An Intolerable Glimmer and an Intolerable Focus on Controlling Women: Why I Still Fight Victim-Centered Rape Prevention

The “glimmer” is one of doubt. It’s the doubt that’s created when we analyze a rape perpetrated on a victim who was drunk, dressed seductively, or engaged in whatever behavior we have adjudged unwise and foolish. It’s a glimmer that allows for the blaming- ever so slightly, but still substantively- of the victim. It’s a glimmer that allows for the exoneration- ever so slightly, but still substantively- of the offender.That’s what victim-centered rape prevention does. Regardless of how well-intentioned. Regardless of how coldly logical. Regardless of the reservoir of love and benevolence that lies behind it. Regardless. It still serves to create the glimmer. And the glimmer is too much.See, we can claim we’re not blaming victims all we want when we advise seemingly obvious and demonstrably effective means of prevention. It does not matter; the effect still serves to blame victims and protect offenders. Why? Because sexual violence is a crime different from any other.Read that again. Rape is categorically, undeniably in a class by itself. When one person attacks another sexually, the crime is analyzed differently than any other. Since criticizing Emily Yoffe’s State pieces earlier this week (her pieces are here and here) , I have received dozens of messages from people who construct analogies to other crimes to describe why her key advice (control your drinking) is simply sound advice and not victim blaming, regardless of how unfair it might seem. Others shake their heads and tell me I can wish for a kinder, fairer world all I want, but they’ll be damned if they won’t tell their daughters and sons exactly “what not to do” in order to protect them.That’s understandable. But here is an undeniable truth: Leave aside my belief that all that advice, even if it works in many situations, also potentially opens up the hearers to other vectors of attack. For those who would still prefer to create rules and encourage loved ones to follow them in order to best play the odds, I will challenge them on at least one aspect of their thinking: They cannot avoid a charge of victim-blaming by claiming they would give similar advice to anyone in order to avoid, say, robbery (by walking on well-lit streets), or car theft (by locking doors).Rape isn't like robbery, car theft, or even murder. Sex, and how we view it, doesn't allow for that.The nature of sexuality in our culture (and most others) does not allow for it to be analogized to any other crime. The nuances and complexities of sexual interaction, seduction, flirtation, gender roles, the intensely private and culturally shame-based nature of the whole subject, the relation of the sexual organs to the excretory ones, the continued prizing of “purity,” etc, etc, etc, all combine to make sexual crime one that is always analyzed differently from any other.So the danger of tipping the scales even a tiny bit and judging victim choices, thus marginally exonerating offenders, is magnified with sexual crime.Another hard truth: The further we dig into the nature of sexual crime, the further we must dig into the nature of sex itself. And that means taking an honest look at gender roles, expectations, and deep-seated fears and obsessions that have shaped how society judges, treats, confines, punishes and subjugates women.Read that again also, if you would. Far too much of the debate concerning how women can and should protect themselves from men is polluted with the continuing and still deeply unresolved obsession that men (and some women as well) still have with women as sexual beings. Our major religions, our societal structures, our laws, customs and mores. How many are hyper-focused on controlling female sexuality? When we can answer that question honestly and accurately, we'll have uncovered much of what is wrong with how we seek to prevent rape.That, in a nutshell, is why I find even the best intentioned, victim-centered prevention strategists to be ultimately wrong-headed. Try as they might, they are still tipping the scales. They are still creating doubt. As a prosecutor, that’s a thing I was trained very carefully to avoid when justice is on the line.

Emily Yoffe, Like Most Misinformed People, Won’t Get It. Maybe Ever.

Emily Yoffe is frustrated by the backlash against her well-intentioned but ill-considered original Slate piece from last week, but apparently emboldened by the support she’s received from other well intentioned and ill-informed supporters.Yoffe, like many others, sees a reduction in drinking (on college campuses especially) as the key to reducing sexual assaults against women. Indeed, the answer seems startlingly clear to Ms. Yoffe, as if she’s sounding an alarm that those around her infuriatingly cannot hear:Women! Stop drinking! You’re making yourselves vulnerable!It seems so obvious. A woman (or a man for that matter) who decides, for whatever reckless, juvenile, or ill-advised reasons, to drink to excess, is making herself/himself vulnerable in a cruel and unpredictable world. That's the seemingly clear-as-glass conclusion at which Yoffe and many like her have arrived.My perspective is that of a former special victims prosecutor, so I suppose I must ask myself: Haven’t I seen countless cases in which objectively “bad” victim behavior (like heavy drinking) “led to victims being raped?”Here's the naked truth: I have worked with victims- male and female- who were raped during or after behavior that might have been judged unwise. But I have never seen a victim who was raped because of that behavior. I’ve only seen victims who were raped for the one, single, incontrovertible reason that all victims are raped:Because someone chose to rape them. This is where Yoffe gets lost. Granted, it’s a subtle distinction and one I also had to absorb over time. It was a brilliant and irreverent PhD psychologist (Nikki Vallerie) who finally clued me in to a simple and profound truth: There is no vulnerability without danger.A woman can skip through a big city park at midnight in a G-string made of sewn-together $100 bills. She will not be vulnerable- in other words, she won’t be at risk for the slightest victimization of any kind- even a criticism of her clothing choice- unless someone in her environment means to victimize her.Let that sink in. No one is at risk, regardless of what they do or don’t do, if no one around them means them harm.But the Yoffe’s of the world believe they've figured it all out and claim victory when it comes to policing bad or reckless behavior, believing the key to preventing most- if not all- sexual violence means the prevention of such behavior because of the “dangerous world” we all inhabit.Indeed, the world is a dangerous place. But here are two critical areas where Yoffe and her ilk fail in their analysis and admonitions.1. Women (and men) can be (and are) sexually victimized in the most “innocent” of circumstances, i.e., a day-time study group, a church function, an alcohol-free event or movie date. So warnings against “late night, drunken date rape” only protect victims from one type of rape- and could actually expose them to further harm as they’ll be unprepared for any other scenario other than what they’ve been warned against.2. Rapists thrive on and celebrate- whether or not they do so consciously- the very rules of “wise and protective behavior” that Yoffe and her compatriots have so fervently and self-righteously promulgated.The reasons are simple, and devastating.First, as I alluded to before, a laundry list of things not to do will simply clear the path for the rapist who will rape after church, on a simple, alcohol-free DVD movie date, after a study session, or pretty much whenever he can isolate a victim who believes she (or he) has protected her/himself in every imaginable way from harm.Second, the man who chooses to a rape a person who has “broken” a finger-wagging protective rule that society soberly approves of, knows full well that he’ll most likely never be accused of that crime.Why? Because, thanks to the self-satisfying proclamations of the Yoffes of the world, his victim broke a rule and “got herself raped.” Therefore, and as he well knows, she might not even be believed if she does report. But she’ll definitely be blamed even if she is. That will most likely keep her quiet. And so it goes.Want to stop rape? Focus on rapists. 

