If You See a Father Holding His Child's Hand, Call the Cops!
June 21st, 2007 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
If dad goes for a walk with his daughter and holds her hand, apparently Virginia Department of Health officials wants you to pick up the phone and destroy his life by reporting him as a possible sexual abuser. I would've thought this article about this campaign was from the Onion or some satirical publication, but it's for real.
One of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen is a picture of my father walking on the beach near sunset holding my daughter's little hand. The picture above of a man holding a child's hand--a touching little scene--is actually supposed to make us think he's sexually abusing the child. Unbelievable.
From Campaign advocates recognizing, reporting suspected abuse (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 6/21/07):
"For years, campaigns to stop child sexual crimes have focused on encouraging children to speak up about abuse.
"State health officials are trying a new tactic. The latest push, at least in Hampton Roads, is to educate adults on how to spot - and stop - sexual offenders.
"The 'Stop It Now' campaign - just launched locally - will urge people to call a help line if they see an adult whom they suspect of having a sexual relationship with a child.
"Billboards and posters show an adult hand holding a child's hand, with the words: 'It doesn't feel right when I see them together.'
"A national help line number is listed, and through it callers can get advice about what to do.
"Rebecca Odor, who directs the sexual and domestic violence prevention division for the state Department of Health, said officials hope to reach people who might feel uncomfortable reporting a relative or acquaintance to law enforcers.
"'We want to teach them to trust their instinct and, if it doesn't feel right, take action,' Odor said."
To write a Letter to the Editor to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot about Campaign advocates recognizing, reporting suspected abuse, click here.
Rebecca Odor's publicly listed contact information is becky.odor@vdh.virginia.gov and 804-864-7740.
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June 21st, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Hi Glenn, it is already a crime to go walking with your daughter after dinner - people will call in and report you for it. I wrote about an incident a couple of weeks ago...
http://petepatriarch.blogspot.com/2007/06/don-go-walking-with-your-daughter.html
Girl feared abducted found at home
A manhunt for a girl police feared had been abducted ended in relief last night when officers found the girl at home, several hours after the search had started.
A motorist passing by on Bloor St. called police to say he saw a man walking into a wooded area near Bloor and Sherbourne Sts. around 8 p.m. with a young girl, believed to be 3 or 4 years old.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:09 pm
...this reminds me of a recent billboard campaign featuring a boy about 12 years old and the caption, "He's waiting," as in he is waiting for someone to instruct him not to abuse women. That campaign really irked me because it removed from women any personal responsibility for their bad dating choices...
June 21st, 2007 at 7:32 pm
pjk, what you're talking about is like those 'men can stop rape' campaigns. They really annoy me. Just because a rapist is a man it is assumed that I, an innocent male who thinks rape is disgusting, am responsible for his actions. It's like they believe all men are in on the rape thing, and it continues with the compliance of every other man.
Rubbish!
This is even worse, I mean, how does hand-holding signify child abuse? I held my parents hands when I was a kid, was I abused? No. I hold my little cousins hands now when I see them, but I am certainly not abusing them.
There's not even much I can say about this, it's just so ridiculous. Does anybody have an email we can write to or something, that needs to be got rid of.
June 21st, 2007 at 7:40 pm
The adult hand is obviously that of a male.
I wonder what false statistics Ms. Odor has chosen to believe to be true.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Whenever I see a women teacher in a classroom of children, some of whom are boys, I call the cops.
Better safe than sorry, and recent statistics show I am not wrong all that often.
The bastards won't let me on campus anymore at my kids' school.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:34 pm
This campaign is just another symptom of our hyper-sensitive society and its' continuing criminalization of men. Now apparently, if people see a man showing affection to a child, then we must think the worst and notify the police "just in case". Reminds me of the story of a father who stopped by his daughters daycare and waved at her as she played on the playground. Someone saw this and called the police who immediately put out a bulletin looking for the suspects vehicle. The poor guy was wanted by the police just for waving at his daughter! Would the police have been called if it were a woman waving at the little girl? You notice that the ad only shows a male hand, thereby reinforcing in the publics' mind that it is only men who are child molesters. If a woman is intent on doing a child harm, she has it made. No one would suspect her, as the public is too obsessed with criminalizing men to even look her way.
Several years ago in Kentucky the jealous girlfriend of a man, with a young son from a previous marriage, decided the young boy was interfering with her relationship with the father. She and a female friend of hers went to the boys school and had her friend pose as a relative to take the boy out of class. The school handed the boy over to them with no questions asked. A few days later police found the boys' broken body buried in a shallow grave not far from his school. This incident showcases our society's total lack of suspicion when it involves a woman. Yet will view every man with guilt until proven otherwise.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Speaking of trusting my instincts if it doesn't feel right, "A survey released by the health department in 2004 found that one in four women and one in five men have been victims of child sexual assault." sounds a lot like "one in three women have been raped", i.e bogus. 'Anyone know if it's true?
June 21st, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Rebecca ODOR? Is that a made-up name?
June 21st, 2007 at 9:15 pm
What this type of hystria is creating is fear. Like in Nazi Germany we will fear each other, lest they turn us into the Gestopo.
This isn't just sexual abuse but includes it, 2 out of 3 where false. Women, not men were the most likely to mistreat a child.
In 2003, state child protective services reported 2.9 million reports of neglect or abuse, of which 906,000 were substantiated. The 2003 "victimization rate" of 12.4 victims per 1,000 U.S. children is comparable to those of previous years.
About 63 percent of child victims suffered neglect, 19 percent were abused physically, and 10 percent were abused sexually. Infants and toddlers had the highest victimization rates.
Eighty percent of abusers were parents. Women were more likely than men to maltreat children, 58 percent to 42 percent, respectively.
The new maltreatment report includes data on the most tragic consequence of maltreatment: the death of a child.
At least 1,000 children have died of abuse or neglect every year since 1986, according to figures published in the House Ways and Means Committee's "Green Book."
The new maltreatment report shows that the number of child fatalities has grown from 1,100 in 1999 to 1,500 in 2003. Almost 79 percent of these deaths occurred before a child's third birthday.
Mothers acting alone were involved in 31 percent of these fatalities. Both parents were involved in 20 percent of deaths; 18 percent of deaths were caused by fathers alone.
When the goal is indoctoration, they are never too young......this makes me sick!
28 Maryland Kindergarten Students Suspended for ‘Sex Offenses’
Need I say a word? According to “School accuses 5-year-old of sex harassment” (Herald-Mail, 12/20/06), over the past year 28 Maryland kindergarten students have been suspended for alleged “sex offenses,” including 15 for “sexual harassment.” According to the story:
“A kindergarten student was accused earlier this month of sexually harassing a classmate at Lincolnshire Elementary School, an accusation that will remain on his record until he moves to middle school.
“Washington County Public Schools spokeswoman Carol Mowen said the definition of sexual harassment used by the school system is, ‘unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors and/or other inappropriate verbal, written or physical conduct of a sexual nature directed toward others.’ Mowen said that definition comes from the Maryland State Department of Education.
“According to a school document provided by the boy’s father, the 5-year-old pinched a girl’s buttocks on Dec. 8 in a hallway at the school south of Hagerstown.
“Charles Vallance, the boy’s father, said he was unable to explain to his son what he had done.
“‘He knows nothing about sex,’ Vallance said. ‘There’s no way to explain what he’s been written up for. He knows it as playing around. He doesn’t know it as anything sexual at all.’
“The incident was described as ’sexual harassment’ on the school form.
“School officials consider a student’s age and the specific action when determining what administrative action to take, Mowen said.
“Lincolnshire Principal Darlene Teach and Mowen said they were unable to discuss he incident involving the Lincolnshire student.
“Teach said any student, regardless of grade level, can be cited for sexual harassment.
“‘Anytime a student touches another student inappropriately, it could be sexual harassment,’ Teach said.
“School administrators at a Texas school in November suspended a 4-year-old student for inappropriately touching a teacher’s aide after the prekindergarten student hugged the woman.
“‘It’s important to understand a child may not realize that what he or she is doing may be considered sexual harassment, but if it fits under the definition, then it is, under the state’s guidelines,’ Mowen said. ‘If someone has been told this person does not want this type of touching, it doesn’t matter if it’s at work or at school, that’s sexual harassment.’
