatment and prevention, including:

• A Truly Safe Place: How Collaboration Between Domestic Violence and Child Advocacy Agencies Has Made New York a Better Place
• Think Outside the Box: A Creative Team Approach to Child Sex Abuse
• What Every Direct Services Worker Should Know About Human Trafficking
• Understanding the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
• Engaging Your School Community: Interactive and Accessible Sexual Abuse Prevention
• Preventing Sexual Abuse in Early Childhood (Two-Part Institute)

The conference is April 16-18 at the Marriott Hotel in Albany. Information and registration can be found on our web site.

Advocates who want to end childhood sex abuse hear first-person accounts of survivors

ALBANY, NY, FEBRUARY 29, 2012 --- Assemblywoman Margaret Markey held a press conference here today to present first-person accounts of abuse survivors. The program was held in conjunction with a Lobby Day by supporters of her Child Victims Act of New York (A5488).

This event is one of three Markey is holding this week to focus the attention of the Legislature and Governor on the issue of childhood sexual abuse and her Child Victims Act of NY legislation (A5488). Tomorrow, Thursday, March 1, 1:00 p.m., speakers will include Henry Miller, past president of the New York State Bar Association, and Albany County District Attorney David Soares.

Speakers today included Professor Marci Hamilton of Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School, a nationally-recognized authority of statutes of limitations across America.

“New York is one of the worst states in the country in the protection of children, and that stems from inadequate reporting laws and shockingly short statutes of limitations,” said Professor Hamilton,  “and it appears that the members of the Legislature are now giving the statutes of limitation the serious attention they deserve.”

She added, “At a minimum, there are two reforms needed: extend (and even eliminate) the civil and criminal SOLs and enact a civil window, which would permit victims currently shut out of the justice system to bring their cases against the perpetrators and the institutions that enabled the perpetrators with easy access to children.  As I document in, my book, Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Children, these reforms will protect today's children, prevent abuse in the future, and give a measure of justice to victims.  The New York state courts have repeatedly held that they are not the place to get these laws corrected -- it is up to the legislature. The Markey bill is the best first step for New York, because it provides a window and an extension (5 years).  I would hope in future that extension would be extended again.”

Hamilton continued, “It is well-known that the primary opponent to protecting New York's children is the Catholic Conference, the lobbying organization for New York's Catholic bishops.  The bishops, led by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, are sinking hundreds of thousands of their parishioners' dollars to fight child sex abuse victims in New York.  They are joined by Agudath Israel, which means that 2 religious organizations are the political enemies of New York's children. They have chosen the side of the perpetrators.” 

Also speaking was attorney Tina Weber and one of her clients who was among the victims who successfully took their case against a pedophile priest to neighboring Massachusetts courts when they couldn’t get justice in New York. Tina Weber said, “It’s been a year since the conviction of Father Mecure and his sentencing, but in my dealing with church officials on behalf of the men who testified against him, I think the church may have lost its focus.  As the single biggest charitable institution in the world, which has provided for so many over the decades, it cannot now step forward when the most vulnerable members need it the most.”

Mark M. Appel, heads Voice of Justice, a support group that works on domestic violence, child protection and other social justice issues largely in the Jewish community. He introduced a young man his group is working with, Schneur Bornstein, who reported his abuse at the hands of a yeshiva rabbi to authorities but whose case did not go forward before the current statute of limitations expired for him.

Mark Appel said, “Passing  the Child Victims Act is the only way we can ensure that past predators are taken off our streets and bring closure to survivors like Joel Engelman, Schneur Bornstein and others. 2012 is our year of hope to ensure that students of Penn State, Syracuse and children around the state in parochial schools and yeshivas are safe in our communities and past abusers taken off the street.”

Also speaking on the program was Rabbi Gershon Tennenbaum, President of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, an organization that represents more than 850 synagogues. Rabbi Tennenbaum has been a vigorous advocate for the Child Victims Act over several years.

Award-winning journalist and television producer Steve Jimenez was another speaker on the program. Mr. Jimenez said,  “My abuse began when I was 10 and continued until shortly before my 14th birthday. It occurred on school grounds, in Prospect Park, at city beaches, in bathhouses, and during class outings. Like most abuse victims, I concealed my secret and shame until the symptoms of post-traumatic stress overwhelmed my life and I was forced to seek decades of treatment.”

According to Jimenez, he has had several meetings with officials of the Brooklyn Diocese including the most recent two bishops. "I've tried talking with them since 2002 and they've done absolutely nothing, other than acting as if they're the ones that have been victimized rather than the other way around," Jimenez said. "It's upsetting to see other communities around the nation taking the lead for years in offering reparation and healing to abuse victims, while New York State has lagged so far behind."