Maryville: Less Likely A Cover-up, More Likely a Prosecutor Not Up to the Challenge

A travesty of justice likely took place in 2012 in Maryville, Missouri regarding the rape of a 14 year-old girl by a high school senior. Because the defendant comes from a political family with ties to the local DA, charges of a conspiracy to scuttle charges have captured media attention as much as any aspect of the crime. While salacious and disturbing, I’m willing to bet they aren’t true.That’s not to say I don’t think the defendant, now a college student who was apparently still tweeting misogynistic messages until fairly recently, didn’t benefit from who he was and where he came from. The victim and her family were also likely disadvantaged by being “outsiders” from another community. But at this point, my guess is the reality is more mundane. I don’t think the case was derailed by a coordinated effort involving the DA and law enforcement to protect Matthew Barnett because of his ties to a former legislator and sitting Congressman.Far more likely, Robert Rice, the DA responsible for dropping first felony and then misdemeanor charges, simply felt unprepared and discouraged from taking them to trial. If so, he’s far from alone in not knowing how to make the most of good police work and common sense in a sexual abuse case involving alcohol and adolescent behavior.I’m careful here, as I am in every case I comment on, to stress that I’ve neither considered the case the way Rice has, nor am I familiar with his jury pool and legal culture.That said, it appears he had quite a bit to go on.Victim Daisy Coleman was found by her mother, freezing on her porch and still intoxicated; Barnett and the group that drove her home abandoned her outside of her house in 22 degree weather. Her mother saw signs of physical distress to her ano-genital area, and an immediate report was made, the child taken to a hospital. Seven hours after her last drink, her blood alcohol content (BAC) was .13%. Inexperienced drinkers cannot generally reach a .13 without serious signs of intoxication, and she was likely much higher at the time she was raped. Barnett admitted to sexual intercourse on Daisy. A friend apparently video-taped the act. Other witnesses, including Daisy’s 13 year-old friend who was also raped (her 15 year-old assailant confessed as much), reported that Daisy was between crying and incoherent as they left Barnett’s home, and had to be carried from the bedroom. Evidence of drinking was collected the following day.The case looks- in any legal environment in the U.S. and I have seen most of them- eminently triable. Rice was benefitted by quick and competent police work, a confession to sexual contact, and a concerned mother rightfully terrified and appalled. He dropped charges anyway. Rice says he dropped them at least in part because the Coleman’s asserted 5th Amendment privileges before a deposition, but Melinda Coleman, Daisy’s mother, insists that this was 1) only after felony charges had already been dropped and 2) a short-lived decision that she reversed the next day, agreeing to cooperate. Rice’s other reasoning involves what he calls a lack of evidence and what appeared to him as “incorrigible teenagers” drinking and having sex. If that’s truly how he feels, he has a tragic misunderstanding of the dynamics of sexual assault.First, I’m not sure what 5th Amendment privileges could have been asserted that Rice could not have proffered immunity for in order to pursue a far more serious case. Second, if Rice thinks his case was too light on evidence to bring in good faith to a jury, I can only say that myself and others- often in very challenging legal environments- have successfully taken cases forward with less.Rice has done the right thing by asking a judge to appoint a special prosecutor and re-open the case. The Colemans appear ready to cooperate, and I hope the new prosecutor views the case differently, assuming what I know is accurate and complete.Whatever happens, I believe Rice's declaration that "there wasn't any prosecuting attorney who could take that case to trial" should be publicly proven both defeatist and inaccurate. But I'm not willing at this point to believe his motivations are worse than that.

