Who Can We Trust with Our Children?

In every 5 minutes passing in the United States – a sexual assault occurs. Statistics often emphasize the totality of female victims affected by this type of crime. Until more recently attention around the concern for male victims has come into focus. We learn the ages of children who become unwitting pawns in horrible negligence of human regard.  The Imagery that prevails with issues concerning sexual assault have become ever present in a society where we would like to feel safe, connected, secure and still we find ourselves twisted in this context every single day. Who if anyone can really be trusted?

Time has molded our social policies to be reactive in the face of human tragedy. It is not until a mistake has been made or an err in judgment results in changing a name to a simple number that we watch someone’s grieving parent or relative take a solo stand to point out the structural flaws that would allow danger to lurk amongst us, let alone merge into our lives. It’s a cost that most people think is too high, and at the same time an expense that other people are willing to incur.

Justice and Public Safety are far different issues then compassion and psychosocial permissibility. Give a sex offender an excuse to exploit his behavior as someone else’s fault and he will use it time and time again. Give him a hug and he’ll play your cards. Give him your trust and he’ll take everything that you love and care about until you give up searching. What is it I wonder – about trust and forgiveness that we give it so freely like the candy randomly tossed into the air in the community parade? We may or may not know whose hands our prized little gifts land in….

And that right there is the answer. We trust blindly. It’s not unlike the trust a child gives wholeheartedly to an adult that shows an interest in who they are, what they do, and what matters to them no matter what that adult may represent to the child. The child is innocent, seeing only what lays before him without any precognition that the friendship, this sense of belonging will dissipate in a sudden impact. What most people fail to identify with is that the majority of sex crimes committed are crimes of intimate consequence. Most perpetrators know their victims well, and most victims know and trust their offenders. We tend to respond only when something is immediate news and too often we are lead to the concern that a stranger might hurt us or someone we love. When in fact the highest risk of danger is someone we know, possibly even someone we love.