Sex abuse/assault and institutional failure

[Brisketexan 105366]

Okay, so the Pennsylvania catholic church deal has blown wide open, and it's just another in a long list of these stories.

There have always been pervs, abusers, rapists, etc., and always will be.  And every act of assault and abuse is a crime and an incredible violation of another person.  But what we're seeing is not one-off cases, but rather systemic abuse/assaults that go on for YEARS (decades, even).  Just a list of the RECENT highest-profile cases:

Catholic church

Penn State

Baylor

USA Gymnastics

Miramax (Harvey Weinstein)

In each of these cases, there were bad actors, but the abuse was allowed to continue, and become systemic and chronic, by the failure of an INSTITUTION.  Institutions who denied, covered up, swept under the rug, etc., so Sandusky could abuse boys for years, so Nassar could abuse gymnasts for decades, so Baylor could shelter rapists for years, so Weinstein could take advantage of women for years, so abusive priests could keep on victimizing people, etc. ad nauseum (and ad nauseous, for that matter).

Why in the HELL do institutions fail like this?  And why can they so rarely do what they must -- the only thing that can fix things going forward, and allow the institution to survive with integrity: fully investigate what happened, lay bare the truth, name those responsible, and accept full and unreserved responsibility?  It's the ONLY path that washes away the sin.  Ironically, watching the Catholic Church, this is exactly that path that is preached via the sacrament of reconciliation, yet  it's a path the church has, thus far, steadfastly resisted.  Own it.  Own it all.  Confess ALL of your sins to the world.  Accept the consequences.  THAT is true contrition.  THAT is how you keep from repeating the mistake.

But none of them do it.  Instead, we have the Penn State cultists.  We have the Catholic Church doing all it can to keep hiding the extent of the abuse.  We have Baylor fans insisting that Baylor got a raw deal.  None of these institutions accept their responsibility. Instead, they fallaciously lay the blame at the feet of the bad actor.  Which is only partially true.  Yes, it's a priest's fault that he raped altar boy #1.  But it's the CHURCH'S fault that, knowing what happened with altar boy #1, they put him in a position to rape altar boy #2, and #3, and #37.  When the fire starts, it's the fault of the arsonist.  When you know of the fire, but actively prevent anyone from putting that fire out, the resulting conflagration is on YOU.

Now, in fairness, perhaps we don't know about the "sex abuse scandal at XYZ State U" because that institution did the right thing -- a report of abuse came forward, they investigated and terminated the abuser, he was prosecuted, and that's that.  There's no big story because it wasn't systemic.  I'm genuinely curious as to how many cases like that exist, versus the bigger problem.

I don't know what it will take for the institutions -- both the ones that have been already exposed, and the ones to come -- to learn the RIGHT path: when abuse/assault is reported, nobody is sacred, nobody is protected.  Instead, do a full and fair investigation, and then act according to what it finds.  A little scandal is always better than a big one.

So, summary of thesis: we have a crisis of our institutions, and of institutional failure, and in many ways, I think the wrong committed by these institutions is even worse than the wrong committed by the abuser himself. 

 

[bernorange 8365]

21 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

... Why in the HELL do institutions fail like this?  ...

[Anastasis 23484]

27 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Why in the HELL do institutions fail like this? 

Failures in leadership.  

 

Would interesting to develop a list of organizations that handled these sorts of situations in a manner that we can look back in hindsight and say "man, they handled that really well" to compare and contrast.  Wonder if we can flush out aspects related to org structure or leadership that makes certain organization more or less prone to these failures. 

[Brisketexan 105366]

19 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Failures in leadership.  

 

Would interesting to develop a list of organizations that handled these sorts of situations in a manner that we can look back in hindsight and say "man, they handled that really well" to compare and contrast.  Wonder if we can flush out aspects related to org structure or leadership that makes certain organization more or less prone to these failures. 

I really would be interested in seeing something like that.  There could be some real work done on the dynamics of leadership and organizational structures that respond well vs. those that respond poorly, and I think we (and all institutions) could benefit from the findings.  

[Cheeseweasel 26438]

In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

-Tony Montana

 

Seriously, though. When's the last time you knew your boss was doing something stupid, but you knew if you criticized him/her, you'd get shitcanned? 