The Lobby Day activity for the Child Victims Act of New York was coordinated by the New York Coalition to Protect Children (www.nyprotectchildren.org).  The group has an active on-line petition available so that the general public can reach out to their own local legislators as well as the Governor and the top leaders of the Assembly and the State Senate. It is at nychildvictimsact.org   An earlier on-line initiative on behalf of the bill in a previous session of the Legislature resulted in sending more than 70,000 petitions to the Governor and legislative leaders.

Robert Kristan, who heads the Coalition said: “Studies that show 90% of child sexual abuse is not reported. That can mean only one thing--that the thousands of unknown abusers in New York puts tens of thousands of children in jeopardy every day. The only proven way to find these predators is to allow their victims to identify them whenever they are able to do so, not when an arbitrary law says they can. Only the reforms of the Child Victims Act will makes this possible. We're here to carry that message to New York's legislators.”

Markey’s Child Victims Act has been adopted by the Assembly four times, in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. However it has failed to succeed in the State Senate. The bill will extend the current statute of limitations for child sex abuse crimes by five years, to age 28, and will also completely suspend the civil statute of limitations for one year. This will help expose older crimes and make it possible to identify previously hidden abusers through the discovery process in court, exposing them and those who have shielded them to ensure they can never abuse a child again.

 “Laws in New York are so lax that many perpetrators evade exposure by waiting out the short statute of limitations. I want to change that because pedophiles who are not exposed will continue to abuse yet more children in the future,” the Assemblywoman said.

3-Day Focus on Changing New York’s Child Sexual Abuse Statutes of Limitations

Two men who say they were molested by a Syracuse University assistant basketball coach will appear with Assemblywoman Margaret Markey to urge lawmakers to pass a bill that would open a one-year window for sexual abuse victims to file civil litigation, at a February 28 press conference.

Assemblywoman Markey is holding three events in Albany to focus the attention of the Legislature and Governor on her Child Victims Act of NY (A5488), which will give victims of abuse more time to get justice and expose pedophiles who have previously been hidden. All events will be held in the Legislative Office Building Press Room at the Empire State Plaza in Albany.

• Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 2:00 p.m., press conference. Speakers include two men who say they were molested by a Syracuse University assistant basketball coach when they were ball boys, and several who reported abuse by a coach when they were students at a prestigious private school in New York City.

• Wednesday, February 29, Child Victims Act (CVA) Lobby Day. Supporters of the bill meet with Assemblymembers and Senators to support the bill. At a 1:00 p.m. press conference, victims of abuse at the hands of religious organizations will talk about their ordeals.

• Thursday, March 1, 2012, 1:00 p.m., press conference. The third day will focus on broader legal and social issues relating to statutes of limitations; speakers will include a past president of the New York State Bar Association.

Assemblywoman Markey’s explains the Child Victim Act in a recent article that can be found online at Queens Gazette on the Child Victim Act.

To sign an online petition to support the Child Victims Act of New York legislation go to www.nychildvictimsact.org.

 

Support for the Child Victims Act, A.5488

Prevent Child Abuse New York supports A 5488, the Child Victims Act, which would amend criminal procedure law and civil practice law and rules, extending the 5 year statute of limitation for criminal or civil action related to sex offenses against children to begin running at the victim’s 23 birthday.

Sex crimes committed against children leave life-long mental, emotional, and physical scars on their victims. This proposal would extend the authority to prosecute and to bring a civil lawsuit for damages in child sexual abuse cases, provide a remedy for those whose lives have been unalterably changed, and help save other children from future victimization.

This legislation recognizes the substantial research demonstrating that abuse victims often require an extensive period of time before they are ready to confront their abusers. Nine out of ten children who are sexually abused are victimized by people they know and trust: family members and adults they know at school, youth programs, and other settings where they live and play. Most are unable to disclose the abuse to authorities until they are well into adulthood, and are emotionally and financially free.

New York’s current law allows most felony sex offenses committed against a child to be prosecuted for only five years after the child turns 18, misdemeanor abuse for only two years. For civil claims, child victims have just five years from the time they reach their 18th birthday to file a suit against an abuser. By requiring victims come forward by their 23rd birthday, our law has the effect of protecting offenders. Not only does the victim have no legal recourse, but also more children are victimized as the result of our failure to deal with offenders. Child sexual abuse is not a one-time, one-victim offense.

This bill would add five years to the criminal statute of limitations and the civil statute of limitations, which would not begin to run until the victim turns age 23, extending the time for prosecution until a child victim reached age 28. In addition, it would provide a one-year window of opportunity for victims of child sexual abuse to bring civil action, regardless of their current age, when supported by a certificate of merit from a mental health professional.

Prevent Child Abuse New York urges support of this important legislation.

