Child Sex Abuse
The case is burned in Susquehanna County District Attorney Jason Legg's
memory, a reminder of both the repugnancy of sexual crimes against
children and why the offenses can be so challenging to uncover and
prosecute.
More than a decade ago, an older man stood accused of repeatedly raping two girls. The girls came forward after several years of abuse.
As the case went to trial, and with the defendant counting on the
victims' refusals to take the witness stand, one of the girls balked,
Mr. Legg said. In the end, she testified, providing key evidence, but
only reluctantly.
"In her mind, if she testified, she was going to lose everything important to her. This guy had a farm, and her horses were on the farm, and she wanted to keep her horses," Mr. Legg said. "She had forgiven him. Why couldn't I?"
It typifies one of the constants in the child sexual abuse cases Mr. Legg has handled during his 13 years in the office, the last nine as district attorney.
"It's all about power and control, and it's always been about power and control," he said. "In 13 years, I can't really say it's changed."
Despite indications that sexual crimes against children are declining in the state and across the nation, sexual abuse and exploitation are still a shadowy reality in the daily lives of untold numbers of young people in Northeast Pennsylvania.
With the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal shining an unusually bright light on a class of horrific crimes that for most Pennsylvanians are out of sight and out of mind, prosecutors and others are optimistic more victims will be empowered and emboldened to report the crimes - and the public will be more comfortable listening and believing.
Their optimism is tempered, however, by the knowledge that most victims are likely to never tell, and most offenders are likely to never face justice.
Beverly Mackereth, deputy secretary of the state Department of Public Welfare, said the unfortunate truth is cases like that of Mr. Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach who awaits sentencing for molesting 10 boys over 15 years, happen all the time in Pennsylvania.
The only difference, she said, is who Mr. Sandusky was and his affiliation with Penn State and its football program.
"This is a crime that is prevalent in our society, and it always has been," said Ms. Mackereth, who oversees the department's Office of Children, Youth and Families. "It is just a secret crime."
The best estimate is that only 10 to 12 percent of child sexual abuse nationwide is ever reported to a child protective service or law enforcement agency, said Kristen Houser, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. She and others say there is no way of knowing what that figure is in Northeast Pennsylvania.
"How much goes unreported? Who knows?" said Mary Ann LaPorta, executive director of the Scranton-based Children's Advocacy Center of Northeastern Pennsylvania. "It's so trite that I wish I could think of another really good analogy, but I think what is reported is just the tip of the iceberg."
The highly personal nature of such crimes almost guarantees they will be under-reported, said Lackawanna County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer McCambridge, who leads the county's special victims unit.
"There are a lot more people that it happens to than report it - people who decide for whatever reason not to come forward," Ms. McCambridge said. "It's not like a burglary, where nine out of 10 times if a home is burglarized, you're calling the police. It doesn't lend itself to that."
Although child sexual abuse statistics are available from a number of sources, the difficulty is trying to reconcile them:
- According to the state Department of Public Welfare, there were 85 substantiated cases of child sexual abuse in Lackawanna, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties annually on average from 2007 through 2011, with a high of 94 in 2010 and a low of 80 last year.
Lackawanna County averaged 45 cases a year over the period, according to DPW figures.
The DPW numbers reflect "founded" cases, in which there has been a judicial determination of abuse along with "indicated" cases, in which there has been a finding that abuse happened based on medical evidence, a child protective service investigation or an admission by the perpetrator.
- On a statewide basis, the department also tracks substantiated injuries related to a broad range of sexual offenses involving children, including rape, incest, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, prostitution and the production of child pornography.
Those numbers have been on a consistent downward trend for at least seven years, falling from 4,629 in 2005 to 3,872 in 2008 to 2,691 in 2011.
- Sexual-abuse referrals to the Children's Advocacy Center, where victims of physical or sexual abuse from across the region are interviewed and medically evaluated, have mushroomed in recent years.
As recently as 2004, the center and another now-closed center in Carbondale received a combined total of only about 300 sexual-abuse referrals annually.
In 2011, the center handled 577 referrals, including 442 from Lackawanna, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties - and both totals were actually down slightly from 2010. The center had 364 referrals just from Lackawanna County last year.
Child-welfare advocates acknowledge the primary problem with available child sexual abuse statistics - and one they say is not unique to Pennsylvania - is the use of often inconsistent definitions and methodologies by the agencies and organizations compiling them.
The Department of Public Welfare numbers, for instance, include only abuse or exploitation investigated by a child protective service agency, said Ms. Houser, the PCAR spokeswoman. A case investigated by a local police department would not be counted by DPW unless a child protective agency got involved.
Ms. McCambridge said the increase in referrals to the Children's Advocacy Center is not indicative of an alarming surge in the incidence of child sexual abuse. Rather, it reflects a greater sensitivity to the issue and an "err-on-the-side-of-caution approach" by investigators, she said.