Power is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.

[Guest]

Because ‘what’s important’ changes to something that isn’t.

 

The Maryland case is driven by what the leadership wants the school to be.  They also have a very prominent and public tragedy in Len Bias in their history( not institutional, but at least partially resulting from environment that they vowed to change.)

Edited August 20, 2018 by slorch

[bernorange 8365]

The Boy Scouts of America had a similar issue back in the day that was severe enough that they made institutional changes in how they operate.  They (eventually) responded to the problem in a responsible manner.

Of the institutions listed, the Church is the one that stands out in my mind as the one that should have the least concern about publicly handling the issue impacting business cash flow.  It's baffling to me why they weren't proactive in rooting out the evil from within.  I can only surmise that the entire leadership is morally bankrupt.

For the other (academic) institutions, it's pretty easy to make a case that money or success in a vertical (limited) market was a primary consideration.  The issue festered in darkness until some sunshine brought the issue to light outside of the primary actors and their leadership was forced to act. 

The Mirimax/Weinstein case is the only one that apparently happened very publicly with an actor that didn't answer to another boss and it's really a testament to the perverse nature of the industry that no one felt they could speak up without fear of losing their career.

[Beau Vine 54433]

38 minutes ago, bernorange said:

Shut it down.

Scandals like this are a threat to the money train coming in, particularly to the people who lead them.

"power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely"

Not complicated. 

[Wally Fairway 5587]

43 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Just a list of the RECENT highest-profile cases:

Catholic church

Penn State

Baylor

USA Gymnastics/Michigan State University

Miramax (Harvey Weinstein)

So, summary of thesis: we have a crisis of our institutions, and of institutional failure, and in many ways, I think the wrong committed by these institutions is even worse than the wrong committed by the abuser himself. 

 

Power and money are the problems, or maybe the fear of the loss of both of those. It creates a system in which anyone who accuses is subject to intense scrutiny and has to be ready to make a stand to call out those who are abusers and those who protect or fail to stop them - those people need to be strong enough to face the pressure, Rachel Denhollendar, Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd.

I believe that institutions have had these problems for centuries (looking at the Church), but that recently the media has stop protecting them because nothing can protect from social media.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

46 minutes ago, bernorange said:

and sex.......

[LongestHorn 759]

Empty offering envelopes.  Like the Boston catholics reaction in 2002.  

Cut off the money already.

[Cheeseweasel 26438]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

and sex.......

Go on....

[PRONG HORN 3159]

5 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

But what we're seeing is not one-off cases, but rather systemic abuse/assaults that go on for YEARS (decades, even). 

 

Decades?  It's been systematic as long as humans and pre-humans have been dealing with hormones/survival instincts, etc.  It's who we are.  It's what we do.  Covering it up is also who we are.  It's an interesting observation wondering why we can't just stop the cycle of abuse and denial.  Might as well wonder why we can't stop crying or farting.  

[tantric superman 4668]

Something is undefeated.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

Power and money are the problems, or maybe the fear of the loss of both of those. It creates a system in which anyone who accuses is subject to intense scrutiny and has to be ready to make a stand to call out those who are abusers and those who protect or fail to stop them - those people need to be strong enough to face the pressure, Rachel Denhollendar, Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd.

I believe that institutions have had these problems for centuries (looking at the Church), but that recently the media has stop protecting them because nothing can protect from social media.

I lived in a town that was over 90% Catholic.  Being the good protestant i was, we still made jokes about altar boys getting molested.  " Hey you had duty at Mass before school today?  What's up with the gimp?"

That was the 70's/ 80's.

 

Social media doesn't have shit to do with it. IMHO.  Not with regard to discovery.

Edited August 20, 2018 by slorch

[phdhorn 6224]

I guess we can add #MeToo to the list of institutions...

[GabrielsHorn 2186]

I'd highly recommend reading the report Australia put out (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse). From their executive summary:

Quote

Many institutions we examined did not have a culture where the best interests of children were the priority. Some leaders did not take responsibility for their institution’s failure to
protect children. Some leaders felt their primary responsibility was to protect the institution’s reputation, and the accused person. Many did not recognise the impact this had on children. Poor practices, inadequate governance structures, failures to record and report complaints, or understating the seriousness of complaints, have been frequent. 