“The incident will be included in the boy’s file while he remains at Lincolnshire, but Mowen said those files do not follow students when they move on to middle school.
“She described the incident as a ‘learning opportunity.’
“During the 2005-06 school year, 28 kindergarten students in Maryland were suspended for sex offenses, including sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual activity, according to state data. Fifteen of those suspensions were for sexual harassment.
“During the 2005-06 school year, one Washington County prekindergarten student was suspended from school, and 12 of the county’s kindergartners were suspended for various offenses, according to state data.”
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:23 am
A number of years ago I was accosted by a woman whilst having my hand held by my young neice(she insisted - some kids go through this phase) in a supermarket. The woman's first words were "What are you doing with that child"? I was too shocked to respond effectively and simply left.
callum said...
...what you're talking about is like those 'men can stop rape' campaigns. They really annoy me. Just because a rapist is a man it is assumed that I, an innocent male who thinks rape is disgusting, am responsible for his actions. It's like they believe all men are in on the rape thing, and it continues with the compliance of every other man.
Not unlike the White Feath...er...Ribbon campaign. This has been pushed relentlessly in Aus for years by Michael Flood who holds all men responsible for stopping violence against women(presumably even that half of it committed by other women). How men are expected to do this by any means other than more violence is beyond me. Additionally it indicates a rather callous attitude to the mostly innocent, male victims of violence.
jerry said...
Whenever I see a women teacher in a classroom of children, some of whom are boys, I call the cops.
Better safe than sorry, and recent statistics show I am not wrong all that often.
The bastards won't let me on campus anymore at my kids' school.
If a school kid is molested by a teacher the most likely scenario is male student/female teacher. By a factor of about three to one compared to the reverse.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:43 am
***k this country and the ruling establishment.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:03 am
There is a serious and dangerous misandry problem and it is a threat to all of us. There is also a panic about child molestation and it is a serious threat to children and men. Put the two together and we have a big problem.
I would ask the feminists and the State workers how they would feel about a female teacher and a boy with a caption "this is just plain wrong." They wouldn't like it now would they? Then why do they DEMAND males manfully swallow sexism?
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:49 am
gwallan: Yeah for some reason the pro-feminist men are the most sexist of the lot. I guess they figure they can get away with it, cos they're men. So nobody could accuse them of sexism. There's too many examples I've seen to list here.
Another thing that annoys me are the RSPCC (royal society for prevention of cruelty to children) adverts. They only ever have children, usually female, being abused by either their parents, or their dad alone. Never mothers, who are teh single biggest demographic responsible for child abuse. No doubt they know this, they know the stats. But they also know that the idea is so ingrained into people's consciousness that women are always victims, that they go along with it.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:29 am
Child molestation by males is a very real, and extremely serious problem in America.
Almost as large is the problem of society not understanding the hallmark features of that extremely tiny minority of males who commit this horrible crime. Right behind that is the problem of dishonest mothers, corrupt attorneys, and all-too-willing judges being ever-ready to exploit a false accusation of child molestation against an innocent father to the mother's legal and monetary advantage.
Child molestation is a "specialist" abberant behavior, just like anonymous rape is a specialist abberant behavior, meaning that an enormous percentage of theses crimes are committed by a tiny population of abusers/rapists operating over a broad "opportunity" space of potential victims. Law enforcement authorities report that the average pedophile who is prosecuted has abused over 60 children by the time he is caught. These are individuals who, (1) have a bizarre, and rare, sexual arousal preference for immature child bodies over mature, "curvy" female bodies, (2) unlike most males who would be repulsed by a victim's fear, protests and pain, may actually get a "rush" or a "high" out of controlling or hurting their victim and their distress, and ominously, (3) are often "addicted" to that rush.
Their bizarre attraction to children is every bit as "hardwired" as is a normal adult male's attraction to the women in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, or as a gay male's attraction to other adult males -- while having a "ho-hum" reaction to the Swimsuit Edition's beauties. Thus is the nature of hardwired attraction. And if you looked a one of these guys, they would appear like any guy on the street, perhaps even a bit better, because of course looking better groomed and more trustworthy actually aids them in getting access to kids. If you've ever met a gay guy who is completely masculin looking, exhibiting no effeminate traits whatsoever, you probably scratched your head saying to yourself "who the heck would have thought..." when you learned the guy was gay. You would have the same reaction to a member of that tiny and dangerous minority of males who prey upon young children.
The addiction aspect implies, that just like a crack addict who needs to break into many houses over a year to get enough cash to feed his/her habit, the sexual predator needs to operate over a large territory in order to gain access to enough victims to feed his habit. This in turn implies that these individuals are likely to be typified by some form of child access strategy. Frequently, they will have situated themselves in the community in some way that provides them frequent access to a number of children. They will select from among these children their target victims and work steadily to overcome the defenses of those children, and gradually habituate them to being touched and worse. Very typically, these rare and sick males will show a lack of respect for proper boundaries with other people's children -- just like a guy at the neighborhood cocktail party who seems just a little too interested in, or affectionate towards, your wife or girlfriend.
If you think through the needs for both repeat access and, access to large numbers of potential victims over time, you will quickly come to the conclusion that statistically speaking, the vast majority of children who are abused will (1) likely know their abuser, but (2) it will be very, very unlikely to be their father. (Again, most child molesters when caught have abused over 60 children already). And if it were their father, that same "father" would also have a much wider range of molestation activity with other fathers' children, meaning of course that the vast percentage of children being molested by that "father" are being molested by someone who is not their own father.
Thus, if a child has been molested, the perpetrator it is (1) least likely to be the child's father (though if the father is an abuser, his children would be fair game to him), (2) more likely to be an uncle, and (3) most likely to be a male known to the child but not related -- including in particular "mom's" new, childless boyfriend who for some reason found a woman with young children unprotected by their "absent" father to be very "attractive", rather than pursue a woman who had no child-encumbrances. It should come as no surprise to anyone that child molesters are well known to target custodial mothers.
A father walking down the street holding his daughter's hand does not an abuser make. In fact, with more and more men taking care of children -- with more and more women partially or fully "checked out" of their children's lives while they pursue their careers, their "mental health needs" or whatever else they fancy in the woman-mollycoddling country America has become -- the scene of a dad walking his daughter hand-in-hand will only become more common. If mom is completely checked out, then the child will "cling to" and "hang on" dad just as he/she would hang on mom if she were present and dad were absent. This does not an abuser make either.
What should concern all parents, and that certainly includes all fathers here in this blog, is any guy who, having choice over what he does with his time, especially his free time, (1) chooses to spend the majority of that time in a way which gives him access to (especially) female children, (2) seems more familiar with those children's names and interests than their own parents names and interests, (3) seems unaware of appropriate boundaries, especially with children, and (4) seems to gravitate towards those children who may be lacking in a close and watchful protector, such as a father.
Just like mentally ill women who would drown or hang or severely neglect their children, men who would molest a child are a very tiny minority. But they are a real and present danger to our children. And all fathers need to be on the lookout for this danger, especially those fathers who have been edged to the sidelines of their children's lives. If fathers don't lead the charge against male child molesters, and instead decry all those accusations which are false, then they risk having their credibility damaged more and more with each successive molestation crime of a male against children.
If men learn and educate the public on the REAL warning signs of males who would abuse children, then we'll go a long way towards conquering the false accusations against fathers who never have and never would do such a thing. But acting like the problem doesn't exist would be very unwise for at least two reasons: First, it is absolutely true that male child molesters exist, and second, not only do they exist, they will consider your children to be more attractive targets if you aren't there to protect them. This latter concern should be on the mind of every father who is denied the right to at least equal custody and supervision over the safety of their children.
In other words folks: the very real existence and danger presented by child sex abusers in our country IS ANOTHER VERY GOOD REASON TO KEEP PROTECTIVE FATHERS HIGHLY INVOLVED IN THE DAY-TO-DAY LIVES OF THEIR CHILDREN.
And this means at least 50% custody for fathers. Anything less is depriving our country's children of their stongest and most viable and alert defense against child molesters -- criminals whose primary targets are the children of "custodial" mothers.
