Should there be a statute of limitations in instances of child sexual abuse?

There should be a limitation, but structured in a way that recognizes that it is abuse against a minor. The “clock” shouldn’t start until the person is older, not at the time of the initial abuse.

And sexual abuse of those with developmental disabilities should have no prosecutorial limitation. Those who prey on a developmentally disabled person should never be beyond the reach of justice.

No, I don’t believe so. Non-violent crimes yes, sexual assault, rape, and child molestation no. Is there a statute of limitation on the perps trophy memories that they probably re-live over and over again.

In most states, the SOL is born again starting when the victim realizes what happened to him or her, even if they have been an adult for many years. I am split on how I feel about that. I’ve known of cases when I was glad the state had the provision and then in another case I felt like it was a lie to get revenge for a wrong for which there was no legal remedy.

I say no to rapists of adults such as in the Cosby case.

I have not followed the Hastert case at all.

There are crimes exempt from the lottery of time. I would be hesitant about expanding the categories of crimes eligible for that list.

I don’t think there should be. Why are there statutes of limitations on anything, anyway?

No!

No crime should have a statute of limitations.
It teaches that you can get away with a crime if you hide long enough.

In an ideal society, far superior to what we’ve got, I’d think that former sex offenders, especially child molesters, when detected, would be required to be evaluated, monitored and healed so that they don’t abuse anyone else. There would be no time limit on that – just a healing requirement.

As for punishment, I tend to feel that victims, or next of kin, or if there are none, a stand-in, should decide the punishment in cases where someone held someone at their mercy and did ill to them. The victim could choose to let them off, or (in the case of child molestation) assign practically any punishment (after the victim had received healing too). That should be more than enough disincentive, and I don’t sympathize with a universal/societal need to punishment. Rehabilitation, healing and protection, yes.

“The general purpose of statutes of limitation is to make sure convictions occur only upon evidence (physical or eyewitness) that has not deteriorated with time.”

Judge overturns 1957 cold case murder conviction; Jack McCullough goes free

I was looking for a case I read recently where a large part of the conviction was based on testimony of a single eyewitness decades after the crime. The testimony was very obviously manipulated by the modern-day detectives.

There’s no way I’d let you put the life of another person in my hands based on my eyewitness testimony 10–20-30+ years after the fact. Not if that memory or testimony differed from my original statement by so much as a word.

@ibstubro

Glad to see that conviction overturned. The idea of convicting anyone of anything based on eyewitness testimony alone is absurd.

I’m not sure. It seems to me that people who perpetrate such crimes pretty much never only have one victim, so any time you can stops them from doing it to someone else it’s important, and for that you need to be able to put them in jail or penalize them somehow. However, in some cases it just seems like so much time has past that it doesn’t make sense. What about that case of the famous actor, I can’t remember his name, who had sex with a girl who was 13 or 14. He lived outside of the US all this time to avoid arrest. Something like 40 years. Even the victim now doesn’t want him prosecuted in any way and the law was still going after him.

I’m going to say for child abusers the countdown should not start until the victim turns 18 and then still at least 20 years probably.

I think the Cosby cases are a little too late. They were all adults. They did nothing for years. None of them. At the same time, I completely understand why people are reluctant to report.

I’m not sure what I think.

@ragingloli No, it doesn’t teach that. The statute applies to the victim or state filing a suit. It has nothing to do with the person who committed the crime hiding.

Should there be a statute of limitations for child molestation? Well, there isn’t one for murder.

And if you think about it, ongoing severe child molestation is akin to murder. (To be clear, I’m not referring to a kid being groped once by a pervert in a park or something)

I’m referring to ongoing control and molestation of a child by an adult who should be the child’s protector. This forever imprints upon this child’s soul and irrevocably changes the person they could have become. That’s why I say it’s akin to murder.

The exterior is technically still walking around but something inside has been killed. Trust, self confidence, the joy of life, all the intangibles that make up a person’s potential to be their best have been killed before they could develop.

As was mentioned, it’s likely that this perpetrator has a long list of victims so the more publicity the better so that they can all have their day in court.
Let a jury decide whether it’s all just a gigantic coincidence or arcane conspiracy of some sort. A statute of limitations prevents the possibility of it ever being heard by a jury.

Jerry Sandusky got exactly what he deserved for all the lives he ruined and Hastert should have as well. If changing the statute laws means that guys like Hastert don’t escape consequences while continuing to perpetrate their damage even more, then I’m all for change.

Director Roman Polanski is who you’re looking for, @JLeslie

@JLeslie

You’re thinking of Roman Polansky.

And I’m guessing here, but I think that part of why the (now) adult victim doesn’t want him prosecuted may have to do with the fact that this was a one-off.

This was not an ongoing situation of control, manipulation and abuse like it usually is. And he had her so drugged up its probably surprising if she remembers anything.

I don’t know, I’m just guessing. Plus Hollywood is a strange place, almost like another planet sometimes.

But this case is clearly not typical at all of what happens in molestation cases in many ways so probably a poor example upon which to base anything.