The "Re-homing" of Children Issue: A Response

Last week, I was contacted privately by an individual who was familiar with “re-homing,” also through an Internet group that included the participation of adoptive parents, some of whom were seeking to get rid of their children, and prospective “parents” looking to procure them.The person who contacted me is also an adoptive parent, appears to be a dedicated one, and largely regrets any cooperation she might have given to the “re-homing” process. But while she acknowledges the failures and the risks, she still believes there is justification for the attempts some make at abandoning children to others with power of attorney, largely from the perspective of a desperate parent with a dangerous or unmanageable adoptive child. Since she contacted me privately I will not identify her and will do my best to avoid referring to facts that might also do so. But I believe a portion of my response to her is relevant to a further examination of the issue of “re-homing” and how dangerous and utterly thoughtless it can be. So here it is:I understand your position that not enough resources exist for adoptive parents who find themselves with children who have theretofore unknown problems (or ones hidden from them) that make them not only unmanageable, but also perhaps a danger to themselves and their families. Still, I have little sympathy for adoptive parents in this situation who resolve it by dumping their children (I will not use the phrase "re-homing" without mocking quotes) with strangers and in the most dangerous of potential circumstances. Adoption is among the most profoundly sobering decisions a prospective parent can make. I'm sure you understand this better than I as you have actually taken this step and appear to be doing so with love and decency. In my view, no prospective parent should ever consider adoption without also having the resources to address every possible type of problem, foreseeable and unforeseeable. If an adopted child becomes a danger to themselves, the parents or other siblings, and must be removed from the parents' home, then the parents need to be financially prepared to seek institutional care for them, if necessary, but not while disowning them. If the best interests of the child and the family both appear to be in dissolving the adoptive relationship, then it should be attempted only through a formal, legally recognized process.  You may not know well the tactics of predators who seek out children to exploit, harm or kill, but I can assure you that a "re-homing" platform is among the most powerful and gratifying vectors to what they would consider perfect victims. I say "perfect" because a predator could scarcely imagine a better scenario than parents desperate to pawn off an unwanted child- most likely a child who is emotionally and/or physically compromised to the point where they are virtually powerless to seek help or redress from any type of abuse.  It is a fact that child predators, like all things that hunt, seek the path of least resistance and greatest security. The legal ability to abandon a vulnerable (indeed, perhaps even objectively unlikable) child to a complete stranger with a pro-forma legal document is the clearest imaginable example of those two favored circumstances. This fact alone makes "rehoming" reckless, cruel, and thoroughly abhorrent, even without considering the less sensational risks of simply unprepared and hopeful parents accepting a "re-homed" child and being even less able to properly care for her or him. Within the "re-homing" universe, what is the incentive for the abandoning parent to be honest about the true extent of the child's problems (or potential dangers to others) to begin with? The system is about dumping human beings on others, plain and simple. No one should get near it. You shouldn't have either.  In a letter you shared with me, you rhetorically asked this question to the author of the original Reuters story: "Why are parents resorting to informal networking groups to help them with adoptions that are failing? Because there are no resources.  Because of societies preconceived notions that these kids just need love, a good family, etc. and all will be well.  Tell that to the mother who finds her daughter raping a sibling with a pencil, tell that to the father who finds out his daughter is giving blow jobs to his 4 year old.  Tell that to the family who has to sleep with their bedroom doors locked because they fear for their lives." What I would tell a family in a situation like the ones you describe above is that they are still parents, not renters of human beings. They may have to lock doors. They may have to maintain distance between individuals within the house for the safety of everyone. They may have to very carefully seek out institutional care for their wounded child. They may have to seriously curtail or refine their own goals, dreams and priorities. I don't claim to know the difficulty of parenting, either my own child or an adoptive one. But I know quite well to not make such a monumental decision without being ready to accept and deal with everything that might befall me- and the rest of my family- if I choose to do so.

"Re-Homing." Child Abandonment Becomes a Predator's Providence

Reuters Investigates has released a stomach-turning series on children offered on Internet forms by adoptive parents wanting rid of them. They find ready takers, often abusive predators, and abandon them with power-of-attorney documents. The dumping happens in most cases after little or no vetting of the “new parents,” and often takes place in parking lots. It’s called “re-homing,” a term sometimes used regarding transferring unmanageable pets.Quick aside: My only criticism of the piece is the unfortunate tendency of the authors to ape the language of the perpetrators and refer to this system of abandonment as “re-homing.” As a prosecutor, I was in the business of gradating evil, and and so I’ll offer a rough hierarchy of such to this “system:”  Atop is the human virus Nicole Eason and her pedophile and abusive associates. Eason, a miserably failed parent and life-long child abuser, has been on the receiving end of the abandonment process as much as possible. Below her and her fellow scorpions on this hierarchy are the adoptive parents willing to abandon children to strangers after a brief exchange of emails and photos. Below them, having unerringly followed the well-intentioned-paved road to hell, are those who have “moderated” the forums involving child “re-homing” in the first place.The willingness of participants on all three levels to be interviewed, frankly, shocks me almost as much as what they did. Eason makes statements about cruelty and violence against children (she calls it parenting) the way one might describe a golf swing. The individuals on the other side of this reckless and selfish transaction- the ones who first procured children through the often grueling process of legal adoption and then dumped them- should move our entire society to revisit how we’re assigning adoption candidates in the first place. Above a fully recognizable photograph of Glenna Mueller, for instance (a “professional parent” who survives on government subsidies provided for children she adopts), is this quote about a child she abandoned to the grotesque couple of Randy Winslow (a pedophile and child pornography trader) and Nicole Eason:“I was a little concerned about Randy," Mueller recalls today. "He never said anything. He spent time with (the boy) and played with him but didn't interact with me.... But as long as they were on the up-and-up I was OK with them taking him. It was like, get him out of here.” Perhaps I should have more sympathy for the abandoning adoptive parents- the stories of whom are a part of the piece- apparently finding themselves desperate enough to dump their children with people like Eason. But I don’t. At least one family interviewed admitted they could have turned their charge over to protective services, but would have had to pay child support for her until she was 18. So instead they trusted Eason and her partner, both of whom gave them the creeps when they came for her, but sent her anyway. Others, including a police officer, claimed to be genuinely deceived by Eason. But I suspect he, like most of them, largely saw what he wanted to see and ran with it.If there is any reservoir of sympathy for a player here, if might be for people like Megan Exon, a moderator for a time of the forums that feed adoptive children to waiting vampires like Eason and Winslow. Exon, who had no training in adoptions or social work, thought it a nice idea to “introduce” parties interested in trading children. She appears stupidly naive, not cynical or predatory. But whatever her intentions, she facilitated abuse and emotional torture, and all knowingly under the radar of the child protection system. Predators view these forums like providence itself; they could scarcely script a more perfect scenario than helpless, often compromised children with guardians seeking to pawn them off.I’ve written before on this subject and been challenged for not fully appreciating what adoptive parents go through when hope-filled adoptions become nightmares. That may be. But whatever the suffering of these adoptive parents, it doesn’t approach the suffering of the children they chose to bring into their lives. Sending them out of their lives, like trash and to monsters, isn’t making that suffering any less bearable.