For example, if a child discloses he or she has been sexually abused by a parent or step-parent, all the children in that household would be referred for an evaluation, Ms. McCambridge said. A child who starts acting out sexually at school may be sent to the center just to find out if there is an underlying issue.
"It's better to know for sure that there is nothing going on and to be able to say it is an unsubstantiated claim than to just leave it lingering out there and not really know," she said.
Ms. Houser said PCAR's position is that while the available evidence suggests there has been a slight decline in child sexual abuse, it has not been significant enough to alter the accepted statistic that one in every four girls and one in every six boys will have been sexually abused by age 18.
"We are far from being able to breathe a sigh of relief," she said.
Children are most often sexually abused by people they know and trust. Among the substantiated abuse cases in Pennsylvania last year, a family member was the perpetrator about 45 percent of the time, according to DPW statistics. In nearly a quarter of the cases, it was the child's father or mother.
Although people don't like to hear words like incest, Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards said the public understands it happens.
"Certainly it would be nice to say it doesn't happen here and have that be the truth," Ms. Edwards said. "But I don't think our community says that or believes that."
Similarly, she and other prosecutors say, there is also a better public understanding that child sexual abuse crosses all cultural and socio-economic lines. As evidenced by the Sandusky case, it is not a crime perpetrated solely by the poor or the uneducated.
"I've seen both genders. I've seen all races, different income levels, different professions, different family structures," Ms. McCambridge said. "It's not a creepy guy in a trench coat or looking through someone's window. ...You see people that have great families and then there are these accusations. It is very difficult to get your mind around that. You have these people who seem so normal to everyone around them and they are committing these types of crimes."
Ms. McCambridge has been a prosecutor for seven years but did not take over the special victims unit until January. In the months since, she said, she has developed a deeper appreciation of the impact sexual abuse has on the lives of child victims and their families.
"The victims and, really, everyone around them are changed from that point forward," she said. "It's not learning how to get over it as much as learning to live with it."
As a prosecutor, her job is to put the offender away, but the task needs to be accomplished in a way that doesn't make it worse for the child, she said. The court process for an adult who has been sexually victimized can be a nightmare, but "when you are a 5-, 6- or 7-year-old, it's torture."
"Even when the bad guy goes to jail, the turmoil the victim is going through is really only beginning," Ms. McCambridge said. "The awfulness of what one human can do to another is evil, and there is pure evil out there, without a doubt."
More than a decade ago, an older man stood accused of repeatedly raping two girls. The girls came forward after several years of abuse.
As the case went to trial, and with the defendant counting on the
victims' refusals to take the witness stand, one of the girls balked,
Mr. Legg said. In the end, she testified, providing key evidence, but
only reluctantly."In her mind, if she testified, she was going to lose everything important to her. This guy had a farm, and her horses were on the farm, and she wanted to keep her horses," Mr. Legg said. "She had forgiven him. Why couldn't I?"
It typifies one of the constants in the child sexual abuse cases Mr. Legg has handled during his 13 years in the office, the last nine as district attorney.
"It's all about power and control, and it's always been about power and control," he said. "In 13 years, I can't really say it's changed."
Despite indications that sexual crimes against children are declining in the state and across the nation, sexual abuse and exploitation are still a shadowy reality in the daily lives of untold numbers of young people in Northeast Pennsylvania.
With the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal shining an unusually bright light on a class of horrific crimes that for most Pennsylvanians are out of sight and out of mind, prosecutors and others are optimistic more victims will be empowered and emboldened to report the crimes - and the public will be more comfortable listening and believing.
Their optimism is tempered, however, by the knowledge that most victims are likely to never tell, and most offenders are likely to never face justice.
Beverly Mackereth, deputy secretary of the state Department of Public Welfare, said the unfortunate truth is cases like that of Mr. Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach who awaits sentencing for molesting 10 boys over 15 years, happen all the time in Pennsylvania.
The only difference, she said, is who Mr. Sandusky was and his affiliation with Penn State and its football program.
"This is a crime that is prevalent in our society, and it always has been," said Ms. Mackereth, who oversees the department's Office of Children, Youth and Families. "It is just a secret crime."
The best estimate is that only 10 to 12 percent of child sexual abuse nationwide is ever reported to a child protective service or law enforcement agency, said Kristen Houser, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. She and others say there is no way of knowing what that figure is in Northeast Pennsylvania.
"How much goes unreported? Who knows?" said Mary Ann LaPorta, executive director of the Scranton-based Children's Advocacy Center of Northeastern Pennsylvania. "It's so trite that I wish I could think of another really good analogy, but I think what is reported is just the tip of the iceberg."