At least judging from the victims own wishes, apparently not the same amount of longterm damage and personality changes as the vast majority of molestation situations. I’m not saying that excuses it, merely acknowledging that it’s a unique set of circumstances.

@Zaku

You really do present an idealistic scenario.

But I have a question. How do you heal a sociopath? How do you heal someone if they’re basically not interested in being healed? Isn’t there some input and effort required on the part of the subject? How do you force healing?

Not every single child molester is a sociopath, but MANY of them are. The ones who aren’t are usually those who’ve been damaged by someon sexually abusing them. Perhaps healing is eventually possible for them.

But many perpetrators simply have no conscience or regard for how much damage they are doing to these children. And they only participate in therapy because the court requires it as a condition of parole.

But the “cure” rate (or healing as you phrase it) is abysmally low for sexual child abuse predators. Once supervision has ended, they go right back to abusing more kids.

For these types, the only way to protect children is to incarcerate them. Turning them loose in society is just a recipe for disaster. I realize that sounds harsh, but how else to protect children from them?

@Buttonstc I agree That situation was likely a one time or likely the other underage women it might have happened to weren’t scarred in any way. I’m not even sure how the charges were brought against him? Was the girl very upset at the time? Or, her parents freaked out and brought it to the police?

I agree the systematize abuse of children that can go on for years is unforgivable and damages the spirit of so many for many years, sometimes forever. If the victim lives with it for so long than why not make it that the person who did the crime can be prosecuted up until the day he does? It’s a valid question for sure.

If I remember correctly, I think somehow the parents found out and called police.

I suppose I could look it up, but Meh.

Yeah, meh. I don’t think he should go to jail.

Don’t really know how I feel about limitations personally. But I think one reason for limitations may be to prevent supposed victims from fabricating extra truths beyond the supposed crime.

It’s hard enough to get accurate testimony hours after a crime. How much harder to trust testimony from years later? I dunno.

That’s a valid point but there’s one significant thing to remember: most crimes like robbery, assault etc. are a one time event and memory can be tainted simply by the person being in shock in the immediate aftermath.

The vast majority of childhood sexual abuse cases occur over a period of years and have left an irrevocable imprint upon that life, changing it forever.

People don’t typically spend years in therapy trying to mitigate thar simply so they can fabricate an accusation of someone.

Yes, there have been a few isolated cases of disgruntled teens getting their parents in trouble with the law because they were peeved by strict discipline or whatever. But compared to the enormity of damage done by the genuine predators it’s a drop in the bucket. Besides, that’s for a jury to decide.

Also, one of the advantages the legal system has on its side in old cases is the fact that for every abuse victim who comes forward, there are tons more in the shadows yet undiscovered.

These predators typically don’t have just one victim. Regardless of whether each one of Sandusky’s victims remembered each incident with time and date to perfection, there were enough similarities in MO between all the cases (many of whom had no knowledge of the others due to the long time span) that it just couldnt be attributed to coincidence.

And the same is true in the Cosby case. He was convicted in the court of public opinion not from the efforts of sleazy tabloid journalism but from the sheer volume of women coming forward with remarkably similar sequences of events.

Even tho he tried to obscure their minds and memories with the drugs, a clear pattern was evident the more who came forward.

I’m in the NO camp. Child molestation causes wounds, physical and psychological, that no amount of time heals.

For what’s it’s worth: Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year-old girl. He entered into a plea bargin to a lesser charge to avoid five more serious charges. Then, instead of owing up to it, he chose to flee the United States and has lived comfortably in France ever since, while having damn near everyone in Hollywood fawning over him and passing off excuses for what he did (Whoopie Goldberg’s “it wasn’t rape rape” comment being particularly laughable). Had he simply faced up to this whole shitstorm would have been over decades ago, but then he probably wouldn’t have everyone’s sympathy as the poor, prosecuted suffering artist.

@Buttonstc Yes, I choose to focus on the idealistic scenario because I think that’s where we should (and eventually will) be headed, and because the current situation is so problematic and complicated, it’d be too complex a topic, and suggestions would have too little effect unless we were discussing a specific practical situation.

But I have a question. How do you heal a sociopath? How do you heal someone if they’re basically not interested in being healed? Isn’t there some input and effort required on the part of the subject? How do you force healing?

That is an excellent and very important question, and a topic all unto itself. So is the question of how often childhood molestation was part of sociopaths’ backgrounds, and what the differences would be. I spent years dealing with such people and talking to various professionals who deal with them in various ways. There isn’t one solution, especially in the current circumstances. And I’m not sure I really know the best answers, but I do believe that eventually there will be good answers.

Step I:

I think society (now and in my utopian goal state) needs to start with detecting sociopaths and intervening to prevent them from doing damage. This means we need more and better people who really know what to look for and can detect sociopaths and sex offenders and having it be their business to do so. This is already happening at all levels, from professionals and researchers, down through pop psychology to common conversations (such as this one) and the topic showing up in art, literature and entertainment, and also just in people finding/inventing their own human skills to deal with such people. It still has a massive ways to go, but the spread of understanding and awareness has been widespread and fast as these things go.