...

In past generations, the trust placed by some parents and the broader community in institutions and their members meant that abusers were enabled and children’s interests were compromised. The prevailing culture that ‘children should be seen and not heard’ resonated throughout residential care, religious institutions, schools and some family homes. Their complaints of abuse ignored and rejected, many children lost faith in adults and society’s institutions.

 

[heso 2816]

Born in PA, Boy Scout, altar boy, went to penn state. 

I guess it’s a miracle that I wasn’t molested. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 minute ago, heso said:

Born in PA, Boy Scout, altar boy, went to penn state. 

I guess it’s a miracle that I wasn’t molested. 

Well yer an irradiated frog so...

[TwiceHorn 31538]

I am going to have to guess that the leadership failure is the prioritization of the material over the moral.  Everyone has something they think they need to protect and are willing, to a greater or lesser degree, to compromise morals to do so.

 

More and more, as a society, we have lost sight of what's right in favor of what garners us more material stuff.  At first it was little things, now it's bigger things; some of the biggest, in fact.

[Steel Shank 9432]

Like the Roman Empire.

[Larry T. Spider 1747]

I think a lot of it has to do with self preservation beyond money. If I’m an administrator of some sort and discover there has been some abuse going on underneath me, I know that there is good chance that I will go down with the ship if I blow the lid off of it. There will always be the assumption that “I should have known”. It’s also hard (but obviously right) to basically throw your institution into a media circus when your job is to do the exact opposite. 

We need to make the leaders that have the courage to do so our examples that get talked about in a positive light. They should keep their jobs and be considered the best in their profession for taking the hard road. They are the ones the protect kids, often to their own detriment in the current “system”. 

Edited August 21, 2018 by Larry T. Spider

[Brisketexan 105366]

I am going to have to guess that the leadership failure is the prioritization of the material over the moral.  Everyone has something they think they need to protect and are willing, to a greater or lesser degree, to compromise morals to do so.
 
More and more, as a society, we have lost sight of what's right in favor of what garners us more material stuff.  At first it was little things, now it's bigger things; some of the biggest, in fact.

Summary: a thesis I’ve shared before. Me over we, to the extreme. There is no common good, or care for others - just self.

[Mole 4333]

I'd challenge the idea that it's "more and more." This PA stuff goes so far back and I'd bet that it goes back even longer. I'm inclined to see it as a part of the human condition. I think there's definitely been a cultural rot in many ways, but our evil tendencies are baked in.

I'm curious about organizations that have handled it well. 

https://www.livescience.com/17031-penn-state-child-abuse-eyewitness-psychology.html

Spoiler

Most people think they would step in to protect a child being abused, but psychologists say even well-meaning eyewitnesses can freeze up in these crisis situations.

Of all the missed chances outlined in the grand jury report regarding the allegations of child sexual abuse by former Pennsylvania State University assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, two moments stand out: One, a 2000 incident when a janitor allegedly witnessed Sandusky performing oral sex on a middle school-age boy, and the other, a 2002 incident in which a graduate assistant, now a coach at the school, allegedly saw Sandusky anally raping a boy of about age 10 in the university locker room.

Both men reported what they'd seen to their supervisors, and according to grand jury testimony, both were distraught — the janitor so much so that his co-workers thought he might have a heart attack. But neither man stepped in to stop the abuse in the moment, decisions that have raised criticism in the wake of the scandal.

"I think everyone believes that they would go in and break that up," Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday (Nov. 13).

But while child abuse experts say that catching perpetrators in the act is rare, child abuse goes unreported and uninterrupted more often than not. And given the unexpected nature of seeing a man sexually abusing a child, even well-meaning eyewitnesses might freeze up.

Swept under the rug

According to the child sexual abuse prevention organization Stop It Now!, as many as one in three girls and one in seven boys experience sexual abuse. By far, most of those cases go unreported. Statistics vary, but studies suggest that only about 12 percent to 30 percent of child sexual abuse cases are reported to the authorities.

Hierarchical organizations such as the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts have come under fire for covering up or failing to appropriately deal with the sexual abuse of children. But it's not just organizations that turn a blind eye, said Jeanetta Issa, the president and chief executive officer of the Child Abuse Prevention Association (CAPA). Families frequently deny child abuse in their midst too, Issa told LiveScience. In one case Issa was familiar with, an adult woman who had been sexually abused by her brother throughout her youth began to see signs that her niece might have become his next victim. The woman finally spoke out.