Interesting Piece from UK's Ally Fogg on Female Sexual Aggression

Ally Fogg is a British writer and columnist on topics often related to the things I write about as well. Except that he's generally a better writer. This one focuses on the controversial topic of female sexual aggression against men. I need to assemble my thoughts on this before a creating a longer post, but his thoughts- and the studies he cites- are a good start.

1979. For Frankie

A guy I grew up with passed away today. We had drifted apart years ago, but social media reconnected us a few years back and it was fun to see that he had grown up to be a kind, fun-loving, knock-around blue collar guy with a passion for the Redskins and the people he loved. He also had a sense of humor, about the cancer that eventually took his life as much as anything.He wasn't the first person from my childhood who has died. He wasn't the closest to me. But when I met him in 1979, and we were 11, he just seemed immortal. It wasn't because he was a star athlete or scholar; he was just a kid in a small town with a Goody comb in his back pocket and a sly grin on a handsome young face. But he was self-possessed in a way I wouldn't be for decades, and he seemed confident, satisfied, and positive. I hope that never wore off.I was, in the infantile ways I could wage it, at war with the world and myself when I was 11; the reasons are varied and unimportant here, for now. He wasn't particularly sympathetic to me at first- at that age I was anything but sympathetic to most of my peers. But then a pretty girl with an impossibly thick West Virginia accent and a golden heart brought us together and helped him understand me. I think he eventually did, and he treated me better than most through the terrible years of middle school.He's gone now. And so is 1979 and the tortured kid I was then. But I miss him more than I expected. And just maybe, I miss a few of those hazy, big-car driven, instant-photo colored days as well.

On Adolescent Sexual Exploitation: Room for Nuance, Not for Compromise

I should be more nuanced on the nettlesome issue of adolescent sexuality, I'm told. It's not cut and dry, and my tone is often unyielding. Perhaps.I limit myself to 700 words in this space out of respect for my readership and in acknowledgement of the hundreds of other demands on their time and opportunities to spend it. If I had more space, I'd be more circumspect and more exploratory of opposing points of view, at least where I thought arguments had merit. No one comes close to possessing all the answers on human sexuality, what is objectively abusive, and what should be considered punishable by law. I'm no exception.In fairness, the issue of adolescent and adult sexual contact is particularly difficult to categorize uniformly. I sat on a Huffington Post Live panel last month where I discussed the issue with three well-known psychologists, all of whom agreed (as do I) that the "age of consent" to sexual intercourse in US jurisdictions has less to do with inherent rightness and more to do with an arbitrary cut-off for various cultural, historical and political reasons. I've known 15 year-old kids who could make thoughtful, informed and logical choices about sexual contact, and 25 year-old developmentally normal adults who absolutely could not. The age of consent in most of the US hovers around the age of majority, another number we've picked to differentiate the comparatively protected world of a child from the colder and more unforgiving one navigated by adults.When it comes to sexual contact between even older minors and adults, though, there are at least a few key points that, for me, make these "relationships" exploitive and toxic far more often than my detractors who see Americans in particular as "hysterical," "Victorian", etc. In no particular order:1. The issue is usually less about age and more about power, control, and authority. I would not likely advocate for sex-offender registration or a felony conviction for an adult within a few years age of his or her minor sexual partner- assuming a relationship based on more or less equal footing. Stacey Rambold, the Montana teacher whose paltry sentence recently sparked outrage, was  [slightly] less culpable in my mind for being 35 years the senior of his victim than he was for being her educator. Teachers have power over students both in terms of what they can practically affect in their lives and superior insights about navigating adult life. We properly condemn and criminalize crossing this line. It's not wrong because it's illegal. It's illegal because it's wrong.2. The still organically forming adolescent brain should at least be a factor in how we view a minor's ability to engage equally with an especially far older adult. Nothing magical happens within the brain to end adolescence at 18. But the fact is, teenagers are more impulsive, more brash and less self-controlled and than adults. Adults should know better and act thusly. 18 is still arbitrary. But it's not baseless.3. What we have traditionally viewed as basically "harmless" where adult-child sexual contact is concerned is continually being challenged and rightfully so. The elite Horace Mann school in New York City, like countless institutions the world over, was apparently rife with sexual abuse by teachers on minor students for literally decades. To the extent people knew of it, I'm sure some considered it a quirk of the place, the price paid for such a dynamic and interesting faculty, a simple right of passage, or any number of things. Far too many of the victims of this "quirk" think differently, and are now responding in droves, decades after being seriously harmed with impunity.There is room for nuance, particularly with regard to the application of the criminal law. I was never a mindless hammer in a court of law and I have welcomed the insight of the psychological community when trying to do justice in this regard. Increasingly, I believe my still-active colleagues are doing the same thing.But I won't yield so quickly to counter-arguments on the "harmlessness" of "fuzzier" sexual boundaries between adults and children. For one, I know better. For another, I know the motives of a dangerous few who are making them. See NAMBLA for a reference.   