Step II:

There need to be added powers for enforcers and resources and protections for victims. I think the most important thing is protecting victims from perpetrators, also because most I’d say most perpetrators became perpetrators from being victimized. The amount and type of resources and legal options determines what the most effective things to do are. This too has been improving but still usually sucks.

For example, I met a former lawyer who had had a practice in family law who had burned out after being unable to adequately protect people from their abusive family members. Her advice when hearing about an abusive probably sociopathic parent, was to hire a hitman. Others have shared with me the good results available from knowing people in the police who may be willing to take (illegal) action to deal with perpetrators when the legal options won’t work well. That is, the current situation often sucks so much that even professionals get tempted into vigilante action.

More advanced protection techniques which I’ve seen work without any illegal action involve having the sane/benevolent people related to the perpetrator educate themselves and develop their skills and talk to each other and support the victims and eventually get the sociopaths to back off and eventually go away (from them, anyway).

In my utopian goal, reports of abuse or sociopathy get the attention of highly sensitive and skilled professionals with serious legal authority to intervene. Imagine if Child Protective Services were full of really astute psychiatrists and had ample resources, and would actively investigate and intervene in screwed up situations in an actually positive way. That’s the utopian goal, but I think something like it will eventually (probably not in our lifetimes) be achieved, if some other cluster-doom doesn’t get us first such as war or other catastrophe.

Step III:

So having somehow protected others, we can start to think about healing. Again it’s a matter of resources and legal options. Again, it can be damn hard in the current culture to get anyone healing. Unless our society can prove someone is insane or a criminal, we usually can’t force sick people to stop having adult rights over children, especially their own children, let alone make them get treatment or get anything from the treatment. It takes lots of time, energy and dedication from smart healthy benevolent people, and may not work.

In my future utopia, we’ll have a lot more awareness and education about the whole subject, and so I think actually families may be equipped to heal their own in many cases. This is I think how it was done before modern isolated family structures and unspoken taboos and denial about molestation. So for example, most people will have some awareness about this stuff, and they’ll detect sick people and give them the attention they need. If something nasty does start to happen, it will get attention right away instead of being a dark unspeakable secret. I think one of the main things (at least in the cases I’ve experienced) is that there is such a strong taboo against child molestation and mentally sick and abusive adults, and so few resources, that families choose to hide and deny and enable awful situations instead of talking about them. If the almost certain result of even slightly starting to abuse a child (or actual molestation) were that everyone finds out and talks about it, and if the result was healthy and healing and not “OMG our family will be destroyed if it gets out that dad touched the kids”, it would get noticed and addressed right away. Sadly, society as a whole is not there yet.

Currently, generally no one knows it’s happening, or if they do, no one knows what to do about it, and even if they know that, they usually can’t make adult male perpetrators stop, go to jail or get healing, and even if they do, there tends to be a huge social stigma and so on. I think the goal would be to improve all of that.

One way to “force healing” as you put it, would be to have much more visibility and transparency when it does happen, and then to apply social pressure and incentives. If a sociopath were publicly identified but not destroyed by the identification, and it were seen as something that could be and needed to be dealt with, then perhaps sociopathy could be received by society like other major glaring issues that need to be dealt with.

So for example, when dad overpowers junior and gives him a wedgie and laughs about it, instead of everyone being quiet about it or covering it with laughter and telling anyone who objects that it’s all in fun and they’re too sensitive… instead, the normal response would be for everyone to stand up for junior, get him away from dad, and talk to dad about it like his nose is bleeding until he goes and gets some therapy to figure out WTF that’s about and get it handled.

Not every single child molester is a sociopath, but MANY of them are. The ones who aren’t are usually those who’ve been damaged by someon sexually abusing them. Perhaps healing is eventually possible for them.

Yes.

But many perpetrators simply have no conscience or regard for how much damage they are doing to these children. And they only participate in therapy because the court requires it as a condition of parole.

But the “cure” rate (or healing as you phrase it) is abysmally low for sexual child abuse predators. Once supervision has ended, they go right back to abusing more kids.

For these types, the only way to protect children is to incarcerate them. Turning them loose in society is just a recipe for disaster. I realize that sounds harsh, but how else to protect children from them?

I quite agree. We don’t currently have anywhere near the cultural awareness, skills, laws, or treatment resources, or evaluation resources available to detect and deal with all the sociopaths & abusers, let alone to heal most people. And considering how much damage and chaos one perpetrator causes (which is exponentially increased by the fact that the abuse creates more perpetrators), I’d say it makes sense to have no statute of limitations and to never let them have power over anyone until they are healed (or chained) enough to be certainly safe. (Which could point the way to how to get them to want actual healing.) The only reason I’d advocate for any leniency with the current resources, is that we also don’t have the skills & resources to make sure we aren’t locking up some people who actually aren’t the perpetrators – after all, there are people without conscience who love to see the wrong person get sentenced…

Egad. Ok, time for me to go on holiday!