"In her whole family, nobody believed her," Issa said. "They tried to have her committed to a mental hospital."

Despite stereotypes of creepy-looking men in white vans, child abusers are actually usually the most likeable, gregarious people around, Issa said. They get close to kids not only by charming them, but by charming the people protecting them.

"They don't only groom the kid, they groom the parents," Issa said.

In the case of a powerful, famous man like Sandusky, it can be even harder to speak up, said Elizabeth Saewyc, a nursing professor at the University of British Columbia who specializes in treatment of abused children.

"When someone is a very prominent and powerful figure, it is very difficult for people to feel like they should say bad things about them," Saewyc told LiveScience. People may also start to doubt themselves, she said, worrying that they'll ruin the suspected abuser's life if they're wrong.

And in the case of Penn State, Saewyc said, people who heard about the alleged abuse may have been blinded by their loyalty to their organization.

"When it's a prominent person in a respected institution, there is going to be damage, not just to that person but to the institution," Saewyc said. "People may pay attention to those consequences."

Eyewitness inaction

All of these psychological barriers keep people from speaking out, but what's unusual about the Penn State case is that in two separate occasions, witnesses said they saw obvious abuse occurring. In 2000, the janitor cleaning the locker room who saw Sandusky performing oral sex on a young boy, according to grand jury testimony, told his co-worker that he had "fought in the [Korean] war … seen people with their guts blowed out, arms dismembered. … I just witnessed something in there I'll never forget." The janitor, who now has dementia and resides in an assisted living facility, told his supervisor what he saw, but no report was ever filed. Co-workers said they feared losing their jobs if they made accusations.

In 2002, now-assistant coach Mike McQueary, then a graduate student, saw Sandusky assaulting a boy in the showers, according to the grand jury report, which also stated that McQueary saw that both Sandusky and the boy had seen him and immediately left the room. McQueary called his father and reported what he'd seen to head coach Joe Paterno the next day, the testimony stated.

That Sandusky allegedly got caught in the act even once is rare, Issa said.

"We see 12,000 clients a year," she said. "In all of that, very seldom does anybody actually walk in and actually witness the abuse." [Challenges for Male Victims of Sexual Abuse]

The very rarity of the situation may have made it difficult to react, said Peter Ditto, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine, who studies moral decision-making. People often have very strong ideas about what they'd do in a situation — stop the rape, save the child — but crises can cause the mind to freeze, Ditto told LiveScience.

Research on the "bystander effect," the surprising fact that many people will stand by while terrible things happen, suggests that when something horrible occurs, people often go into a kind of denial, thinking that if it were really this bad, somebody else would be stopping it, Ditto said. (Involving other people makes the bystander effect worse, in fact, by diffusing the sense of responsibility to do something.)

"It's that crisis, split-second sort of quality," Ditto said. "Here this thing happens that's almost impossible to believe, and you're paralyzed for a while as to what to do. … In these kinds of crisis situations, delay is tantamount to not helping. Your opportunity is right there, to help, to stop it, and then you delay, you walk out and it's all kind of over."

A 1985 study found that the bystander effect influences people with more masculine personalities the most. In the research, 20 students took part in a group discussion via headphones in which one participant pretended to start choking. Actual gender didn't influence which people called for help, but those whose personalities were higher in stereotypically masculine traits such as "athleticism" and "aggressiveness" were more likely to sit idly by. Reporting in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers speculated that perhaps highly masculine people feared potential embarrassment and "loss of poise" and thus hesitated longer before reacting. 

While fire drills and emergency simulations can prepare people for disasters and prevent the "freeze" response to a crisis, it's tougher to run through potential scenarios in which you walk in on a respected figure abusing a child, Ditto said.

"People misunderstand how ambiguous situations are, just the uncertainty, you don't know quite what's happening," he said. "It's hard to know how to get out of that delay."

Sandusky's reputation probably contributed to the continued silence, Saewyc said.

"It would take a remarkably self-confident person to say something, step in and do something, in the face of one of the most powerful people on campus and someone who is famous," she said.