A "Former Lawyer's" Foolishness Topped Only by the Washington Post Editorial Board's

Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter once said "words are blunt instruments," a quote not only good lawyers, but all professional communicators take to heart. Words are the weapons lawyers wield to wring from the system the outcomes we advocate for. But anyone who communicates for a living ideally respects the coarse limits of language and works hard to construct expression that accurately reflects the intended message. A decent vocabulary and some thought and care before expressing oneself helps to hone arguments in the most fair and effective way possible, but it's always a challenge. Sadly, there are communicators, including those with legal training, who don't even approach it.Betsy Karasik, the Washington, DC-based artist and "former lawyer" who wrote a remarkably uninformed and foolish op-ed in the Washington Post last week about the sexual abuse of minors by school teachers, uses words about as effectively as I'd expect a toddler might a stick of dynamite. Karasik, once a lawyer who specialized in things like negligence and products liability rather than anything related to sexual abuse, wrote regarding the case of Stacey Rambold, the Montana school teacher who, at 48, was raping a 14 year-old girl who then committed suicide short of her 17th birthday. Rambold was sentenced to 30 days.Karasik characterizes the outcry over Rambold's sentencing (and the legal response observed in most US jurisdictions to child sexual exploitation) as "utter hysteria." She sweepingly classifies sexual contact- perpetrated on children by adults in positions of power and authority over them- as "sexual relations." I'd suggest, at very bottom, that she studiously review the use of the words she employs before tossing them around recklessly in a publication of national repute.She seems almost wistful about the "fuzzier" sexual boundaries that existed between adult teachers and minor students in the 60's and 70's. She describes sexual contact between her peers and some teachers as what she believes to have been "consensual in every honest meaning of the word."Really?  Consensual? How, exactly does Karasik define that word?  And where does she draw the nerve to characterize these situations- ones she likely knew almost nothing about- as such?Ms. Karasik, here's a fact, if you're at all interested: Given the remarkably low percentage of victimized minors who report sexual abuse and exploitation- particularly by authority figures like teachers, mentors, coaches and others with power over them- my guess is you have no idea how many of your peers who were sexually targeted by educators actually suffered and to what degree.If Karasik knew anything about the dynamics of child and adolescent sexual abuse, and how predatory grooming, shame, fear and uncertainty silence victims and allow perpetrators to offend again and again, she'd be perhaps more circumspect about how "harmless" sexual contact can be between adult authority figures and children, and what "rehabilitation" really means.The sole time in her piece were Karasik approaches a lucid point is where she seems to wonder (it is not clear) if the pressures of the investigation and the case against Rambold added to the emotional burdens the victim was experiencing and contributed to her suicide. That may be true, and it's the very reason myself and many others in the child protection community have worked for years to make the response as efficient and non-traumatic as we can for the children involved. But if Karasik's opinion is that looking the other way at child exploitation and rape by a predator like Rambold is a better option, she should talk further to victims who were preyed upon with impunity; that would include during her own youthful era.The only thing more insulting than Karasik's opinion is the Washington Post's willingness to allow space on its pages for it. It's one thing to publish a controversial or unpopular opinion that is nevertheless logically argued by an authoritative figure and with some empirical support. Indeed, it's a crucial function of any media outlet. It's another to publish the thoroughly baseless personal opinion of an individual unsuited to comment intelligently on her chosen subject and with zero scholarly evidence to support it. The Post- one time a newspaper of tremendous authority and national import- has hit a new low.

Judge G. Todd Baugh on Child Rape: Don't Tell Us What We Understand

The rapist was 49 and the victim 14. He was a teacher at her high school. She later committed suicide, short of her 17th birthday. Her death complicated the prosecution for lack of a complaining witness, but prosecutors were able to obtain a confession to one rape count and an agreement that the case would deferred out of the system if he successfully completed sex offender treatment. He failed, and thus stood before state Judge G. Todd Baugh. Prosecutors asked for 20 years. Judge Baugh gave him 15 but suspended all but 31 days, expressing a belief that the child was "older than her chronological age," and the shocking contention that she, as a student and a child, was nevertheless "as much in control of the situation" as was the teacher, 35 years her senior.Baugh's subsequent defense of his ruling should stand as a clear call for better judicial education on the issue of sexual assault (the National Judicial Education Program conducts this kind of training). But I suspect Baugh is beyond the reach of education, and probably remains as clueless to the outrage as he apparently was to the dynamics involved in this crime and its subsequent effect on the victim."Obviously, a 14-year-old can't consent. I think that people have in mind that this was some violent, forcible, horrible rape," Baugh said. "It was horrible enough as it is just given her age, but it wasn't this forcible beat-up rape."No, judge, you're wrong. We understand exactly what kind of rape it was. We understand that rape doesn't have to be violent or forcible for it to be life-altering, and in this case possibly life-ending. We know that fists and weapons don't have to be used for a rape to be perpetrated and a young life inexcusably torn apart. We understand, apparently far better than you, how a weapon can be something other than a handheld object. And we understand fully the weapons that Stacey Rambold had at his disposal and used against this now dead child, whatever her own participation or awareness seemed to be.We're angry because we understand, not because we don't. We have every right to be. 

A near-miss in a school shooting in Georgia is not a "blessed" event

"It's a blessed day, all of our children are safe," Dekalb County, Georgia School Superintendent Michael Thurmond said at a news conference after no children were injured or killed despite a 19 year-old shooter with an AK-47 firing rounds in one of his elementary schools. "This was a highly professional response on the ground by DeKalb County employees assisted by law enforcement."Thurmond's second quote is spot-on. His first is not.I mean absolutely no disrespect to Thurmond, who was probably just making an understandable and relieved pronouncement about a decent outcome that could have been a massacre. But no day is "blessed" that includes a teenager making it into an elementary school with an assault rifle.Instead it means, as usual, none of us are really safe- just lucky. This time. The question is what, if anything, we'll do about it.

