By Tim Dunkin
It is rare thing indeed that I
will advocate for legislative action on just about any matter, as I generally
prefer that legislatures do as little work as possible. However, in cases where there are real problems
that exist – often as a result of the legal structure itself – then I will join
with other voices calling for needed reforms.
One area, I believe, where there is such needed reform is in dealing
with the abuse industry in this country.
What is the “abuse
industry”? What I am referring to is the
complex, interlocking structure of social workers and the “child welfare
departments” which they staff, child psychologists, counselors, non-profit
organizations, and others who generally deal with identifying and confronting
allegations of child abuse against individuals and institutions, but which also
often resort to inventing and embellishing unsubstantiated accusations as part
of the process of rooting out the evil of child abuse. Now, in and of itself, there is absolutely
nothing wrong with seeking to stop the abuse of children, of whatever kind it
may take. It is a hallmark of civilized
society to protect and support its weaker members from mistreatment and exploitation.
The principle itself of protecting children from abuse is a noble one. So with this principle, I don’t have any
arguments.
However, there’s a reason I
refer to the subject of this article as the abuse “industry.” That’s because along with the good that might
often be done, there is nevertheless a lot of manufacturing that goes on –
false allegations, the abuse of the system itself as a means of revenge-seeking
or harassment, and in many cases, just plain old cupidity on the part of those
involved in this work. For all involved
– from not-for-profit groups receiving donations to governmental child services
departments receiving budgeted chunks of taxpayers’ monies – the abuse industry
is a multi-million dollar a year operation.
This flow of money is directly tied to the prevalence of child abuse –
if more abuse is discovered, then there obviously is more need for the services
of these groups, with a concomitant need for more funding. This, obviously, provides an incentive to
find more child abuse, whether there is a substantial basis for the accusations
being made or not. After all, when
you’re a saintly do-gooder of a hammer, everybody else looks like a low-down
rotten evil-doer of a nail.
This money and the sense of
power that goes with it can be a sore temptation. In Ireland, where there has been an ongoing
scandal related to widespread child abuse in both the Catholic church as well
as many “industrial schools” (schools for poor and often orphaned children
that, in Ireland at least, are often ran by members of the Catholic clergy), a
lot of good has been done in unearthing these abuses. Nevertheless, some of the non-profit
organizations involved in bringing this to light, including groups like Right
of Place, the Aislinn Center, and SOCA (Survivors of Child Abuse) have themselves
faced accusations related to the mismanagement of funds (often
government-provided) and increasingly incredible accusations seemingly designed
to gin up more support. As with any
other area of life, large amounts of money mean larger opportunities for
corruption.
Unfortunately, the problems one
can encounter with many of these self-proclaimed “survivor support” groups are
not limited merely to fiscal irregularity.
As an example of what I mean, in several previous articles I have discussed the case of Hephzibah House, a fundamental Christian
ministry dedicated to salvaging and educating girls have reached the point
where their own families cannot handle them anymore – often because of drugs,
violence, and so forth. Hephzibah House
has been the target of a five-year ongoing campaign of slander across the
internet waged by a group of former students from the school's forty years of
existence who allege horrible abuses to have occurred. While the campaign has mostly been confined
to various internet forums and blogs, they have made enough noise to attract
the attention of some of the baser elements of the mainstream media, such as
Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. Typical of
the attacks are that they rely on emotion and innuendo, rather than
substantiated (or even substantiable) facts. While many terrible-sounding accusations are
made, the accusers ignore, and even try to suppress, the testimonies of other
former students who flatly contradict and deny that any of the alleged abuses
ever took place. Further, outside authorities
have investigated Hephzibah House on a number of occasions, and found no
evidence to corroborate the claims against that ministry. The “Survivors,” as they label themselves,
find a great deal of support from individuals and organizations involved in the
abuse industry.
On their face, the accusations
of abuse against Hephzibah House simply don't stand up to scrutiny. The accusers rabidly try to prevent deep
investigation of their claims. As
mentioned above, state and local agencies have investigated and not found
anything. Other former students – often
hounded and vilified by the “Survivors” - contradict the narrative build by the
accusers. Yet, the accusers continue to
slander innocent people, and find plenty of supporters who will affirm them in
this. This is, itself, a form of abuse –
abuse of free speech, abuse of the legal system (the authorities have to
investigate when yet another spurious accusation is lodged), abuse of simple
decency. It is simply very, very easy
for a determined group of people who have a chip on their shoulder and who wish
to do this ministry harm to be able to pursue with persistent harassment – and
they do so with the full support of many elements of the abuse industry.