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:18 am
Well, if it's any consolation, this ad campaign is almost guaranteed to fail spectacularly, just like every other campaign in which it's not clear what's being promoted. Yes, yes, the ad SAYS to call to stop sexual abuse...but people are going to remember the picture more, and that is one sweet and loving picture. I'm betting that half of the people who see the ad wil first see the picture, think "aw, how touching!" and never even read the words next to it.
Which is too bad, because, as Anonymous said, children do get abused, and generally it's by someone they know. Think about it another way: We live in a society in which millions of young children are within regular access of non-related men (i.e. stepfathers/mothers' boyfriends/etc.). I'd be surprised if the instance of abuse hadn't risen, given that. It's not that bio-fathers never abuse...but if you suspect that a child is being abused, the first thing to do is to check to see if he/she has a stepfather or mom's boyfriend around, then an uncle, then other male figures with emotional influence. (Note: There are a lot of wonderful stepfathers out there, and it sucks that they get lumped together with the other non-wonderful types, but those are the statistics, despite what TV would have you believe.)
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:31 am
Anonymous @6:29 am and Marion may wish to take into account that a quarter of child sexual abuse is commited by women. It is not a gender specific crime commited only by men as you are portraying here. It remains one of our culture's dirty little secrets unfortunately and your attitude enables female offenders by limiting scrutiny to only one gender.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:01 am
...this country really is descending into frightening paranoia, isn't it?...
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:21 am
George Orwell's "1984" prediction of an Anti-Sex Leagure has indeed come to pass. Except they're arresting people on the suspicion of projected sexual perversions, not sex itself.
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:35 pm
[...] If You See a Father Holding His Child's Hand, Call the Cops! — If dad goes for a walk with his daughter and holds her hand, apparently Virginia Department of Health officials wants you to pick up the phone and destroy his life by reporting him as a possible sexual abuser. I would've thought this article about this campaign was from the Onion or some satirical publication, but it's for real. [...]
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:20 am
I really must echo gwallan and say that women's (and some men's) refusal to take a stand against female sex predators (and there are more than most people will allow themselves to believe) is probably a greater threat and problem than father's/men's attitudes towards men who molest.
Here's the thing, there are people who hurt kids, many of them. However, in our first world society contempt for all males is aiding those people who want to hurt kids. Misandry must be fought with all the tools available and fought with true ferocity or we will not be able to protect any child.
The idea is to get our child abuse rate down to the lowest possible number. Yet, all actions in our first world countries are to provide upward pressure on the child abuse rate and that is DIRECTLY a function of misandry.
June 23rd, 2007 at 8:16 am
JD, the various 'one in four' statistics that feminists often wave around are completely false. They were collecting by a radical fem who was once quoted as saying 'I believe most marital sex is more on the rape side of the spectrum.' If you want to know more, read Christina Hoff Summers' article on 'rape culture'.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:04 am
Yes child sexual abuse is extremely rare compared to other forms of abuse. I think the problem is, like with rape, that the involvment of sex in abuse makes it all the more repulsive to us. I know full well that rape is nowhere near as bad as murder, in any context. Yet I am physically repulsed by a rapist in a way that does not occur with a murderer. To really combat child abuse, we need to know the whole truth, especially that women are more likely to be the perpetrators (except sexual abuse, in which case they are a quarter). As well as that children often abuse other children, and that the vast majority of abusers are known to their victims. I am not saying to try and demonise women in any way, for child abusers SHOULD be demonised, regardless of their gender. But if we have wrong ideas (like a father holding his daughter's hand is sexual abusing her) this makes it all the more difficult to catch and punish real abusers.
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:39 am
gwallan, According to "The myth of innocence: sexual scripts and the recognition of child sexual abuse by female perpetrators," published in "The Journal of Sex Research" in 2003, the percentage of sexual assaults by females that the legal system receives reports of is between 1% to 4%. Now, the instance of abuse of student by female educators is higher than that, and it's believed that female sexual abuse is under-reported, but I'd really like to see an actual source for the 25% number, because I keep seeing it get thrown around as an absolute fact with nothing backing it up.
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Hi marion,
You don't see it because of "feminist jurisprudence". You can read more about it here.
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume6/j6_2_4.htm
Same as feminists claim that only 2% of rapes are false dispite the evidence that shows otherwise.
Wendy Kaminer (1993) reported that "it is a primary article of faith among many feminists that women don't lie about rape, ever; they lack the dishonesty gene" (p.67). Eight years earlier, in 1985, John O'Sullivan discovered a widespread defense of the belief that "no woman would fabricate a rape charge" (p.22). Feminists themselves admit as much. Law Professor Susan Estrich stated that "the whole effort at reforming rape laws has been an attack on the premise that women who bring complaints are suspect" (Newsweek, 1985, p.61). Some feminists believe that even defending that premise is a sex crime. Alan Dershowitz (1993) reports that he was accused of sexual harassment for discussing in class the possibility of false rape allegations.
June 23rd, 2007 at 9:07 pm
"The National Center for Child Abuse reported that false allegations, which were 35% of all claims in 1975, had by 1993 reached 60% (FMSF Newsletter, 1993)."
Different areas and different agencies put the false allegations in the 40%-60% range.
Today in Domestic Violance and Child Custody situations, some are saying 80% are totally groundless with the next 15% "suspect."
DanH
June 24th, 2007 at 8:38 am
"[women] lack the dishonesty gene"
Inventing the idea of a dishonesty gene is a form of dishonesty.
June 24th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Marion it is a standard feminist response to use conviction or arrest statistics for offences committed by women but survey stats for those committed by men. Please do not repeat their dishonesty.
Take note of the following regarding schools
Eighty five percent of teachers are women.
Work on the demographics of offenders and relationships of offenders to victims indicates about eight percent of female abusers are teachers compared to fewer than one percent of male offenders(Kaufmann et al 95 is a good ref if you can find it). This makes sense if one considers the far greater scrutiny applied to men in these settings.
Male offenders are more likely to engage in same sex abuse than are female.
The upshot is that female on male abuse is more likely than any other in a teacher/student situation. Furthermore given that male same sex abuse is more likely than the female equivalent boys are significantly more likely to be victimised by any teacher than are girls. Unfortunately the information we provide to the school kids is exactly the opposite of this and is driven by ideology rather than reality.
Some more general references you may want to examine
FEMALE SEX OFFENDERS by Linda Halliday-Sumner
Female Sexual Abusers: A Theory of Loss Hollida Wakefield, Martha Rogers, and Ralph Underwager
The Invisible Boy: Revisioning the Victimization of Male Children and Teens Health Canada / Canadian Children's Rights Council
Sexual assault of children by females Health Canada / Canadian Children's Rights Council
Very little of the work referenced in these articles is available online but I've tracked down much of it through my local public and university libraries as well as the local sexual assault centre where I have some involvement.
Some other things you may want to consider.
While only a small proportion of victims go on to become abusers it is still far higher than in the population at large.
Victims who do offend subsequently will repeat the type of abuse they were subjected to. Thus heterosexual abuse is repeated with the genders reversed.
Both my reading and contact with victims(putting aside any cycles of offending) indicates that female victims often manifest problems through self harm or neglect(cutting, anorexia etc) while male victims are a bit more inclined to act outwardly and harm others. This is not always the case however(my own issues were of the self neglect variety) and as with most issues there is a significant crossover between the genders in terms of behaviour. Nonetheless there is a greater tendency for male offenders to have multiple victims. Thus one woman who abuses a future offender may create several female victims later on.
A significant proportion of the more aggressive male rapists of women are actually childhood victims of women. Early rape advocates were right about rape being about power but I wonder if their common feminist ideology didn't blind them a bit. Is it so difficult to accept that those rapists are often acting out of a sense of their own powerlessness? Their anger doesn't just manifest in a vacuum.
The suggestion by our anonymous contributor that "most child molesters when caught have abused over 60 children already" is absurd and indicates some hysteria.
My objection to your original post is a function of these things and others. A focus on only one gender as possible offenders denies the true dynamics of this type of abuse. Unfortunately it is consistant with the more general state of denial I have already mentioned. This denial is well fostered by feminists who have always seen demonising men to be an essential part of their advocacy. Their politicisation of these issues and their deliberate use of them as a club against men is likely doing more harm than good.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:11 am
gwallen,
Your point regarding women abusing children/minors is well taken, but you also wrote:
"The suggestion by our anonymous contributor that "most child molesters when caught have abused over 60 children already" is absurd and indicates some hysteria."
