There is really no reasonable excuse these days for any California parent to be in the dark regarding their children and the potential for sexual abuse. And the reasons for that are obvious. For starters, it is simply a stark and long-noted fact that acts of sexual abuse committed against children do occur and have…
So-called “group homes” that serve to house thousands of neglected and abused California children who cannot be readily situated with relatives or foster families have always been envisioned by state officials as temporary venues. In other words, the goal has been to place children in such places only for very limited periods, and only when…
Where to draw the line? That certainly seems to be the seminal question that courts — and society in general — must address and answer with some clarity regarding what FBI Director James Comey calls “the hardest question I’ve seen in government.” That question concerns privacy expectations on the one hand and the government’s need…
“You know nothing.” So says the mother of a man who died last year after losing a long-term battle with alcoholism to people who pass judgment on matters relating to child sex abuse without having personally dealt with it in their families. “Wait until you’ve walked in our shoes,” she says. The grief that personally…
So, California gets a “B.” That is the letter grade that a team of researchers at USA TODAY have given the state for the way it tracks teachers who might reasonably be termed “problems” for any number of reasons. We referenced the report — a survey, actually — in our immediately preceding blog post, noting…
For obvious reasons, reasonable and loving parents in Southern California and across the country look at their sons’ and daughters’ schools as sanctuaries. That is, they regard those venues as special places where their children go to learn and socialize without fear of being rendered vulnerable to some of life’s harms that simply shouldn’t be…
David Ring appeared on KTLA to discuss his civil lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District on behalf of an underage boy who was sexually abused by a San Pedro High School teacher. The substitute biology teacher, Michelle Yeh was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for multiple counts of child molestation and…
It is a case, notes one news outlet, that “highlights the struggle of courts to interpret a convoluted web of clergy reporting laws” that exist across the United States. And it underscores this topical concern: the ability of church authorities in some instances to shield sexual abusers of children from liability through invocation of a…
“[T]here are cases you never forget, some that are always in the back of your mind that you hope one day to solve,” says a Louisiana sheriff. That official can now rest a bit easier regarding at least one such case, a harrowing tale of child sexual abuse that recently entered a new phase with…
Our children are at once the most impressionable and vulnerable demographic within our society, possessed of breathtaking promise yet simultaneously needing to be duly supervised and watched with care while they grow and mature. We all want what’s best for our kids, and know intuitively that promoting their interests encompasses involving them in activities that…