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Two Very Different Screening Problems:
Well
Done on Problem One (Using criminal history background
checks to screen-out detectable predators who have been
convicted, released, and want to "volunteer.")
What
to Do about Problem Two? (How can we screen out the
Undetectable predators who lack criminal histories?)
Why
is there a Problem Two? Since the predators only face a 3%
chance of "getting caught" (arrested), and about a
third are still in jail now, it leaves 2%
"available" with criminal histories to attempt
infiltration all over again. These are the Problem One
predators who are easily stopped by a criminal history
background check. The rest are Problem Two because they are
the UNdetectable ones.
How
Bad is Problem Two? Problem Two is bad not only because
because the predators are undetectable, but because this kind
are far more numerous...comprising 97% of all the predators.
Thus Problem Two predators are 32 times more numerous than are
Problem One predators. And ever worse than that, Problem Two
predators are not knocking at the door trying to get in. They
are already in.
Serial pedophiles comprise a minority of acquaintance-type
predators but generate the majority of victims molested
outside the home. Comprising fewer than one in a hundred males
and one in 400 females, the Abel Studies show that these
preferential predators are so addicted to this crime that many
average over 150 victims each. That they must prepare, molest,
and terrorize victims on an assembly-line basis for years
while remaining trusted and unsuspected explains why such
predators tend to be intelligent, prominent in the community,
church-going family types with successful careers. It also
explains why they must infiltrate youth and children's program
staffs, why they must be proficient at deception, and why they
must know all about the limitations of screening processes and
how to exploit leadership's fears of liability for false
accusations, invasion of privacy, and defamation of character.
These facts in turn explain why only three percent are ever
caught.
Child
Sexual Abuse is criminal in all societies. Its tendency to
corrupt some of the helpless victims into becoming predatory
themselves continues the addiction into a generation-spanning
cancer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
officially cited this addictive behavior as an epidemic.
When
dumping victims to make room for the next one, predators use
the child's (as well as their parents') full confidence and
trust to easily convince them they will lose their parents and
be taken from their family if they tell. Particularly in faith
groups, they convince the trusting and expertly confused child
that they will no long qualify for God's Grace if they tell.
In a report prepared for Stanford University by the American
Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, and with input
from the American Prosecutor's Research Institute, this
phenomenon is termed, "soul murder." By any
standard, religious or secular, it is undoubtedly Evil.
These
means by which predators secure lifetimes of dependable
silence from their victims have been officially recognized as
terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security. Thus Child
Sexual Abuse has joined the War on Terror. In 2003 the Bush
Administration tasked the Immigration Service under Operation
Predator to secure America's borders from infiltration by
child sexual abusers from abroad. While the several hundred
infiltration attempts thwarted each month by border screening
are welcome, they obviously have little effect on the
victim-count. (Operation Predator could have a larger effect
if funding for the War on Terror trickled into domestic child
sexual abuse prevention research.)
A
new phenomenon arising from the priesthood scandal is the
internet-organized victim's group. Now able to offer revenge
as well as solace, these groups can help adults who realize
what happened to them as children two decades ago, to locate
and accuse their tormentors. With the criminal statute of
limitations likely expired, redress comes from publicity to
pressure a juicy settlement from the current hapless
employer's insurance coverage. In the process, however, a
predictable parental panic occurs, causing all the children to
be withdrawn from the programs. (Click the video newscast on
the lower right corner of this website's home page for an
example of the tactic.) High-profile youth groups, national
mentoring organizations, seminaries, after-school initiatives,
commercial child care chains, residential treatment centers,
all with enormous brand equity built up over decades, provide
an obvious deep-pocket target for this tactic. (SHR's
background checking for "appearances of potential for
complaint" can be an effective means to reduce such brand
vulnerability.)
Effective
worker screening is hampered by a long-standing liability
dilemma: Problem One screening is cheap and quick, affects
only newly applying workers, is
sufficient to protect from lawsuits, but does little to
actually protect the children. Problem Two screening takes
substantial funds, applies to incumbents as well as new
volunteers, considers information that could defame
workers if mishandled, but can almost eliminate the children's
risk exposure.
Many
states including Ohio, have statutes
that encourage or
require children’s program leaders to deal with Problem One
by screening their staffs in order
to prevent inadvertent hiring of known sexual predators, the 3% who have been convicted and released.
But
Law Enforcement can do nothing about Problem Two predators, the vast majority who
have neither been charged nor convicted, and who run such a
small risk of detection that they consider their capture to be
purely "accidental." The result is that the estimated
one or two percent of adult
volunteers who are sexual predators continue to abuse children.
Another result is that more and more victims will pursue their
tormentors in later life, creating "collateral
damage" to otherwise worthy and venerable programs in the
process.
Today's
litigious society is fully exploited not only by the
predators, who threaten a defamation lawsuit if even the
slightest interest is paid to a complaint, but now by the
victims as well..
SHR solves these problems by overcoming six barriers
program leaders face when making a serious attempt to protect
the children by addressing Problem Two.