I would suggest you do a little research of your own on the "60 victims" figure and see what you come up with. The point of my post is not to stir up fear, and certainly not hysteria. The point is that male-on-child "child molestation" is overwhelmingly accounted for by:
1. a teeny, tiny percentage of highly abnormal individual males, and
2. types of social behavior by these males which are very distinct from the behavior of other males.
I'm not saying that every (falsely) accused father in a custody case is likely abusing 60 other children.
I'm saying that UNLESS the accused has also abused a large number of other children, HE IS VERY LIKELY NOT involved in abuse of his own child. He is very likely innocent. This is consistent with the statistics and references cited by DanH.
In other words, that extremely rare type of male who is sexually attracted to children (a pedophile), is typically not starting -- or stopping -- with just his own child. Read for example about the recent multi-country arrests of a pedophile ring operating on the internet. These are very weird dudes who are obviously afflicted with bizarre and deeply abnormal "interests" in stuff which would turn the stomachs of over 99% of men on this planet.
So again, the teeny, tiny, miniscule population of males who have this rare attraction preference for children, and their typically high number of victims before being caught, implies that the vast, VAST majority of child sex abuse incidents occuring in this country, are being perpetrated NOT by those children's fathers, but by these other very rare males, who exhibit an obsessive/compulsive, addiction-type attraction to, and involvement with, children.
In closing, I feel it is important to point out in this site that it does NOT serve the interests of fathers on this site or otherwise to try to make light of the problem of those rare beasts who are the male sexual abusers of children. Rather it is better for men to take the moral high ground against these bizarre and rare and DANGEROUS individuals, and to advance the cause to identifying and unmasking them. And this includes the unmasking of female perpetrators as well.
Classifying all child sex abusers, including female offenders, as the rare and highly abnormal group that they are, is the key to de-politicizing this "issue" as it relates to most fathers (and mothers), because it has no bearing whatsoever on most fathers and mothers. Those rare men who engage in this behavior are very, very different from most men. Just like women who would drown or hang their children are very, very different from most women (however I would note that depression, cascading into severe and/or psychotic depression, is arguably much more common or likely in the female gender than pedophilia is in the male gender.)
June 26th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Anonymous you've made the claim. It's for you to support with citations. Not my place to do your research for you. I remind you that you said "most" and "over sixty".
And so you are aware my involvement on this issue is not related to fathers' issues but is a consequence of my being a victim with growing involvement in advocacy.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:39 am
gwallen,
I don't know you, and you obviously don't know me. You can find the 60 figure easily enough on the web, here is a page (http://www.cpiu.us/statistics.php) citing Gene Abel's research which states:
"A 1994 National Institute of Health survey of 453 pedophiles, conducted by Dr. Gene Abel, showed these criminals were collectively responsible for the molestation of over 67,000 children. That's an average of 148 children per individual pedophile."
As you drill into the research, you will find that homosexual male pedophiles drive up the average, having a higher average number of victims. That study showed 52 victims per convicted molester of female victims, but others show more. The point is, these perpetrators account for the vast majority of victims.
The point is, child sex abuse is a real problem, but with respect to males in particular, it is a problem of a very tiny population of aberrant males victimizing the vast majority of the victims.
I.e., it is a "specialist" crime, just like anonymous rape is a specialist crime-- very few "specialists" are responsible for the vast majority of the crimes committed.
This puts most males at a great distance from the suspect pool, and also suggests by reverse implication that very few males are ever molesting their own daughters -- if someone is molesting their daughters it is most likely NOT the father.
The following are from Dr. Gene Abel's book The Stop Child Molestation Book 2001. (according to this site: http://absolutezerounited.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-was-challenged-part-2.html)
Dr. Abel's study sample included 16,109 adults who admitted sexually molesting at least one child. His demographics matched those of the general population in terms of age, ethnicity, religious affiliation, marital status, educational level and socioeconomic status. For the sake of space I'm going to give you the highlights of this large scale study.
Pedophilia is the most significant cause of child molestation.
People witih pedophilia molest 88% of child sexual abuse victims.
68% had molested a child in their family, defined as under the age of 13 and either a biological child, stepchild, adopted child, foster child, niece, nephew, grandchild.
40% molested children of their friends or neighbors. 24% of men molesting children in their family also molested children of friends and neighbors.
Only 10% molested a stranger.
Only 1% of molesters were female.
Of the men in this study, the pedophiles molested 88 percent of the children which totaled 28,419, as compared to the 12 percent or 3,761 for non-pedophiles.
Pedophiles commit more than 10 times as many sexual acts against children as do non-pedophile molesters. On average, a molester with pedophilia commits 70.8 molestation acts. On average, a molester without pedophilia commits 6.5 acts. This group of pedophiles committed 95 percent of the acts for a total of 171,973 versus only 5 percent of the acts for non-pedophiles.
The number of child victims and acts per molester depended on whether the molester targeted girls, boys or both. Those molesting only girls averaged 5.2 victims and 34.2 acts. Those molesting only boys averaged 10.7 victims and 52 acts. Those molesting both averaged 27.3 victims and 120.9 acts.
While many more men molested girls, the men who molested boys averaged double the number of victims.
47% of male molesters had been molested as a child.
The number of victims also varied depending on whether the molester had himself been molested as a child. The never-abused molesters averaged 7 child victims while abused molesters averaged 25 victims. On average, sexually abused molesters committed over 100 more acts than never-abused molesters.
In order to reduce the number of children molested, we must identify the pedophile and implement treatment as rapidly as possible.
Pedophiles molest 88% of all victims and commit 95% of child molestations.
Labels: Gene Abel, Statistics
June 26th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
A father holding a child's hand so they will not run into the street is now "abuse?" What is a parent to do? Stand there and watch as their child, niece,nephew or whatever the relationship is, run into the street. Kids do not know what is best for them to keep them safe, that is why they rely on the adults to take charge and protect them from danger, and now this is abuse? I do not understand the illogic at all. People who abuse children make me sick, but finding fault with innocent behavior just rankles and stinks to high heaven. What is this, no one in this country is innocent, until and unless proven otherwise has been turned on its head?
June 26th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Something certainly "stinks" at the Virginia Department of Health ...
[yeah, yeah ... both the pun and the truth should be blatantly obvious. but apparently they are not obvious to all people (sickos in their own right).]
June 26th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
This is very discouraging. The more we reason and use political arguments and tactics, the worse things get. The only answer may lie in anarchy.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Need a billboard using the same words of a mom giving a kid a bath in honor of the Texas mom who drowned her kids
Need a billboard using the same words of a mom seatbelting her kid into a car in honor of the North Carolina mom who drowned her kids
Need a billboard using the same words with a mom taking "medication" in honor of the Indiana mom who let her 2 year old kid run along I-465 wearing nothing but spiderman underware and smile.
The list of similar billboards for moms goes on and on
June 27th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Take a picture of a womans hand and a childs and let the caption read " Your not going to visit your father and the courts wont do a thing about it."
June 27th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Fark.com has a discussion going on this post here : http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2895040
An interesting link from the discussion, Is She Your Daughter" in which a white dad is all but accused of kidnapping becuase of his daughters skin color.
Down at the bottom of the article and striking a weird note, the non-custodial estranged ex-wife gets to claim she cuckolded him.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Anonymous
Did you actually read the article before you copied and pasted it?
I'll give you a hint. Check for internal statistical errors in the numbers. All the "stats" cited cannot possibly be true at the same time.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
[...] my recent blog post If You See a Father Holding His Child's Hand, Call the Cops!, I called attention to the man-bashing Virginia Department of Health poster pictured above. In [...]
June 29th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
gwallan,
You seem to be looking to have a conflict with me for some reason. You also seem to think that the reports of male child molesters having, on average, many victims, somehow detracts from your points that females are a real and significant cause of child molestation.
But if you stopped reacting to -- and attacking -- someone who has a view which is not in conflict with your own, and instead looked for how these data might fit with your own research and views, you might be surprised at the useful conclusions which fall out of such a reflective process.