NY Sports Radio WFAN to Feature Discussion of Child Abuse Scandals

NY Sports Radio WFAN host Bob Salter will explore the effects of the Penn State and Syracuse University child sex abuse scandals with with Anthony Zenkus, education director at the Coalition Against Child Abuse and Neglect, a member of PCANY's Prevention Network, Sunday, December 11, 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.

WFAN is the world's first 24-hour all sport radio station and the leader in its field.  It can be heard on 660 AM.

Two Quick Thoughts About Penn State

If you’ve read about the accusations against Penn State’s former football coach, you realize that children could have been saved from sexual abuse if the person who observed an incident - or any of those who were told about it - had contacted law enforcement. So a reminder for those who live and work in New York State: report child abuse and maltreatment to our state’s child abuse hotline at 1-800-342-7472. However, call 911 or your local police department immediately if you witness a child being abused, as happened at Penn State.

Just as important, perhaps even more so, we must stop this kind of harm from occurring in the first place. Child sexual abuse can be prevented when parents and other adults in the community understand the realities of child sexual abuse and have tools to protect children. It is seldom “stranger danger,” but almost always someone close to the child and family.  Our friends at Enough Abuse offer information and ideas in Six Prevention Tips to help all of us meet our responsibility to protect our children.  We encourage you to read them and to share them with your friends, family and community.

Protecting Kids From Sexual Abuse, Written by Melanie Blow

Two days before Halloween, MSNBC reported that paroled California sex offenders who have no permanent home partly because of a state law that bans them from living near schools or parks, will be under supervision to make sure they have no contact with children out trick-or-treating.

View MSNBC Article Here

I am always amazed how the movement to raise awareness about child sexual abuse is a victim of its own success, and this article underscored that point. Residency laws prohibiting sex offenders from living within a certain distance of places frequented by children, leading to offenders becoming homeless, are an example of this.

The first thing I thought as I read this article is that it must be harder to keep tabs on a homeless or transient sex offender than it is for one who has a fixed address and a landlord. The second thing I thought of is how this law may be putting more children at risk by encouraging sex offenders to live with family and friends.  As background, it’s important to realize that most sex offenders preying upon children don’t kidnap their victims. Rather, they rely on gaining the trust of their victims and their victims’ families, and eventually use manipulation, threats or the power inherent to an adult-child relationship to keep their victims quiet. Residency laws largely ignore this fact, assuming that keeping sex offenders physically away from large groups of children keeps offenders from gaining access to them.  

So how do sex offenders gain access to children? Some become parents, foster parents or step parents. Some work with children in a professional capacity (such as teachers), or a volunteer capacity (such as scout leaders). Some are given access to children through their extended family or community- they become that nice person who’s always willing to babysit. Some offenders may resort to hanging out in parks and near schools to befriend children, but the aforementioned techniques are surprisingly effective.

We rarely think of child sex offenders as people with parents, siblings and significant others. It’s very easy to demonize people who do acts so destructive and harming. But sex offenders do have families, and these families often have trouble reconciling the person they love with an action they don’t understand. Often these families rely on our society’s general ignorance about CSA to convince themselves of their loved one’s innocence, or if not innocence, their overall goodness and reformability. The loved ones of sex offenders will usually either declare the innocence of the offender of will say how much they’ve changed since their conviction. People do change, but their basic patterns of sexual attraction rarely do. While there are modalities of therapy that can diminish a sex offender’s attraction towards children and teach them skills to keep from re-offending, the leading professional opinion is that someone who has sexually abused children as an adult should never be trusted alone with children. This is why policies that tacitly encourage sex offenders to live with family carry a hidden risk- by living with people who are the most likely to downplay their offenses, and are least likely enforce a “not-to-be-left-alone-with-children” rule, children are often placed at risk.

How can we keep children safe, now that we’ve ruled out residency restrictions and increased supervision on Halloween? Factual, evidence-based information about CSA needs to be ingrained in our culture, and into the policies of every institution dealing with children.  Everyone working for children in our court system needs to know even more about CSA than the general public, because having tough laws does no good if judges don’t understand the complex dynamic of sexual abuse well enough to convict guilty parties. Sex offenders often manage to keep their victims from disclosing their abuse for years- often until the survivors are adults. Many states have statute of limitations on the prosecution of child sexual abuse that essentially keeps adults from seeking justice for their victimization. This needs to change. Any time a pedophile gets convicted, it interrupts their cycle of child molestation. It can also result in them getting treatment, and getting placed on a sex offender registry.

I got to pass out candy to trick-or-treaters this Halloween. As I watched the pint-sized princesses and super heros come and go, I found myself hoping that Halloween is the only time in their lives when they find themselves begging for food. I hoped their futures would never drain them of the creativity and enthusiasm they displayed. I hoped the un-costumed caretakers I saw watching them on the sidewalk weren’t true monsters. But somehow, the notion that a sex offender may be playing the role of human candy dispenser didn’t worry me too much.