Unlearned lessons from the McMartin Preschool case, The Witch-Hunt Narrative Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children, 4,900 youth death records, Collapsed economy linked to abuse of women and children

- Unlearned lessons from the McMartin Preschool case
- The Witch-Hunt Narrative
Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
- B.C. to hand over 4,900 youth death records to TRC
- Collapsed economy linked to abuse of women and children

Unlearned lessons from the McMartin Preschool case
Thursday, March 27th, 2014 By Ross E. Cheit

....Judy Johnson did not bring her suspicions to the police; she brought them to her family doctor who, after examining the boy, referred him to an Emergency Room. That doctor recommended that the boy be examined by a child-abuse specialist. The pediatric specialist is the one who reported to the Manhattan Beach Police Department that “the victim’s anus was forcibly entered several days ago.”

Although Judy Johnson died of alcohol poisoning in 1986, making her an easy target for those promoting the witch-hunt narrative, there is no evidence that she was “psychotic” three years earlier. A profile in the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, published after Johnson died, made it clear that she was “strong and healthy” in 1983 and that she “jogged constantly and ate health food.” The case did not begin with a mythical crazy woman.

....But defense lawyer Danny Davis allowed that the genital injuries on one girl were “serious and convincing.” (His primary argument to the jury was that much of the time that this girl attended McMartin was outside the statute of limitations.) The vaginal injuries on another girl, one of the three involved in both McMartin trials, were described by a pediatrician as proving sexual abuse “to a medical certainty.”

....As it turns out, there are credible reasons that jurors in both trials voted in favor of a guilty verdict on some counts. Those facts do not fit the witch-hunt narrative. Instead, they portray the reality of a complicated case....
http://blog.oup.com/2014/03/unlearned-lessons-mcmartin-preschool-child-abuse-case/


The Witch-Hunt Narrative
Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
Ross E. Cheit  Oxford University Press

    Empirically challenges the view that a series of high-profile cases in the 1980s and early 1990s were hoaxes
    Shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with the reality of child sexual abuse

....But did the new witch hunt narrative accurately represent reality? As Ross Cheit demonstrates in his exhaustive account of child sex abuse cases in the past two and a half decades, purveyors of the witch hunt narrative never did the hard work of examining court records in the many cases that reached the courts throughout the nation. Instead, they treated a couple of cases as representative and concluded that the issue was blown far out of proportion. Drawing on years of research into cases in a number of states, Cheit shows that the issue had not been blown out of proportion at all. In fact, child sex abuse convictions were regular occurrences, and the crime occurred far more frequently than conventional wisdom would have us believe. Cheit's aim is not to simply prove the narrative wrong, however. He also shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with a far more grim reality. The belief that the charge of child sex abuse was typically a hoax also left us unprepared to deal with the far greater scandal of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, which, incidentally, has served to substantiate Cheit's thesis about the pervasiveness of the problem. In sum, The Witch-Hunt Narrative is a magisterial and empirically powerful account of the social dynamics that led to the denial of widespread human tragedy.
http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-witch-hunt-narrative-9780199931224


B.C. to hand over 4,900 youth death records to TRC
27. Mar, 2014 by APTN National News
EDMONTON–The British Columbia government is expected Friday to give the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 4,900 death certificates of First Nations youth aged from four to 19 who died between 1870 and 1984.

The data, held in a portable digital storage device, will be handed over during a ceremony in Edmonton where the TRC is holding its final national event. Peter Cunningham, B.C.’s assistant deputy minister of partnership and community renewal, will be giving the data to the TRC

The TRC is currently trying to tally the exact number of First Nation children who died in residential schools. So far the TRC has identified 4,100 children as part of its Missing Children Project.

The TRC will sift through B.C.’s data to determine which of the deaths happened in a residential school....
http://aptn.ca/news/2014/03/27/b-c-hand-4900-death-records-trc/


Collapsed economy linked to abuse of women and children
By Nomalanga Moyo  SW Radio Africa  27 March 2014

The deteriorating economic situation in Zimbabwe is exacerbating violence against women and children, leading historian Pathisa Nyathi has said.

In recent months there have been several reported cases across the country, highlighting the brutalisation of women and children through rape or ritualistic killings.

Last week three men from Gwanda appeared in court charged with murdering four women and cutting off some of their body parts for ritual purposes.

ZANU PF activist Lillian Kandemiri was recently jailed for offering her 15-year-old grand-daughter as payment for a $40,000 debt.

This week Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the State to compensate Mildred Mapingure who was denied an abortion after she was gang-raped in her home eight years ago.

On Wednesday President Robert Mugabe said he receives “disturbing child sexual abuse statistics” and went on to call for a campaign against the rape “epidemic” saying stiffer penalties alone will not help....

Nyathi said...that ritual murderers carry out their crimes in the misinformed hope that body parts that are associated with fertility will help improve their financial status....
http://www.swradioafrica.com/2014/03/27/zimbabwe-collapsed-economy-linked-to-abuse-of-women-and-children/