Victims Challenge CA Lawmakers on Child Safety

SNAP
March 2, 2015

http://www.snapnetwork.org/ca_victims_challenge_ca_lawmakers_on_child_safety

We’re disappointed that California’s highest court has struck down laws limiting where child sex offenders can live and we urge lawmakers to quickly adopt other measures that help protect kids from predators.

[latimes.com]

New York’s highest court reached a similar conclusion recently:

[abcnews.go.com]

For at least decades, child sex abuse have been rampant. Relatively speaking, laws that restrict convicted child molesters are relatively recent. So at best, it’s likely premature to reach firm conclusions on whether or not these laws work.

We challenge those who oppose these restrictions on predators’ whereabouts: Before you try to block further restrictions, come up with a better plan.

One in four girls and one in eight boys is molested. So clearly, what our society is doing now to stop predators and protect kids is failing.

Advocates of relaxing or repealing virtually any child sex abuse law, therefore, have a moral duty to devise some other means of safeguarding kids first.

Those who just nay-say and nit-pick child safety laws endanger kids. Those who ambitiously and creatively try new approaches to child safety protect kids. That’s where our energies should be concentrated – trying harder, thinking smarter and pushing the legal envelop to devise and adopt new approaches to preventing horrific child sex crimes and cover ups.

Finally, convicted child predators aren’t the real threat to kids. The real threat to kids are the vast majority of child molesters who are never caught, convicted or exposed. That’s where our society’s focus should be – on making sure that they are at least publicly exposed.

So the single most effective step legislators could take to protect kids would be to rescind California’s predator-friendly statute of limitations, enabling anyone who was abused at any time by any predator to use the civil courts to warn parents and the public about those who commit and conceal child molesters. This is a cheap, quick and effective way to expose dangerous predators and prevent cover ups and repeat offenses.

We believe reforming California’s archaic, arbitrary and predator-friendly statute of limitations is crucial. Most California men and women who were raped, sodomized and fondled by child molesters now cannot take legal action against the predators who hurt them nor against the employers who ignored or hid these awful crimes.

If employers do not hide child sex crimes, and if they act responsibly when abuse is suspected or uncovered, they have nothing to fear from this legislation.

Fixing the dangerously restrictive statute of limitations is the single most effective step we can take to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We were founded in 1988 and have more than 20,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)