Hephzibah House isn't the only
falsely-accused victim of abuse-related slander. Take, for example, the case of Heritage Boys
Academy, located in Bayou George, Florida.
Like Hephzibah House, Heritage is another fundamental ministry dedicated
to dealing with “hard case” young people, in this case boys. In 2010, it was shut down, and several of its
staff arrested, on the basis of accusations of child abuse lodged by former and
then-current residents. Some of the
claims indeed sounded harrowing.
Staffers at Heritage were accused of holding boys down and punching them
repeatedly. It was also claimed that
staffers forced several of the boys to chase down and savagely beat (in the
middle of a public street) another boy who was trying to run away. One boy presented a pair of bloody underwear
as evidence of the abuse he alleged to have suffered. As with Hephzibah House, Heritage has also
been roundly vilified across the internet and among “survivor support groups,”
one example being this rather drawn-out Youtube video that lays out some very serious
charges against the school.
The problem with all of this,
however, is that the accusations weren't true.
When the case actually came before the court, the court ruled that there wasn't evidence to substantiate the accusation, and all
charges were dropped. As it turned out,
the boys making the accusations had made them up. Investigators found nothing to support the
stories of abuse. Yet, because of these
spurious accusations, three men had to deal with lost time and money in jail
and in court, lost reputation in their communities, and several people were out
of work when the school was shut down.
Vindictive accusations designed to harass by boys who were angry about
their situations ended up ruining, or nearly so, the lives of several innocent
people.
Or take, for example, the case of Paul Burritt, who drove a van for handicapped children in Turtle
Lake, Wisconsin. Mr. Burritt was accused
by an 11-year old girl who was one of his riders of taking her to his home and
sexually molesting her. Without any
investigation, the police immediately arrested him, and his name was dragged
through the media, likely facing the same sort of vilification that Hephzibah
House and Heritage Academy have suffered.
Ultimately, however, the girl confessed to making the entire story up,
when she was confronted with the evidence from the GPS in Burritt's van that
confirmed his account and contradicted hers.
Sadly, the only thing that saved an innocent man from spending years of
his life in jail and having his reputation forever ruined in his community was
the fact of GPS technology. If this had
happened twenty years ago, Burritt would have been on the losing end of a “he
said/she said” argument. As it stands,
his reputation will still likely be forever marred – and all because a girl
lied about him and investigators were too willing to believe her without any evidence
that her accusations were true. This
example ought to make us wary about simply accepting even the “eyewitness
testimony” of an accuser prima facie without demanding substantiating
corroborative evidence to go along with it.
These, perhaps, also help to
explain why Hephzibah House's accusers have been so reluctant to put their
accusations to an impartial test where evidence, rather than emotion, would
decide the day.
The unfortunate fact of the
matter is that these are not isolated incidents. False accusations leading to destroyed lives
are more common than we'd like to think – and the reasons range from
overzealous “child services” investigators to non-profit anti-abuse
organizations trying to justify the expansion of their donor base to simple
vindictiveness on the part of the ones making the accusations.
What's more, accusations of
abuse – especially against religious institutions – and the choice to believe
and support them without evidence, often serve more as an excuse to attack
religious groups and religion in general than they are truly about righting
wrongs and protecting children. Indeed,
if you peruse the various forums and other places where organizations like
Hephzibah House and Heritage Boys Academy are discussed regularly, it quickly
becomes apparent that one of the major factors motivating the animus against
them is a hatred of religion, or at least conservative Christianity, and a
desire to use the accusations as a bully pulpit against it. This type of sentiment is openly stated in
many of these internet locations.
Of course, while Hephzibah House
and Heritage Boys Academy may be innocent, this isn't to say that religious
institutions could never be involved in child abuse. Obviously, they can, as the Irish industrial
school cases demonstrate. However, those
trying to use accusations of child abuse as a soapbox against “religion” or
“Christianity” are hypocritical because they fail to address the very real
problem of child abuse, often of a sexual nature, in public schools and other
secular institutions. Indeed, the
problem of sexual abuse in America's public schools is said to be
worse even than what the Catholic
church has been accused of. Some have
even estimated it to be one hundred
times worse. If you are the parent of an 18-year old girl,
a public school might not be
the wisest place to have her
receiving an education. In the Chicago
public school system, beating
students has been a rampant problem,
despite corporal punishment being illegal in Illinois public schools.