First, I find your points, information and references about female abusers to be very interesting. I have already incorporated them into my own "knowledge base" on this subject.
One of my preliminary speculations, based on considering your data (included as augmented by others) then there is a conclusion which falls out of your data, plus my data, which you may, in fact, find quite agreeable to you. Here's what it is, and I'll call it a speculation for now (and you may already know this or otherwise agree with it):
- let's say that women are responsible for just 20% (or more) of all child molestations, but we'll take 20% for now
- let's say that your first reference and others are correct that female child molesters are far less "predatory" than men (this makes sense in that we would not be surprised to learn that female child molesters take a "relationship" approach, while males are presumably going for numbers of victims, so to speak)
- let's say that this plays out such that the following averages hold
-Average victims per male child molester: 50
-Average victims per female child molester: 5
-Percentage of child molestations accounted for by females: 20%
OK, so what does this suggest? Well, it suggests that the number of bona fide child molesters who are women, actually EXCEEDS the number of child molesters who are men!
In other words, if you imagine an island population having 1000 lifetime child molestation victims,
200 would have been molested by women
800 would have been molested by men
it would take only 16 male child molesters (at 50 victims per male molester) to cause those 800 victims attributed to males.
But it would take 40 female child molesters (at 5 victims per female molester) to cause those 200 victims attributed to females.
Now while actual numbers will not be exactly these (just like actual numbers in various studies do not all agree with the 60 magnitude I posted above).
However, the relative magnitudes are the key to this analysis.
BOTTOM LINE gwallen, if you are right (and I have no reason to doubt your references, plus others which agree with them), AND I am also right (and I'm simply parroting a large volume of readily available readings, quite frankly), THEN we have this conclusion:
FEMALE CHILD MOLESTERS MUST OUTNUMBER MALE CHILD MOLESTERS IN AMERICA
gwallen, I hope you now appreciate people who have as much respect for others' views as they do for their own. To me, its all data, and the key is to just be sure one is working with legitimate data and findings.
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:13 am
Kudos Chris! I love that great Chaucerian term, cuckold., just like I love the archaic noun shyster. Neither are PC, of course!
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:46 am
A few points:
It's wrong, but the men are not defenseless. If they call the cops, if their fearful minds need to, then stand tall and proud with your daughter - hand in hand. Tell the truth plainly and simply and the cop will be on your side. Force THEM to make explicit their implication you are doing something wrong and it melts away.
They larger risk here is not to the men, but to the girls. Frankly, harrassing by police and such is damaging to the father, but they are the adult and if there is nothing wrong happening, as in the vast majority of cases, nothing criminal will result. Far worse, the more common result is this: these messages will change the way that many fathers interact with their daughter. Opening the door of abuse as a generally accepted, widely advertised norm creates real fear in normal fathers about false accusations, or fear that their actions will be taken incorrectly. That fear damages the interaction with the daughter more than anything else.
I have a boy and a girl, both under age 10. I've seen and talked with many divorced fathers who basically do not touch their female children, at all, because of this fear mongering. Such withdrawl of affection badly damages their relationship with the child. It warps the assumptions the girl has about touching men: why and how and when is normal. I go out of my way to hug my daughter the same way I do with my son, to hold her hand on walks, to put my arm around her when she cries, etc etc, -- to provide safe non-sexual physical affection. There are a whole lot of reasons this can be difficult, but it is critical to a woman's development of feeling safe around men to to have a male role model, their father, with whom they can have safe affection and learn that men are just that: safe. ...safe to be around, safe to touch, safe to hug...
Strangely, I see these ads doing more harm than good long term. Their mesage hits the majority of normal men. Eventually girls grow up, and they do start touching men (or other boys), regardless of what they know or their previous experience. If girls grow up thinking that touching is wrong or bad with their dad, it leaves them much more likely to have terrible interactions with men later.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
This recent ad for the prevention of child abuse is the most asinine thing I have ever seen! The picture leads one to conclude that all men and only men are child abusers if they show any affection toward their or any children. Yea, and all African-Americans are rapists. All Arabs are terrorists. And, all Mexicans are illegal aliens. Asinine!!
And people should trust their instincts?? Instinct, emotion, paranoia, psychological disorder, maliciousness -- most people will use any of these characteristics to formulate their suspicions and then report them, potentially ruining many innocent lives. Might as well take a survey of how many child abusers people think are at large and use that as definitive scientific proof for the incidence of child abuse. Asinine!!!
Holding a child's hand does not make a man, nor any person a child abuser. Becky should figure out what the signs of child abuse are, first, and then she could educate the public about them. Now there's a thought.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
To another father-
"Tell the truth plainly and simply and the cop will be on your side. Force THEM to make explicit their implication you are doing something wrong and it melts away."
If only it were so. Child "Protective" Services are not well-known for a measured response . Police are better, they can get away with more discretion, but because they are only wrong when they might have made an arrest but didn't (if they make an unnecessary arrest, nothing bad can happen to them), they still arrest and haul people away for busybody false accusations. I was in jail for 4 days because, even though the police knew it was false, they had to arrest me to just comply with their policy. You are right, in that a good dad should provide the same physical security and expressions of affection as always, but you are wrong if you think that upstanding morals guarantee that you won't be put in the slammer or have your children taken from you.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:15 am
I am a father and has three yong boys. I unfortunately married a woman from the Ukraine who did betray me terribly and followed a system what is called Green Card Hunters or I call it the Green Card Criminal Manula. In these system what the Russian and Ukrainian women do is to falsify abuse against the American husband and accuse him of abuse so they file a Protective From Abuse and go to the shelter and tehn they are 100% protected and actually they get a VIP treatment to get their US Residency Green Card effortlessly by filing an application called a spouse of an abused or battered US citizen and so they get the green card without the husband involvement and nothing can stop it and the husband can not defend himself or anything. They don’t need to proove any actual abuse or anything only the police report and the Protection from abuse. I talk about that here becasue, I was a victim of a false abuse and lived terrible years of my life that cost me destruction of two businesses I had, financial losses, stress and ruined my reputation to try to defend myself against all the false accusations. I was 100% innocent but took about 2 years for all the legal system. I can assure you that I lost a lot of my friends even from my own church that I spent over 15 years in and even until today I know that many still look at me as an abuser whether I was proven innocent or not. I experienced first hand that I as a man was considered an abuser really whether was proven innocent or not. In fact it enfluenced everything. It was amazing that the police report was completely errors even when got the testemony of a Family Physician a friend of us who was present at that time that really twisted that. We had mediators and even they were men mediators it was really amazing that one mediator wrote in his conclusion report I am an abuser and everything she accused me of like living with a girlfriend and even made my education which I have a Master Degree in Nursing to a Bachelor degree instead but that mediator did not stated them as she said so, rather what she said he stated as facts. It was really amazing. Even now I have custody issue with her that she wants to change custody in her court filing her lawyer stated I have history of abuse and court cases without mentioning that I was declared 100% innocent and that is 7 years later and still hunt me. I would imagine if my boys are girls, I am sure I would have been accused of child abuse as well for sure. In fact she called her friend in the morning using my cellular phone as the phone calling record and told her I kidnapped my children before I even left the house while I was still asleep. So, what I want to say that it is really a tragedy now that it is so easy to accuse a man of abuse whether it is child abuse or woman abuse all to gain advantage at the court espicially in divorce cases. The devastating effect on the falsely accused father or man it is really too negative and the consequences for many years to come. It was my dream, my hope and aspiration to build a family and to raise children with affectionate parents; however, my first hand expereince being a victim of false abuse accusations scares me to death.
July 12th, 2007 at 9:56 am
What I have pointed is my fear and false accusations did not come from strangers, but my own wife becasue she had personal interests to achieve such as child custody, and getting the US Green Card. Just about all fasle abuse cases are done from the wife or the girlfriend against the husband or the boyfriend and the majority are initiated from the wife against the husbands. That is the real danger is your wife who wants to leave you or now is your ex-wife would falsely accuse you of child abuse and wife abuse and they can easily get away with it without at all any risk and they even get free lawyers and a lot of asssitance. That is the real risk from women you already know not strangers because they are envy, jelous, angry, hateful, betray you, revenge you and for their personal and materialistic gains.
