Brooklyn DA Pushes for Rabbis to Report Abuse
Thursday, May 24, 2012 - 10:24 AM
A Jewish man walks through Midwood.
(Stephen Nessen/WNYC)
The Brooklyn District attorney is pushing for legislation that would add religious leaders to those required to report allegations of sex abuse to authorities in the wake of criticism over his handling of such cases in the Orthodox Jewish community, according to the New York Times.
Critics of Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes say he allows the community a free pass – not objecting when a group representing Hasidic and Orthodox Jews instructed followers to first get permission from a rabbi before reporting alleged sexual abuse and refusing to make public the more than 95 recently indicted.
But Paul Berger, staff writer for the Jewish Daily Forward, told the Brian Lehrer Show earlier this month that it is more nuanced than that.
“He still expects that those cases are still brought to him,” he said. “If you want to get somebody’s advice … then it would make sense that they should seek the guidance of a rabbi first.”
Many in the community believe sex abuse should be dealt with by religious authorities. Reporting sexual abuse can often lead to being kicked out of the community, booted from school or shunned from synagogues.
In 2009, Hynes was under fire for not bringing cases against the Orthodox community. He has since launched a program known as Kol Tzedek that targets victims in the community and tries to get them to come forward.
A Queens legislator has introduced a bill that would make it easier to prosecute or sue alleged sex offenders by extending the statute of limitations from five to 10 years. As WNYC reported earlier this month:
“This legislation is to identify pedophiles and hold them accountable, and to identify those who have protected them,” Markey told WNYC earlier this month, “And only by doing that can we protect children.” But Markey’s bill has been stalled for years. It has passed the Assembly four times since 2005, but has always died in the state Senate.
Comments [1]
Child predators depend on silence, so they can continue to sexually abuse kids and not get caught. And those who cover up their crimes need to be held accountable.
The victims of child sex abuse are given a life sentence of pain and suffering, they NEVER deserve to be re-abused in this manner.
Something to keep in mind- It is a crime to sexually abuse a child, and it is a crime to cover up these crimes against innocent kids.
Child predators are very cunning and manipulative. They know every trick on how to groom, threaten, lie, and put the fear of god into their victims and sometimes even their family members.
They also appear to do a lot of goods things, they can be very charismatic and you may think they would never harm a child. They have to be this way, in order to not get caught and to continue to abuse
Sexual predators are often powerful and well-loved. It would be comforting if those who preyed on the vulnerable were obvious social misfits whose appearance would somehow set off alarm bells and give us ‘the willies’ or ‘the creeps.’ They rarely do. Usually, predators are among the last people we would suspect of sexually violating others. At a party, the predator isn’t some oddball sitting alone in a corner because others feel uncomfortable with him. Most often, the predator is the guy throwing the party.
We must overcome the dangerous myth that because someone is successful or warm or caring, he or she “couldn’t have done that!
Also, we must stop thinking that because a man is old, that somehow he’s automatically “safe.” It’s just irresponsible to endanger kids by assuming an adult is “harmless” simply because he or she may be losing hair, wearing glasses, using hearing aids or walking with a cane. These can be signs of advancing age, but they are not signs that an individual is safe around kids.
It is extremely rare that a child predator has only one victim.
Keep in mind your silence only hurts, and by speaking up there is a chance for healing, exposing the truth, and therefore protecting others.
Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511
snapjudy@gmail.com
(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world's oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims.
SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 12,000 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 and increasingly, victims who were assaulted in a wide range of institutional settings like summer camps, athletic programs, Boy Scouts, etc. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)
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