Child Protection in Virginia: Cuccinelli Is A Fraudulent Standard Bearer

Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature statute (it punishes as a felony anal and oral sex) was one I viewed as somewhere between sad and silly when I first encountered it as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney. But as a child abuse prosecutor there were times it was a useful, if awkward tool.  Some have mistakenly stated Virginia’s “age of consent” as 15. That isn’t true if “age of consent” is defined as the age at which someone can legally consent to sexual intercourse. Virginia does punish sex between adults and teenagers 15 - 17 years old. The crime is a Class 1 misdemeanor under Virginia’s “contributing to the delinquency” statute with a maximum jail sentence of 12 months. Petit larceny is also a class 1 misdemeanor. So if I, at 46, were having sex with a 15 year-old girl, I’d be guilty of the same level of crime as if I’d stolen a candy bar.For this reason, there were times when Virginia ACA’s looked to the Crimes Against Nature statute to pursue egregious cases of “contributing,” i.e, where we knew of, for instance, a 40 year-old who was sexually exploiting a 16 year-old. If we could prove the defendant engaged in oral or anal sex with the victim, we could charge the felony because of the antiquated law.This approach was halted, though, with the MacDonald v Moose decision in March, which rendered Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature law unconstitutional. Looking to the 2003 landmark Lawrence v. Texas decision, the 4th Circuit federal appeals court ruled that Virginia can’t criminalize consensual oral or anal sex between adults. MacDonald was convicted of solicitation to a commit a felony, meaning he enticed a 17 year-old to perform oral sex. Since the underlying crime (oral sex, or "sodomy") couldn't be a felony, neither could his criminal solicitation.Cuccinelli wants that decision overturned in hopes that Virginia’s law could survive in “as applied” form, meaning it could still be invoked in cases involving minor teens, i.e, the way child abuse prosecutors have used it over time. He argues that sex offenders under supervision due to the use of the law will be freed if the ruling stands and their convictions are overturned.Fair enough, but interestingly, Cuccinelli as a state senator helped to kill a bill in 2004 that would have made Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature law “Lawrence proof,” meaning it would have made oral and anal sex between consenting adults legal, as case law now demands. Between adults and older minors, it would have criminalized oral and anal sex the same way vaginal intercourse is now criminalized- as a Class 1 misdemeanor.Giving him the benefit of the doubt for a moment, I can understand opposing a bill that would have preserved only misdemeanor criminalization of sexual acts between adults and teens. In my mind, Virginia should punish serious sexual contact- given a certain age difference- as a felony, period. But if Cuccinelli agrees, why in nearly 10 years hasn't he called for raising the age of consent across the board to protect minors? Instead he seems focused on "homosexual acts," which he believes should remain crimes because he thinks it's appropriate public policy. Cuccinelli is more than a religious conservative; In 2010, he distributed office lapel pins altered to cover the breast of Virtus, the Roman Goddess of Bravery, which adorns the Commonwealth Seal. Three centuries of Virginia legislators and 45 previous Attorneys General, most with religious backgrounds just as strong (and cultural strictures far stronger) than Cuccenelli’s, somehow accepted the bare-breasted figure as exactly what it was supposed to be; a classical and non-sexual symbol used to visualize the defeat of tyranny. Cuccinelli saw it as "not family-friendly." This is religious extremism paired with adolescent ignorance and narrow-mindedness, but gone mainstream and with power. In short, it is frightening.To be fair, Cuccinelli has been strong on issues like human trafficking and has long seemed concerned with sexual exploitation and abuse in general. Those policy instincts are laudable. But otherwise he speaks and acts like a typical religious extremist and anti-gay bigot, continuing to argue that “homosexual acts” should be criminalized as sound public policy. He has the right this view, but not the right to drag the issue of child protection into it when he has other tools to work with.

Unheeded Warnings: The Puppeteer "Wannabe" Child Molester Cannibal And His Environment

“He has no criminal record in Florida, which helps explain his frictionless association with these groups, many of which routinely perform background checks.”-Peter Jamison, Tampa Bay Times.The quote above was a minor footnote in the article about Ronald William Brown, the youth minister and puppeteer from Largo, Florida who was recently sentenced to 20 years for possession of child pornography and investigated for conspiracy to rape, murder and actually cook and eat an identified, targeted child at his local church. But the quote makes a strong point anyway.Many youth organizations, religious and non-religious, perform criminal background checks of candidates and current employees. The problem is they’re usually worthless. Child predators, particularly relatively educated, middle-class white men with ties to the community and convenient covers for their methods, are usually not criminally versatile, meaning they don't engage in "typical crimes" like robbery, burglary, car theft, etc that are most often reported immediately (unlike child abuse, particularly sexual abuse). So between the very low rate of reporting child abuse and the low likelihood that it will be successfully prosecuted, there's nothing to alert well-intentioned leaders of youth groups that a certain candidate is dangerous. This played out exactly as expected in Brown's case where there was no footprint in the criminal law reflecting the reality of his pathology and intentions to act on it.Nevertheless, there were warnings.From the same article: “In 1998, a Pinellas County sheriff's deputy stopped Brown for a traffic violation and observed boy's underwear between his front seats. Brown said he used the underwear to dress his puppets. In 2010, Largo police were called to Brown's house by a neighbor who had suspicions about his habit of driving boys around. No arrest resulted.”Most likely, no blame lies with the police officers who were alerted to these facts but made no arrests. As is typical, Brown was ready with a plausible explanation on both occasions, the first a tragic 14 years before his arrest in 2012. I say tragic because although the Federal prosecutors who pursued Brown found no evidence of him actually harming children, it is at least quite possible that he did so to one degree or another given the access he created over the years through many different venues. His attorney insisted that Brown’s pathology was limited to fantasy, and thankfully this was challenged by the prosecution and the judge. But even in the court proceedings, the assumption by all parties (prosecution, defense and the bench) seemed to be that Brown had not yet acted on his impulses.Granted, that assumption is appropriate in terms of legal sanctions for Brown; he cannot be convicted or punished for what he might have done or wished he could have done. But the fact is, given how infrequently children report acts of abuse and how often men like Brown get away with them, we’ll likely never know for sure what he did over the many years his pathology evolved and metastasized. Brown alone drove groups of children to church in a van the church itself provided. He had them over for pizza and proselytizing.The pastor from Brown’s church, Randy Morris, where Brown was active for more than 15 years, stated that, to his knowledge, Brown was never alone “at the church, with any child, at any time.” I’m sorry, but that should be little comfort to parents whose children interacted with Brown over time. The more jaded among us (those who have, for example, seen Brown’s now vintage ventriloquism on the Christian Television Network) may assert that leaders and involved parents at Brown’s Gulf Coast Church were foolishly naive to give him any access to children, ever. After all, Brown did match every Internet child molester stereotype, right down to his trailer formerly shared with his parents and pet cat. But in fairness, the typical Evangelical pastor is often not the typical young adult on the internet looking to make fun of something salacious.Regardless, the question becomes whether a decision-making leader like Randy Morris should monitor people like Brown, with not only conviction records but also arrest records (they are public), and with any other available and potentially reliable information. The answer should be obvious. 