The highly personal nature of such crimes almost guarantees they will be under-reported, said Lackawanna County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer McCambridge, who leads the county's special victims unit.
"There are a lot more people that it happens to than report it - people who decide for whatever reason not to come forward," Ms. McCambridge said. "It's not like a burglary, where nine out of 10 times if a home is burglarized, you're calling the police. It doesn't lend itself to that."
Although child sexual abuse statistics are available from a number of sources, the difficulty is trying to reconcile them:
- According to the state Department of Public Welfare, there were 85 substantiated cases of child sexual abuse in Lackawanna, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties annually on average from 2007 through 2011, with a high of 94 in 2010 and a low of 80 last year.
Lackawanna County averaged 45 cases a year over the period, according to DPW figures.
The DPW numbers reflect "founded" cases, in which there has been a judicial determination of abuse along with "indicated" cases, in which there has been a finding that abuse happened based on medical evidence, a child protective service investigation or an admission by the perpetrator.
- On a statewide basis, the department also tracks substantiated injuries related to a broad range of sexual offenses involving children, including rape, incest, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, prostitution and the production of child pornography.
Those numbers have been on a consistent downward trend for at least seven years, falling from 4,629 in 2005 to 3,872 in 2008 to 2,691 in 2011.
- Sexual-abuse referrals to the Children's Advocacy Center, where victims of physical or sexual abuse from across the region are interviewed and medically evaluated, have mushroomed in recent years.
As recently as 2004, the center and another now-closed center in Carbondale received a combined total of only about 300 sexual-abuse referrals annually.
In 2011, the center handled 577 referrals, including 442 from Lackawanna, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties - and both totals were actually down slightly from 2010. The center had 364 referrals just from Lackawanna County last year.
Child-welfare advocates acknowledge the primary problem with available child sexual abuse statistics - and one they say is not unique to Pennsylvania - is the use of often inconsistent definitions and methodologies by the agencies and organizations compiling them.
The Department of Public Welfare numbers, for instance, include only abuse or exploitation investigated by a child protective service agency, said Ms. Houser, the PCAR spokeswoman. A case investigated by a local police department would not be counted by DPW unless a child protective agency got involved.
Ms. McCambridge said the increase in referrals to the Children's Advocacy Center is not indicative of an alarming surge in the incidence of child sexual abuse. Rather, it reflects a greater sensitivity to the issue and an "err-on-the-side-of-caution approach" by investigators, she said.
For example, if a child discloses he or she has been sexually abused by a parent or step-parent, all the children in that household would be referred for an evaluation, Ms. McCambridge said. A child who starts acting out sexually at school may be sent to the center just to find out if there is an underlying issue.
"It's better to know for sure that there is nothing going on and to be able to say it is an unsubstantiated claim than to just leave it lingering out there and not really know," she said.
Ms. Houser said PCAR's position is that while the available evidence suggests there has been a slight decline in child sexual abuse, it has not been significant enough to alter the accepted statistic that one in every four girls and one in every six boys will have been sexually abused by age 18.
"We are far from being able to breathe a sigh of relief," she said.
Children are most often sexually abused by people they know and trust. Among the substantiated abuse cases in Pennsylvania last year, a family member was the perpetrator about 45 percent of the time, according to DPW statistics. In nearly a quarter of the cases, it was the child's father or mother.
Although people don't like to hear words like incest, Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards said the public understands it happens.
"Certainly it would be nice to say it doesn't happen here and have that be the truth," Ms. Edwards said. "But I don't think our community says that or believes that."
Similarly, she and other prosecutors say, there is also a better public understanding that child sexual abuse crosses all cultural and socio-economic lines. As evidenced by the Sandusky case, it is not a crime perpetrated solely by the poor or the uneducated.
"I've seen both genders. I've seen all races, different income levels, different professions, different family structures," Ms. McCambridge said. "It's not a creepy guy in a trench coat or looking through someone's window. ...You see people that have great families and then there are these accusations. It is very difficult to get your mind around that. You have these people who seem so normal to everyone around them and they are committing these types of crimes."
Ms. McCambridge has been a prosecutor for seven years but did not take over the special victims unit until January. In the months since, she said, she has developed a deeper appreciation of the impact sexual abuse has on the lives of child victims and their families.
"The victims and, really, everyone around them are changed from that point forward," she said. "It's not learning how to get over it as much as learning to live with it."
As a prosecutor, her job is to put the offender away, but the task needs to be accomplished in a way that doesn't make it worse for the child, she said. The court process for an adult who has been sexually victimized can be a nightmare, but "when you are a 5-, 6- or 7-year-old, it's torture."
"Even when the bad guy goes to jail, the turmoil the victim is going through is really only beginning," Ms. McCambridge said. "The awfulness of what one human can do to another is evil, and there is pure evil out there, without a doubt."
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