ENGLISH
FOR
CONGRESS POSITION PAPER (Revised April 2014)
The
problem of child abuse is far more serious than most people
know. One-third of girls and one-fifth of boys will be
abused before they reach age twenty. Most of the
abuse is conducted by individual perpetrators not affiliated
with any group or organization. In fact, 96% of child
sexual abuse incidents are created by non-clerical persons, many
of whom are related to their victims. However, about 4,500
pedophile priests have been identified in the Catholic church,
which has deliberately ignored, denied, and attempted to
cover-up the problem until the magnitude of abuse in Boston was
exposed in 2002. The average pedophile has about 100
victims during his career: multiplying this number by 4,500
means that there could be as many as 450,000 victims of
pedophile priests alone over the past fifty years. Over
half of the bishops in this country have known and deliberately
transferred pedophiles from one assignment or parish to another,
thereby spreading the contagion of abuse. About $1 Billion
has already been paid out by the church to victims, with another
$2 Billion in future settlements estimated to be
paid. Over 50 suicides of victims of clerical sexual abuse
have been recorded.
State Attorney Generals have attempted to deal with this
criminal behavior, but the problem is national and a national
response such as the Lindberg law that was passed to deal with
kidnapping is needed. The lack of attention from the
Congress and the U. S. Department of Justice about the issue is
inexplicable: although there has been child abuse of substantial
magnitude in the boy scouts, that organization has undertaken
major reforms to been eliminate this scourge. Instead, the
Department of Justice (DOJ) is going after suspected cases of
internet child pornography: those responsible for this behavior
need to be investigated, but what and whom else is DOJ's
internet surveillance also monitoring? Why isn't it
pursuing the known pedophiles in the country that are being
shielded by their employers? Is the DOJ's pedophile
internet surveillance program merely a cover for widespread
illegal snooping into private citizens lawful electronic
correspondence? Has it also engaged in illegal
surveillance as done by the NSA?
I propose that a joint Congressional commission be established
similar to the Keafauver Commission that was authorized over
fifty years ago to investigate the extent and activities of
organized crime to investigate the problem of child abuse
nationally and propose legislation to deal with this
problem. In cases where perpetrators have been shielded by
others, those who have covered up or enabled perpetrators to
continue with their criminal activities also should become
liable for prosecution and punishment similar to drivers of
getaway cars in bank robberies. "Lindberg Law" companion
legislation to authorize the FBI to investigate child
abusers' relocation to other states to escape justice is needed.
In situations where tax exempt funds have been used to pay
legal fees of perpetrators, hush money or award settlements to
victims, income taxes should be levied on the organizations
paying the fees or awards. The costs of pedophilia are not
a legitimate charitable expense that should continue to be
subsidized through tax exemptions by the rest of society.
The DOJ's internet pornography surveillance program should come
under the most rigorous Congressional scrutiny to insure that
illegal monitoring of lawful private electronic communications
also is not being conducted. Other countries have undertaken
extensive investigations of these hideous crimes at the national
level: why hasn't the United States?
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Designed by Imad-ad-Dean,
Inc.