Pope Francis On Tolerance. Cardinal Dolan On Cemeteries

“If a person is gay, seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis said. “They should not be marginalized.”So spoke this oddly humble and dynamic new pope, and with an apparent acknowledgement of the inherent nature of homosexuality (use of the verb “is” rather than “chooses to live as” or “believes he is,” or any number of dismissive things) that to my knowledge has never been approached by a person in his position.Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, insists regardless that his boss’ remarks don’t change Catholic teaching on the issue: Acting on the desire for romantic love with a person of the same sex, even if the desire is ingrained (as Francis came about as close as I’ve ever heard anyone at his level in my faith to saying), is still a sin.If the pope essentially agrees with Dolan, I’d hardly be surprised. Many conservative Christians of different faiths believe that, for reasons we don’t understand, God saddles some of us with desires for love and intimacy that cannot be acted upon even between consenting adults with the best of intentions and beliefs.But I suspect that Francis might be, if not confronting the issue in a way that I’d personally find satisfactory, at least putting it in perspective. In Spanish he might say “que se preocupan?”Or in English, “who cares?”He remains, to my knowledge, regrettably resolute on a lesser role for women in the Church, and probably other issues I’d likely dispute. But where intimacy and desire are concerned, maybe he sees a world so shattered by poverty, disease, needless inequality and hate that he’s shifting the Church’s heretofore laser-like and dubious focus on homosexuality. Maybe he sees the need for a break from obsessing over which decent, charitable and productive adult is loving which similar adult and why. Maybe this is what brought him, plunging through crowds and and ditching his security detail, to Varginha shantytown, a Rio ghetto so violent it’s known as the Gaza Strip.My parents helped build the church I grew up in. Our priests were Franciscan "atonement" Friars, imperfect but decent and holy men who never harmed me or anyone I knew, and I am deeply grateful. It was these men and my own mother who taught me that it was Francis of Assisi who was called upon as a young rich man by God to “go and rebuild my Church, which you see is in ruins.” I don’t know how Pope Francis views the Church. But I can guess how he views the world. Perhaps he’s setting priorities accordingly.Sex matters. Love matters. These are crucial gifts from God that merit theological discussion, even if I don’t agree with some conclusions. But maybe, right now, things like child malnutrition matter more. The Dolans of world don’t seem to grasp this, still arguing with smug insistency that the secular recognition of gay marriage threatens somehow the fabric of society. This is the same man who, as Archbishop of Milwaukee, moved tens of millions of dollars into a cemetery trust fund, apparently in a cynical attempt to shield it from victim lawsuits.Lest I be accused of being overly cynical myself, I have no doubt what Dolan experienced as the leader of that broken archdiocese was nothing less than the gut-wrenching, sickening realization that not a handful but probably thousands of the most vulnerable and innocent of his flock had been subjected to life-altering and soul-crushing evil at the hands of brother priests and other religious. It must have been terrifying for him to contemplate, and then devastating to accept. I have far less invested in Catholicism than Dolan, and it has been the spiritual heartbreak of my lifetime. And yet his response was to protect the coffers first, regardless of what justice might have demanded, let alone things like financial support for victims needing therapy and counseling from torments as diverse as alcoholism and panic attacks, but all relating back to their abuse.It was abuse that took place in the context of their faith. Dolan protected graves.  

Unintended Consequences in Charity: One Small Example

From Peter Buffet, in a New York Times op-ed, on how the best intentions from philanthropists and others can either make a problem worse, or just different:"Often the results of our decisions had unintended consequences; distributing condoms to stop the spread of AIDS in a brothel area ended up creating a higher price for unprotected sex."Indeed. And sadly, it's a price that will be paid, for women and children alike.