Stepping in

But both Saewyc and Issa said that no matter the hurdles to reporting, doing so is crucial. What should have happened in the alleged child-sexual-abuse cases, Issa said, is that the eyewitnesses or their superiors should have immediately contacted the state child abuse hotline.

"If they can't get their hands on that number, by golly, law enforcement would be fine," Issa said. And that goes for janitors and passersby, not just educators and other legally mandated reporters.

"Just because you're not required by law to report does not mean that you're not morally and ethically bound to do something to save a child," Issa said.

Nor should people hesitate to report if they haven't witnessed the abuse personally, Issa said. It's not the job of the person reporting the abuse to authorities to have an airtight case; the investigation is up to child welfare and law enforcement.

"It's literally if you suspect abuse. It's not that you have to personally witness it," Saewyc said. "It is better to err on the side of protecting the young person than it is to walk away from it."

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

YOU'D ALSO LIKE

 

[pch 1261]

http://stopbaptistpredators.org/index.htm

While the Catholic abuse is more widespread, I'm not sure that the Baptists don't do their share of covering up the sins of their leaders as well.  The ongoing and continual revelations from so many churches, institutions, etc. leaves little doubt that this has been a centuries old problem that only in the last twenty years has been brought out in the open--with little impact change wise, sadly.

[Mole 4333]

Yeah, it's everywhere and anywhere someone can gain from covering it up, it might get covered up.

https://newrepublic.com/article/142999/silence-lambs-protestants-concealing-catholic-size-sexual-abuse-scandal

When I checked out the baptist predator site, I only clicked on one person randomly. In that case, it looks like the church had done everything well. There are organizations that do the right thing, I'm just not sure I'm willing to trust organizations to do the right thing for my family.

[tbone_ 14165]

Why anyone would ever step foot in a Catholic Church again is beyond me. Centuries of covering up priests buttfucking little boys. I know it. You know it. We all know it.

 

Do what you want with your faith, but that organization needs to implode.

 

[TwiceHorn 31538]

16 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

I think a lot of it has to do with self preservation beyond money. If I’m an administrator of some sort and discover there has been some abuse going on underneath me, I know that there is good chance that I will go down with the ship if I blow the lid off of it. There will always be the assumption that “I should have known”. It’s also hard (but obviously right) to basically throw your institution into a media circus when your job is to do the exact opposite. 

We need to make the leaders that have the courage to do so our examples that get talked about in a positive light. They should keep their jobs and be considered the best in their profession for taking the hard road. They are the ones the protect kids, often to their own detriment in the current “system”. 

Yes, I did not mean to confine "material" to money.  In my mind, it has a much broader definition.

[Wally Fairway 5587]

link to an article published as a discussion between Rachel Denhollander (Nassar's first public accuser) and Marisa Kwiatkowski (investigative reporter for the Indianapolis Star, the paper the started the investigation into USA Gymnastics & MSU and Nassar)

https://www.bustle.com/p/rachael-denhollander-the-indy-stars-marisa-kwiatkowski-talk-to-each-other-about-bringing-down-larry-nassar-10181498

This gives a glimpse into the background of start of the events that it took to stop Nassar

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4977]

And one of the big differences between Baptist Churches and the Catholic Church is that for most Baptist Churches the highest level of institution is the local church itself. They do not have to answer to any higher authority (on Earth at least), so there is no other organisational structure to cover it up. If one Baptist Church covers up sexual abuse, the Baptist Church down the road is about as related to them as the Catholic Church is from an institutional level.

[Mole 4333]

It's a long article, but it's an interesting read.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/gay-catholic-inside-the-seminary-closet/

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

8 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

And one of the big differences between Baptist Churches and the Catholic Church is that for most Baptist Churches the highest level of institution is the local church itself. They do not have to answer to any higher authority (on Earth at least), so there is no other organisational structure to cover it up. If one Baptist Church covers up sexual abuse, the Baptist Church down the road is about as related to them as the Catholic Church is from an institutional level.

Nothing Baptists love more than breaking apart from one another. Somebody on the old board said that he was surprised there weren't First and Second Baylor Universities by now. Maybe there isn't because they all like rape, so there was no need to break up over a little thing like that.