Jan. 25, 2017

“Why is there such a cultural bias toward stories of abuse – and especially toward grotesque and absurd tales, even when there is no reliable evidence that any crime occurred in the first place?

“The very people we count on to protect our society – prosecutors, police, social workers, jurors, even parents – are eliciting fantasies from children that express our worst collective fears. ….

“The libel that our society has imposed on child-care workers is a kind of projection of guilt for the damage that we ourselves have done, as parents and as a society. We have given our children to strangers to rear, and it makes us uneasy and fearful. Is it any wonder we have a bad conscience?…. ”

– From “Child-care Demons” by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker (Oct. 3, 1994)

Nov. 9, 2011

“Fear recaptured the 9-year-old, much as it had six years ago when last he left Bob Kelly’s day care. Lingering fears gripped many of Kelly’s victims when the appellate court overturned his 99 guilty verdicts…. A week later, the little boy is still too frightened to ride his bike around the block….

“We forget the victims – unless we live with them. Our wounds from media distortions heal. Our memories of Kelly’s manipulation of ‘the system’ fade. But the genuine fears of our sons and daughters persist.

“What would you do if you knew your little ones had been sexually abused? Would you seek justice? Would… you be able to endure the years of trauma and persecution? We implore our fellow North Carolinians to ponder those questions…. Join us in requesting that the North Carolina Supreme Court uphold these verdicts.

“If the court denies the opinions of two separate juries that found both (Kelly and Dawn Wilson) guilty, the innocent victims will be under attack again. Do helpless child victims forget the brutality of rape, sodomy and crimes against nature? A more significant question is: Do we in North Carolina want to pry those agonizing details from them once more?

“True, many are old enough to realize that Bob Kelly can’t work his threatened evil to kill their families. But others still draw pictures of their visions of safety: pictures of heaven and guardian angels because they say, ‘I know Mr. Bob won’t be in Heaven.’

“We must take a stand against re-victimization of the innocent. Don’t interrupt the healing that is emerging in these courageous young ones. Refuse to allow the media to create a ‘circus’ in our noble state. Child sexual abuse can no longer be allowed or excused in North Carolina.”

– From a letter to the editor of the (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot, signed by 17 parents of children involved in the Little Rascals case (May 14, 1995)

Buried in the Edenton parents’ heartfelt plea to the N.C. Supreme Court (which would soon agree with the Court of Appeals’ overturning the convictions of Kelly and Wilson) is this profoundly revealing question: “Do we in North Carolina want to pry those agonizing details from them once more?”

If only those details had not been pried from the children in the first place….

Aug. 5, 2013

The little-publicized North Carolina Justice Academy describes itself as “one of six divisions of the N.C. Department of Justice under the administration of Attorney General Roy Cooper… charged with improving the professionalism and effectiveness of criminal justice personnel throughout the state, through training and support.”

Among the academy’s services: an audiovisual library (downloadable here) designed “to provide criminal justice personnel in North Carolina with training and public information materials (including) over 2,573 videotapes, CDs and DVD programs….”

And quite a varied collection it is, ranging from the practical (“Body Searches: Clothed and Unclothed,” “Dusting for Latents”) to the uplifting (“Climb the Ladder of Success and Take your Family with You!”) to the wholly unexpected (Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?”).

What caught my attention, however, were such titles and descriptions as these:

• “Devil Worship: The Rise of Satanism” (1989) Former satanists, practicing witches, and law enforcement experts explain the vastness and diversity of the movement. Parents are given clues to determine if their children are involved.
• “Treatment of the Ritually Abused Child” (1992) Sophisticated mind control techniques employed by cult members leave their young victims fearful, confused, and deeply traumatized. The special treatment needs of these children are examined in detail through both session segments and on-camera discussions with the therapists.
• “Satanic Cults and Ritual Crime” (1990) Reveals the symbols used by members of the occult world,  highlights criminal activities associated with ritual practices and ceremonies and gives important dates when these crimes are most likely to occur during the year.

Is it possible these documentaries informed the beliefs of the Little Rascals prosecutors? Could Assistant Attorney General Bill Hart have checked them out and hosted a ritual-abuse film festival for Nancy Lamb and H.P. Williams? Sounds crazy, sure – but not a bit crazier than the claims ginned up by the therapists and prosecutors.

Footnote: I had hoped to borrow these films myself – I was especially eager to watch those “on-camera discussions with the therapists” – but a library technician at the Justice Academy told me she was “only allowed to send materials to folks in law enforcement.”

Jan. 5, 2014

“Probably the main reason for the growth of false charges of (sexual) abuse has been the recent proliferation of abuse specialists and therapists, many of whom lack any knowledge of mental illness or the workings of memory. These specialists believe fervently that many of the difficulties experienced by the people who consult them are due to sexual abuse that, if it isn’t remembered, can be jogged into memory by various recovery techniques.

“For decades, therapists of various kinds have put forward one unproved theory after another to explain personal unhappiness, dissatisfaction or serious psychological dysfunction. Earlier, as (Michael) Yapko points out (in “Suggestions of Abuse: True and False Memories of Childhood Sexual Trauma”), they focused on the ‘inner child,’ the ‘dysfunctional family’ or ‘co-dependency’; now it’s sexual abuse….

“In 1992, Mr. Yapko gathered data from more than 860 therapists across the country about the roles they think suggestion and memory play in therapy, especially in the dredging up of repressed memories of sexual abuse. ‘It is not an exaggeration,’ he concludes, ‘to say that many therapists appear to practice their profession on the basis of sheer myth….’ ”

– From “The Monster In the Mists” by Walter Reich in the New York Times (May 15, 1994)