So why don't the self-appointed
crusaders against abuse, real or imagined, in institutions like Hephzibah House
speak up about the much more pervasive problem in public schools while they're
bad-mouthing Hephzibah House on these forums?
It's because of the religious
bigotry and animus. Many of the people
repeating and expanding on the slurs against Hephzibah House are the types of
folks who think that simple biblical spanking of children is “abuse.” They think teaching your own child the Bible
and raising them in a Christian home is “abuse.” They think that religious “indoctrination” at
church is “abuse.” To many folks who
comment in these venues, simply raising a child in a Christian environment is
reason enough to take that child away from his parents. These are all sentiments I've seen expressed
at places where Hephzibah House is discussed.
It's quite obvious that a lot of the “anti-abuse” folks out there have
some pretty warped perceptions about what constitutes “abuse,” and that they
are simply using the accusations against Hephzibah House and other institutions
as a horse to ride in their attacks on conservative Christianity. They're more than happy to pick up on and
repeat the wildest of accusations.
In a similar vein, the abuse
industry is a vehicle used by the Left to undermine the family and parental
authority. Because Child Protective
Services are granted such wide-ranging authority due to the seriousness of
child abuse, bureaucrats and their allies in the non-profits and child
psychology fields can use them to try to prevent legitimate and non-abusive
discipline in the home. Further, the
problem of anonymous “tips” about child abuse that result in the removal of
children from a home or other types of disruption of the family unit but which
turn out to be spurious, is larger than many people realize. The system as it exists is a perfect vehicle
for vengeful people to harass and injure somebody they don't like or who they
feel has crossed them. Your neighbor
didn't return your lawnmower? Call CPS
on him and anonymously report that he molests his kids!
So, all of this being said, let
me now return to my call for legislative action. Seeing that false accusations of abuse are a
serious problem, and that they are often aided and abetted for a number of
reasons by various interested parties, what can be done about this? What can be done to protect innocent people
and institutions from spurious accusations, while yet keeping the door wide
open for cases of actual abuse to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of civil
and criminal law?
The abuse industry needs to be
brought under regulation by the several states.
Controls need to be put into place that will prevent vindictive,
cupiditous, or overzealous groups and individuals from being able to use either
the power of the state or the corrosive acid of unaccountable slander to damage
others. I would suggest the following
legislative actions:
u Require that allegations of abuse lodged with a government agency –
the police, social services, child protective services, or what have you –
cannot be made anonymously. To file the
complain, the accuser must fill out appropriate paperwork, with their name and
other information clearly attached to it, openly stating the nature of their
complaint. Relevant supporting evidence
should be documented as well.
u If an accusation is found to be false upon investigation by either the
police or the courts, the accuser should be legally unprotected from recourse
by civil lawsuit on the part of the person or group they accused, in addition
to any standing civil liability under relevant libel/slander statutes.
u Laws should be put into place that require organizations that serve as
abuse support networks and the like, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, to
adopt complete transparency in both their funding and their expenditures.
u Legislatures should act to bring state CPS or analogous agencies under
greater legislative oversight, passing laws as necessary to ensure that these
agencies are strictly bound to respect the 4th, 5th, 6th,
and 14th amendment rights of the people.
What is the rationale for these
suggestions? Simply to correct the
abuses of the abuse industry. You
shouldn't be able to make anonymous accusations and get somebody else in
trouble. Accusees ought to be able to
exercise their 6th amendment right to face their accusers. If you do falsely accuse someone, you ought
to be liable for damages that you have done or intended to do to them. Organizations and other groups that have a
perceived vested financial interest in dealing with abuse cases ought to be
open and transparent so that it can be seen how they are spending their funds
and where they're getting them from – are they doing legitimate work against
abuse, or are they trying to gin up more business illegitimately? Lastly, the government and its agencies at
every level should be required to respect our constitutional rights – and even
accusations of child abuse are not a sufficient justification to violate these
rights and to not follow constitutionally-allowed procedure.
With these, a balance can be
struck. If there is a legitimate case of
abuse, then it can be reported, investigated, and punished, with a child being
rescued from an abusive and destructive environment. If someone wants to use the system to
slander, harass, or damage someone else, then this shouldn't be allowed to
happen. If we really want fairness for
all involved, then states really would get serious about making these types of
reforms, so as to bring abusers of the abuse industry to heel, while yet having
the system in place to deal with bona fide cases where abuse is taking place.