July 21st, 2007 at 3:14 am
It's all quite Orwellian. Create distrust between children and parents. Break down the bonds of the family. So people live in fear of their children, and children look to the state as their Big Brother.
Doubleplusgood.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:30 am
[...] In my recent blog post If You See a Father Holding His Child's Hand, Call the Cops!, I called attention to the man-bashing Virginia Department of Health poster pictured above. I [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
[...] In my recent blog post If You See a Father Holding His Child's Hand, Call the Cops!, I called attention to the man-bashing Virginia Department of Health poster pictured above. I [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
[...] In my recent blog post If You See a Father Holding His Child’s Hand, Call the Cops!, I called attention to the man-bashing Virginia Department of Health poster pictured above. I [...]
August 25th, 2007 at 12:54 am
[...] In my blog post If You See a Father Holding His Child's Hand, Call the Cops!, I called attention to the man-bashing Virginia Department of Health poster pictured above. I [...]
September 1st, 2007 at 7:16 am
This is a disgusting and shocking maneuver by Virginia Department of Health. I heard about this on the morning radio show in my town while driving my car, and had to pull over to scream. This is absolute persecution, and much like the law in China--guilty until proven innocent.
I just wonder if the Virginia Department of Health has spent five seconds thinking about the child of the innocent father. Imagine, a father walking his daughter down the street hand in hand. After walking several blocks, and multiple inquiry by several police officers, what do you think the child is thinking?
"What did my daddy do?" This could be traumatic to a child. Zeke heil, Viginia.
XenoSapien
Babies As Weapons
www.xenosapien.com
September 1st, 2007 at 8:02 am
[...] Persecution in Virginia Recently, I heard something on the radio about how the Virginia Department of Health is encouraging people to call the police should they see an adult male with a child. This is disgusting, blatant persecution, and little does Virginia know, you are also persecuting the CHILD. If a dad and his daughter are walking down the street, and several cops stop them and question the father, you are SCARING the child, and likely traumatizing the child as well. This is sick, Virgina. Why don't you just admit you don't want children anywhere near any man? My question: Can this be construed as harassment by the police should a father be questioned multiple times? XenoSapien Go here to voice your opinion on this disgraceful encouragement: GlennSacks.com Blog Archive If You See a Father Holding His Child's Hand, Call the Cops! [...]
September 6th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Who said this was a pic of a father holding his child's hand? This could be anyone! Could be a stranger, could be a stepfather, could be an uncle, could even be grandpa! Are you trying to deny that innocent children are mostly molested by males?
September 6th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
OK, Dan, we do know that it is a guy, your right:-) Reason being is that they are at least with the child. They havent got a Q tip with Meth up the kids nose, arent letting the kid run around I-465 in his underware, arent giving the kid a bottle filled with everclear, arent driving the kid into a lake to drown them, arent holding the kid in the bathtub to drown them. Etc........
September 6th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
The pic doesn't say as much as the caption "When I see them together it doesn't feel right" What it is really trying to say is, if you see something and your gut instinct tells you something just doesn't seem right, you may want to check it out. I am not sure if there is any way to portray this delicate issue without offending some but any adult that lives in today's society where children are subject to predators that will harm them understands why ads like this are necessary. I am sure Glenn Sacks would be very vigilant if someone was getting over familiar with his children and it just didn't feel right to him. Pick your battles carefully Glenn!
September 7th, 2007 at 6:33 am
Dan: Great news, just saw the news last night. I agree with your statement above, however, I think the billboard may be more accurate if it was a picture of say an English woman Dr. in vacationing in Portagul
September 7th, 2007 at 7:35 am
Dan: More great news, from cnn.com, maybe it should be a woman teachers hand
LAURENS COUNTY, S.C. -- A former Laurens County teacher pleaded guilty Thursday to having sex with at least five students.
Allenna Williams Ward, 23, a seventh-grade language arts teacher at Bell Middle School, had sex with several students in cars, parks, a hotel and at the school.
She pleaded guilty Thursday to six charges -- three second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and three lewd acts on a minor. Family members and her attorneys accompanied her as she made an emotional statement to the court.
She said, "Today, I publicly admit my guilt and would like to apologize. I sincerely apologize for the effects of my actions."
Clinton police said that Ward had sex with at least five boys: three 14-year-olds, and two 15-year-olds. The students were at Bell Middle and another school that was not named.
Ward was fired when the allegations were made public in March.
While awaiting trial, Ward has been required to wear a tracking device and she was allowed no contact with her alleged victims or their families. She has only been allowed to leave her home to go to church or visit her lawyer. She was not allowed to use a cell phone.
Ward's family was required to pay for the electronic monitoring device, including a $150 administrative fee plus a $70 a week fee.
Thursday, Jerry Peace, 8th Circuit Solicitor, said, "She was in a position of authority. She had the trust of the community to teach kids right and do what you need to do around children to let them grow to be responsible adults. She violated that trust."
Ward will be sentenced at a later date. She could face a sentence of up to 105 years in prison.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:38 am
The hand doesn't appear to be that of a sexy teacher and a 15 year old boy! Stop the spin.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:43 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5t5GukrWOU
September 7th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Hey good work there Dan, if it is in a Van Halen video, it must be OK. Hey check this jewel out
Mother Charged After Baby's Arms Severed
By LISA FALKENBERG
PLANO, Texas (AP) -- With a calm, dispassionate voice and a hymn playing in the background, Dena Schlosser confessed to the unthinkable, telling a 911 operator she'd cut off the arms of her baby girl.
The woman was sitting in her living room covered with blood when police arrived Monday. Her nearly 11-month-old daughter lay fatally injured in a crib in a bedroom of the family's apartment in Plano. The child died shortly afterward at a hospital.
Police have charged the 35-year-old mother with capital murder, but declined to reveal where she is being held.
Schlosser, who had a history of postpartum depression, had been investigated on child neglect allegations earlier this year, but Texas Child Protective Services had recently closed a seven-month investigation, concluding that Schlosser did not pose a risk to her children. Neighbors said she seemed to be a loving, attentive mother.
"There were never any indications of violence with this family," agency spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said, describing the children as healthy and happy.
But, on Monday, authorities discovered a grisly scene after the child's father called a day-care center and asked staffers to check on his wife and daughter.
Day-care workers called 911 after talking to the mother; an operator then called Schlosser.
Asked if there was an emergency, Schlosser calmly responded "Yes," according to 911 tapes released by police.
Audio
Duke says when police arrived at the family's apartment, they found Dena Schlosser along with her nearly eleven-month-old baby with her arms severed.
"Exactly what happened?" the operator asked.
"I cut her arms off," Schlosser replied, as the hymn "He Touched Me" played in the background.
"You cut her arms off?" he repeated.
"Uh huh," she answered.
It was not immediately clear what instrument was used to sever the baby's arms or why the child's father called the day-care center. The name of the baby was not released.
Authorities said the two older daughters in the family, ages 6 and 9, were at school when police arrived, and that their father was at work.
No one answered the door Monday night at the family's apartment in suburban Dallas. Children's bicycles rested near the entrance along with angel garden statues.
Neighbors said Schlosser took her children swimming in the summer, had picnics in the courtyard and walked her baby around the complex the same time each afternoon.
Dena Livingston, 43, said she saw Schlosser making her rounds with the stroller on Sunday. Two days earlier, she saw Schlosser waiting with the baby outside the school her two other daughters attend.
"She didn't give off like she was in a distant world or didn't care about the baby," Livingston said.
Livingston's husband, Brad, added: "To see her with the girls, you would just think she was a great mother."
Child-protective officials were interviewing Schlosser's daughters and would talk to the father before deciding whether to remove the girls from the home.
In January, the agency was called to the home after Schlosser was seen running down the street, with one of her daughters bicycling after her, authorities said. When officials arrived, the child told them her mother had left her 6-day-old sister alone in the apartment.
Schlosser appeared at the time to be suffering from postpartum depression and having a psychotic episode, Gonzales said.
Schlosser was hospitalized, and later agreed to seek counseling and saw a psychiatrist, Gonzales said.
"At the time we closed the case, we had been assured that Mom was stabilized and that she was not a risk to herself or her children," Geoff Wool, spokesman for the Family and Protective Services Department, said.