Six
Significant Barriers to Solving Problem Two:
#1
The Startup and Recheck Budget Barrier:
Very
few youth and children's programs budget for the all-at-once wave of background checks on current
staff. Except for wildly exaggerated online database
searches available for a few dollars, actual inquiries can
cost a hundred times more, and take weeks, not days. As a result, existing
staff are being quietly grand-fathered IN with no checks at
all. Furthermore, once a screening program is started, program
leaderships have no incentive to periodically recheck for any
recent disqualifiers that may have occurred.
#2
The Knowledge/Experience Barrier:
The
Problem Two undetectable predators
camouflage and “groom” their histories, even to the
extreme of paying victims or plea-bargaining to change
complaints to vague types, such as Disorderly Conduct. (Such
minor-seeming infractions can be expunged later, leaving no
tracks at all in the public records system.) Amateur screeners can’t know what’s suspicious, where
to look, or even how to interpret various states’ data. They
can tragically misperceive the gushing appreciation of a
single mom overjoyed at all the free babysitting she gets, as
a "good reference" instead of the predator's "trophy
testimonial" it may actually be. Well-meaning program leaderships have
no idea how or why to seek national newspaper reports, Child Protective Services
data, or opinions of moms whose children were in the person's
care years ago. States recently
unsealing juvenile sexual abuser data have not yet even
notified their own staffs that it's (now) permissible to release it. The FBI admits 37% of
its own arrest data over 5 years old, lacks resolution information
(indicted? acquitted? convicted?)
Getting
screened-IN is an immense prize for
Problem Two serial predators because they can thereby
rise even further above suspicion and receive even more undeserved
trust, the currency of their craving. This results from
applying Problem One methods to Problem Two predators. Where
this is done, it assures that children's complaints will be even less likely to
be heeded. The New Precautions, for licensing by SHR, are the
Problem Two solution tools. They utilize
high tech methods to tap the sources mentioned above, and use experienced screeners to interpret the results for its
trademarked Appearances of Potential for Complaint. The New
Precautions include techniques for identifying and precluding
latent complaints from coming forward to harass or blackmail
high-profile youth serving organizations..
#3
The Insurance "Risk Management" Barrier
Typical
worker screening policies, procedures, and application forms
have been designed primarily to address Problem One, to avoid lawsuit awards, not to
actually suppress risk exposure of the children to Problem Two
predators. SHR terms
this "wallet protection instead of child protection"
to highlight to mistaken comfort that occurs when Problem One
tools are misapplied to Problem Two victimization.
SHR’s volunteer applications require listing counties lived-in, references, the usual
hold-harmless pledges, FCRA disclosures, and information about
foreign travel and encounters with child welfare agencies.
Well aware that predators scrupulously avoid offending in
counties where they live, knowing that's where conventional
screening will inquire, SHR uses recurring national newspaper
checks to spot arrests for serious offenses and clues about
where to inquire. This continues for as long as the worker is
active in an accredited organization. No other screening to
our knowledge has even attempted this technology-enabled form
of monitoring.
#4
The Privacy Barrier, Fear of Liability:
If
screened out of one venue, predators often just walk
across the street to another one, confident that none of the
vague suspicions from their previous assignments will cross the street behind them. Fear of
lawsuits prevents sharing suspicions, even if they are
blatant. Busy leaderships have neither the time nor the
expertise to conduct investigations to develop evidence
leading to charges. It is far easier, and much less likely to
provoke a defamation lawsuit, to give a vague noncommittal
reference even if there were suspicions.
#5
The Parental Assurance Barrier:
Limiting
screening to the Problem One tools (criminal histories only)
tends to lull parents into the mistaken belief that risk has
been reduced. This creates a barrier to any proposal to
upgrade vigilance. Offering up the facts in chilling detail
only tends to divide decision-making groups. Better means have
been found to gently educate policy makers to the greater
risks inherent in Problem Two, especially when organizational vulnerability to
misdeeds in the
distant past are explained.
Advertising
and promotional campaigns can help. Using advice from
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, collaborating with Mothers
Against Sexual Abuse and other national groups, funds are
being raised to support this effort. An easy-to-remember phone number, eighty-eight,
eighty-eight BE SURE, has been reserved. SHR’s goal is see
survey results showing good recognition and recall of the Seal
of Safer Selection Practice, and generation of grass-roots
demand for widely deploying The New Precautions. (See
illustration of the seal and download a summary brochure from
the home page of this site.)
#6
The Recruiter's Reputation Barrier:
Often
the dedicated leader has invested enormous time and effort to launch
and propel a youth-serving program. Part of that dedication is
to have been the main recruiter. Having persuaded many to
serve, it would reflect badly on their judgment if belated
screening were to disqualify any worker the leader had
personally picked. This is reasonable because the screening
anticipated is for Problem One, and screening incumbent
workers is a Problem Two precaution. Part of SHR's Problem Two
precautions includes careful selection of the client's
interviewer to make sure he or she does not have such a
personal "stake" in the outcomes.
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