A capital murder charge in Texas carries only two possible sentences: life in prison or the death penalty. Prosecutors did not say whether they plan to seek the death penalty.
The Schlosser case is the latest infamous case in recent years of Texas mothers accused of killing their children.
Andrea Yates of Houston drowned her five children, ages 6 months to 7 years, in the bathtub in 2001. She was convicted of capital murder in the deaths of three of the children and is serving a life sentence. The defense had said she suffered from schizophrenia and postpartum depression.
This year, Deanna Laney, 39, was acquitted of capital murder by reason of insanity after killing her sons, ages 8 and 6. A third son was injured. Psychiatrists said Laney, of New Chapel Hill, suffered from psychotic delusions that God told her to kill her children. She was committed to a mental hospital.
September 7th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Man! Is there something in the water down in Texas? Strange the dad called the daycare when he felt something was wrong with his wife? If he felt she was a danger to their child he should not have left her alone with the baby. Obviously this woman was deeply disturbed and it appears he was well aware of the situation. He bears responsibility for failure to protect his child. I just heard on the radio that missing child Madeline McCann's mother is now a suspect in that case. Poor children are not even safe from their parents anymore!
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/09/07/madeleine_mccanns_mother_now_a_suspect/8952/
September 11th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Mother Admits to Drinking and Leaving Daughter Alone Indianapolis WISH - 8 - wishtv.com
Sep 10, 2007 09:51 PM EDT
Mother Admits to Drinking and Leaving Daughter Alone
By Gene Rodriguez
News 8 @ 6:00
INDIANAPOLIS - Monday, an Indianapolis mother talked about what she did to her two-year-old that got her locked up this weekend.
The mother, Ruth Powell, admitted to 24-Hour News 8 that she had been drinking, but didn't think what she did would get her in trouble.
"My daughter was having her nap just asleep and I didn't think she was going to wake up," Powell said.
But Indianapolis Metro Police say Ruth Powell's two-year old daughter did wake up and wandered from the mobile home.
According to police reports the neighbors found the toddler outside of the mobile home crying they say she was scared of the dog.
The same dog that was barking when News 8 knocked on the door.
"I was at my friends house, his place, went to grocery and I didn't think I was going to be gone too long, an hour but that was that," Powell said.
That's how long police say they waited for Powell to arrive at the scene. They say Powell and the man who lives in the mobile home pulled up in a pick up truck.
"Our officers smelled what they believed to have been alcoholic beverage about her person and she actually stated to them that she had in fact been drinking," Captain Phil Burton with IMPD said.
"It's true I did, only three beers," Powell said.
Police say Powell's blood alcohol content was above the legal limit at .09.
"I am a good mother, I made a wrong choice what I did I was irresponsible for that but at the same time I wasn't thinking and I never, I never left my child like this before. I never did until now," Powell said.
The two year old was not hurt. She is now in protective custody.
Powell says she has two other children she gave up for adoption but still visits.
Powell is in jail on a preliminary felony charge of child neglect.
September 12th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Woman Accused Of Sex With Baby Sitter, 14
POSTED: 9:14 am CDT September 11, 2007
UPDATED: 9:26 am CDT September 11, 2007
COLUMBUS, Kan. -- A 16-year-old boy said he walked in on his then-14-year-old brother while he was having sex with a Columbus woman for whom the younger boy worked as a baby sitter.
After her preliminary hearing in Cherokee County District Court, 22-year-old Ashley Thompson was bound over for trial on three felony counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.
The older boy testified that after Thompson returned home from her job on the night of March 2, the three of them drank alcohol that Thompson provided. He said that Thompson and his brother ended up in her bedroom, and that he walked in to find them having intercourse.
The younger boy testified that he had intercourse with Thompson four times at her home in Columbus. He said their decision to have sex was "kind of a mutual thing."
Thompson appears Oct. 1 in Joplin, Mo., for a motions hearing on a statutory rape charge. The felony charge stems from an alleged incident in Jasper County with the same boy on March 22, after he had turned 15.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
September 14th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
From WRTV 6 Indianapolis
Mom Feeds Daughter Applesauce Spiked With Prozac
Mom Tells Police Girl Couldn't Sleep
POSTED: 10:10 am EDT September 14, 2007
UPDATED: 10:21 am EDT September 14, 2007
GREENWOOD, Ind. -- A Greenwood mother told police that she gave her 12-year-old daughter applesauce spiked with Prozac for about six months even though she knew the girl shouldn't take the drug without a prescription.
The Johnson County Sheriff's Department said Karen S. Walsh, 51, admitted giving the girl the drug when she was questioned on Wednesday.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Walsh told officers that the child had trouble sleeping and that she decided to administer the drug from her own prescription beginning in April 2007.
Police said the Department of Child Services notified them of the situation and that Walsh stopped giving her daughter Prozac earlier this month after DCS told her to stop.
Police said that Walsh was aware that Prozac can cause other medical conditions, such as an increase in suicidal thoughts, especially when not prescribed by a doctor.
Walsh told officers, "I knew the doctor would tell me to stop," when asked why she didn't seek medical care for the girl, according to the probable cause affidavit. "I was just trying to help her sleep and I guess I should not have done it."
Police said Walsh told them she gave her daughter about 5 mg of the drug every night and sometimes woke her up to make her eat the applesauce spiked with the drug.
Walsh was charged with neglect of a dependent, a Class D felony, after police contacted three physicians, each of whom told them that giving the child Prozac endangered her.
Watch 6News beginning First At 5:00 and refresh this page for updates.
Copyright 2007 by TheIndyChannel.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
September 14th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
I still say the bulliten board should have a womans hand on it. Be it raping boys or killing their own kids, kids arent safe with more women than ever before. I guss this is what happens when the judicial systems lets women treat children like owned property instead of people. Great job US court system, thank you Howard County Indiana Judge Krebes
From KIROTV.com
Teacher Charged With Raping Second Boy
POSTED: 5:56 pm PDT September 13, 2007
UPDATED: 6:14 pm PDT September 13, 2007
TACOMA, Wash. -- A former Tacoma teacher accused of raping a 10-year-old boy is now facing additional charges after investigators said there is at least one more victim.
Jennifer Rice, 31, was charged on Wednesday with raping and molesting a second boy in his mid-teens.
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Kevin McCarty said sources told him the second victim is the brother of the 10-year-old boy who Rice allegedly molested.
Rice was first arrested and charged on Aug. 14 with kidnapping a former student while having a sexual relationship with him.
Police said that since the former teacher had contact with students at several schools, they have not ruled out the possibility that there could be more victims in Pierce County.
Investigators said the discovery of a second victim led to 12 new counts in the case against Rice.
Prosecutors charged Rice with six counts of rape of a child in the first degree, two counts of rape of a child in the third degree and four counts of child molestation in the first degree.
Investigators said they were unaware of the alleged teenage victim until after Rice was arrested.
“During the course of the original investigation, in talking with the second victim and talking with witnesses, whether directly or indirectly, the second victim came up,” said Officer Mark Fulghum of Tacoma police.
Rice remains in jail. Her bail has been set at $500,000.
Copyright 2007 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
September 16th, 2007 at 9:48 am
LOL! OK,
September 25th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
This just in on cnn.com
Teacher charged with having sex with teenStory Highlights
Ex-teacher is third in S. C. county to be accused of having sex with teen
Karen Robbins, 49, was arrested over the weekend
Letters found at middle school turned over to police
She is free on $90, 000 bail
Next Article in U.S. »
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- A former teacher was charged with having sex with a teenage boy, the third teacher in the same county accused of such crimes in the past year and a half, authorities said Monday.
Karen Robbins is the third teacher in the area to be charged with having sex with a teenager.
Karen Robbins, 49, was arrested over the weekend and charged with three counts each of criminal sexual conduct with a minor and committing a lewd act on a child.
The sex occurred with a 15-year-old in her car and twice at her home between September and November 2005, according to arrest warrants.
Robbins was a private school teacher at the time, and officials said the accusations did not involve one of her students.
Robbins was released from jail on a $90,000 bail.
Messages left at a telephone listing for a Karen Robbins in Clinton and with the county public defender's office were not immediately returned.
Police said they began investigating after school officials turned over letters in July found at Bell Street Middle School, where Robbins worked during the 2006-2007 school year.
Earlier this month, Allena Ward, also a former Bell Street Middle teacher, pleaded guilty to having sex with five teenage boys, some of them students where she taught.
Wendie Ann Schweikert, a former elementary school teacher in Laurens County, was sentenced in June to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with an 11-year-old student. Ward has not yet been sentenced.
"You're concerned as a parent. You're concerned as a citizen and concerned as a prosecutor that these events keep being uncovered," said solicitor Jerry Peace, who prosecuted Ward and Schweikert.
The now-17-year-old boy in Robbins' case, a former student at Bell Street Middle, is cooperating with authorities, Peace said. E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:09 am
Please see ""The FIA Game"
on my web site
I worked with those professionals for 30 years.
I have seen professional workers accuse men of abuse for rescuing their little girl ,a 3 year old,from a sex/druge house because they bigotedly sided with the mother!
I have seen workers accuse men of sexual abuse because they were more at ease with children than adults.
I have a priest friend who works out at the YMCA .He was showering after with 2 or three other well known profrssionals,one a lawyer.
A boy told his mother he say his pastor naked.
His mother told the bishop
My priest friend is gone gone gone
His reputation is also gone gone gone
His priesthood is very likely to be gone gone gone.
The mother is a professional like those mentioned in the add
She is a Lawyer
She is hystarical.[said at the risk of being accused being a woman hater]
I worked for 30 years a social services where those professionally trained workers work..
Let me tell you about their training.
They are told to ignor getting it right,their investigations.
That is not their job but the judges.
But they are believed by the judge because they are his eyes and ears in the field.
And do workers intentionally/unwittingly fool the judges
I even have listen to older workers train younger workers the tricks to fool the judge.
Here is what the professionally trained workers say
" ...They should be hanged by their you know what untill they drop"
October 21st, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I cannot believe that in this day and age of personal responsibility that someone said that the father bears the responsibility of his wife cutting off the arms of his child. NOONE is responsible for the actions of others in this country and that as they say is that.
Dennis Stacilauskas you speak the truth. I have been a victim of that system and in fact I was told by a judge that if I did not admit to child abuse that she would continue the case (I was fighting it) and it would cost me more money (yeah not that it would come out of my kids mouths either) so after $2500 and the judge asking me to plea guilty and asked if my statement was mine and not made under any duress (no pressure there) so yes have me arrested I was forced by the legal system to perjure myself because I had no money left...Who really committed the crime here?
By the way my son fell... they interviewed one of my two daughters in school without my knowledge she confirmed the situation and it took them 2 full days of "interviewing" my then 7 year old son until at their prompting that his father hit him. They did not even ask if it was mom. According to him he broke down crying before he could say that and he was terrified to come home that day because of what they made him say about me. SPEAK OF CHILD ABUSE, but they did not see it that way. I am so angry with that system it is not even funny. My wife was accuse later of not seeking medical help for my son... for some scratches on his face, mind you I have been at that point in time an EMT for 18 years, so my wife said that to CPS and the judge, and they would not hear it, she was guilty of child abuse also.
Neither one of us can work with children or adopt, and we will have that record until our youngest is 28. That kills me I LOVE children, have been a Boy Scout Leader, etc.
I still torment myself whether or not I did the right thing…I never lie…but I had no money left and really it was a lose lose situation, lie or spend money that I did not have and have the kids suffer because of a lack of money situation…
God, I have not thought about this fir a little bit now and now I am tormented again…
October 21st, 2007 at 5:13 pm
We did not find out about the 2 day interview with my son until after it was over...
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
The professional workers are just beauricrats.
Beauricrats Number 1 rule
Cover your butt.
By law all the have to do is say something
might
might have happened or
might
might happen
And since there is no 100%
What they do realy is
the safest for the child
the safest for their butt too
Professional means they are getting paid
It comes right out of their own mourhs
"We are just doing our job"
Which is:
THE TRIVIALIZING OF REAL CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT!
Michigan Department of
Family Independence Agency
From: "MAG"
Subject: Stealing Children
THE FIA GAME
By Janet M. Frederick Attorney and Counselor at Law*
On October 24, 1999, I learned that this absorbing article and Frederick's CV,
both of which are below, have been on the Net at http://www.cardina.net/~khieber/TheFIAGame.htm
Many citizens in our great State of Michigan are unaware of Michigan's dirty little secret that falls under the guise of the Child Abuse and Child Welfare Protection Laws. The advertisements and literature surrounding this area seem to be doing a magnificent thing for the children of our state. We have been led to believe that the State of Michigan is saving thousands of children from severe physical abuse and neglect. This is far from the truth.
The truth is that this campaign is a giant money machine fueled by abuse of power of supervisors and case service workers employed by the Michigan Department of Family Independence Agency and private agencies that have contracted with FIA that we the tax payers are paying dearly for through our hard earned tax dollars. Basically it is "make work by creating a case and keep your job or contract with the state government." The current campaign to save the children is doing just the opposite. Parents and children are being permanently separated and families are being permanently destroyed under this new plan as a result of abuse of power in the name of more state and federal funding.
I have been working extensively in this area of law for approximately two (2) years. All of the cases that I am working on do not involve children suffering from broken bones, bruises or starvation. In fact most of the cases that I am involved in regard parents that merely spanked their children by giving the children one or two swats on the clothed behind, parents who have physically defended themselves from a physically violent teenager, parents who argued in front of their children, recently divorced single parents, parents with low incomes, parents who have failed to take their child to a doctor for mere cold symptoms such as sniffles and mild congestion, or parents who owned pornographic materials stored in a safe place where the children broke into and viewed the materials.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Dennis Stacilauskas Says:
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
parents who argued in front of their children...who have failed to take their child to a doctor for mere cold symptoms such as sniffles and mild congestion,...
^^^^^^^^^^
Those are big ones in NY also and in the latter even I you are medically trained, ABSURD!
December 14th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
To Michael H 34 and his ..."I wonder what false statistics Ms. Odor has chosen to believe to be true."
I wonder what other false statistics 'mens advocate' Marc Rudov will spew next. His statement that 'most abuse is perpetrated by women' totally belies the point of this campaign, which is about addressing sexual abuse. He blows smoke by failing to acknowledge that the vast majority of sexual abuse is perpetrated by men.
And after hearing him spew bile like "...suddenly the whole male citizenry of Virginia men are assumed to be pedophiles," I have to wonder no more. He (and Sacks and Limbaugh) pounce on well-intentioned campaigns like this one as opportunities--opportunities to make headlines, to inflame others' sad internal logic, and to embrace their own 'culture of victimhood.'
The campaign was about encouraging people to trust their instincts, not to 'turn someone in' for holding a child's hand. I work closely with Child Protective Services, and have never seen a case where someone's life was ruined for a simple act such as that. A call like like that has no place to go. The real CPS problem is more one of not being able to intervene where help is truly needed.
People, don't be fooled. An add with an adult holding a child's hand no more makes people believe that 'all males are offenders' any more than an add with a sexy woman makes males cheat on their wives. These hacks buy into the fear that citizens seeing advertising are nothing but 'skulls of mush.' I beg you, give yourself more credit than they give you.
A quick heads up, I have just begun.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
While looking for advocates for those men who are falsely accused of child molesting, i came upon this website. Try living in Kern County, California, where men are told by their own public defenders that they don't care if they are innocent, they are going to jail anyways. Our District Attorney Ed Jagels should be infamous for putting several men in jail for over 20 years when the McMartin Pre-School scandal happened back in the early 80's. I lived in Playa del Rey when that happened, and even that was ludicrous if you saw the place and the people in person. fyi I am engaged to someone who got caught up in this hook of accusals, and even a good friend's husband, a highly respected school teacher for over 30 years, was accused. They took in a young niece of 16 when her mother died, and she didn't like the strict rules and cerfews they had for their other children, and threatened to say he molested her if they didn't let her do what she wants, and she did exactly that. How much humiliation does any man have to take? My dad still held my hand when I was in my 20's, and kissed me and my baby daughter on the lips before he left until he died. And how come we never hear of gay couples who have adopted "molesting" their child, only heterosexual men. Is there some hidden conspiracy to destroy the American family?