Losing Natasha, and Stalled in the Battle Against Child Cancers

How do you prepare your 12 year-old for death?I don’t have children for a few reasons, but among them is the possibility, no matter how remote, that I would have to answer that question. Call me paranoid, or simply a coward, unreasonably reluctant to bring life into an uncertain world. I’ll accept those characterizations.I have seen children laid to waste by neglect, sometimes dead and sometimes better off dead. I’ve seen them shaken to blindness, starved and beaten beyond recognition, used sexually like appliances. But while those things haunt me, they are at least things I know I would never subject my own child to, and they are things I am reasonably confident I could protect her from.But cancer is a beast I cannot guard against. There are no locks I could install between it and my child; no words of caution I could impart to keep it at bay; no signal or alarm I could create to alert me it was afoot.In a blog called The Mourning After Natasha, a mother named Suzanne Leigh writes nakedly and beautifully on the sickness and death of her daughter, diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2008 and dying nearly five years later. She writes piercingly of the stalking anxiety of the process overall, but particularly about things like moments of panic when an MRI was reviewed, or when her daughter stumbled or mispronounced a word.Suzanne, her husband, their younger child and Natasha herself bore it all- the hideous roller coaster ride of life and death that is the the current response to cancer in a human body; “successful” surgery, “concerning” scans, “unchanged” prognoses.She also writes about delicately raising the subject of “if you don’t get better” carefully with Natasha while on the way to yet another medical appointment. From what she tells us, it was not a subject her daughter dwelt on. She apparently just lived her life cheerfully and as fully as possible, being a part of her family and returning the love that showered down on her. That said, Leigh tells us she wrote beautiful and kind letters to her sister and others in her life as if she knew her time was limited.Children I’ve encountered in my line of work have always amazed me with the courage they display, the quiet dignity they carry themselves with, and the endless positivity they seem to be able to summon even in the most wretched of circumstances. Often, the criminal litigation that myself and my team ferried them through was the least harrowing of their reality. At times I’ve been tempted to attribute at least some of their remarkable spirit to a blessed ignorance; a lack of context for how much easier things could be, and paradoxically how much worse it just might get. But I have no right to assume anything like that; it cheapens what they achieve.Leigh’s blog is terrifying reading, particularly for a parent, but it is highly worthwhile. Perhaps even more important is what she writes about the reality of cancer research and funding in our society. Children comprise 1% of cancer patients, so the fact that only 4% of research resources go to childhood cancers might initially seem “fair.”But consider that the average age cancer strikes an adult is 67, and in a child it is 6.Even if the tragic loss of potential- in every way- from the death of a child is disregarded in light of the arithmetic above, how does simple human empathy in all of us not demand a keener focus on sparing a mother and father this unbearable loss? Death in middle or even advanced age can be heartbreaking. But nothing compares to burying a tiny body. Nothing.The phrase “mommy, I have a headache” should send a mother unhurried to a medicine cabinet, not awaken a cobra in her guts. But Suzanne Leigh and her family lived exactly that scenario, through to a child's death. We will never reverse the sometimes remarkably cruel order of nature. But a nation as advanced and powerful as ours should be stalking an end to this horror with the same energy it stalks us: With every single thing we have. 

Gail Heriot in the Weekly Standard: Wrong on Military Justice, Wrong on Rape

Law professor Gail Heriot’s current piece In the Weekly Standard asserts baldly that the military has no sexual assault crisis, and instead is reeling from media and Congressional hysteria. To be fair, she makes some true statements. Unfortunately they’re all beside the point, or suggest the opposite of what Heriot aruges.She asserts that colleges and universities are dangerous sexual environments for women, as much if not more than the military. This is true. And also beside the point. College life is alarmingly dangerous in terms of sexual violence and most institutions aren’t doing nearly enough to address it. The military is also a dangerous environment. But unlike the vast and diverse universe of American higher education, the military is under direct civilian control and literally "uniform" in terms of its response, which can be addressed by Congress more readily than colleges and universities.Heriot also asserts that "off-post rapes" committed by service members (and thus pursuable by both civilian and military prosecutors), are pursued by military prosecutors at far higher rates. This is a good thing, but not surprising. Off-post sex crimes committed by service people are usually committed against other service people and involve military witnesses. The military is in a better position to pursue those cases and has more interest in doing so. Civilian prosecutors offices are also notorious for declining to prosecute challenging sexual violence cases (i.e, the vast majority), so no one should be offering them (collectively) as a standard to be emulated. But again, how does a lackluster civilian response translate into the military having no serious issues with its response?Yes, the military prosecutes rape, and increasingly does so aggressively and competently. Aside from bold initiatives like the Army’s Special Victim Prosecutor program that I helped develop, I worked with Army trial attorneys whose talent and dedication I’d pray for if a loved one were victimized and her case prosecuted.But first a report must be made. This is a major response issue the military faces, for the exact reason Heriot inadvertently mentions. Reporting a crime as a soldier or sailor is more like reporting to an employer than to police. Sex crimes are difficult for anyone to report. Imagine reporting to a superior you work with everyday (while your attacker is in or near the very same environment) and then to a command stream where cohesiveness and unflagging enthusiasm are the most demanded attributes. What if your attacker is valued and admired, depended upon where life and death are concerned, but you aren’t? What if you’re isolated on a forward operating base near an active front? The military is not blameworthy for most of these circumstances; they are simply among the hardships experienced by members of a force that must be nimble, cohesive, and lethal when called upon. The efforts of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA), aim at addressing these realities with military lawyers, just outside the chain of command where inherent conflicts exist.Heriot dismisses these challenging circumstances by predictably confusing drunk sex (which happens constantly in military and civilian life without being confused as rape) and rape, which is rarely reported even when clear and devastating. She misconstrues UCMJ standards on incapacity, and like many people seems to think that rape is usually the product of an alcohol-fueled misunderstanding rather than a predatory act. She’s wrong. Her reliance for insight on an aggressive defense attorney like Michael Waddington, with a career incentive to make the military appear reactionary, is dubious. As for the Navy prosecutor who sees a distinction between “rape” and “Navy rape?” Move her to contract law.Curious to me most of all was Heriot’s subtly emasculating criticism of the “supplicating” General Raymond Odierno whom she chastises for assuring Congress that combating sexual assault was our military's number one priority (rather than defending the country, apparently).I’ve never met Odierno, but I know he’s a nuclear engineer and considered a literal genius by pretty much everyone who has. Perhaps what Odierno understands is that the military’s highest priority (assumed and obvious except by the occasional law professor) can’t be achieved until the well-being of the young brave men and women ultimately responsible for its security can be. 

Great Reporting on Disturbing & Predatory Behavior: Lackland AFB

Sig Christenson, a reporter at the San Antonio News Express, has been relentless in covering what amounts to highly disturbing- but not surprising- predatory behavior by recruiters and instructors at Lackland Air Force Base outside of San Antonio, Texas. The latest sentence handed down by a court martial was directed at a 7 year Air Force veteran and instructor who had sex and inappropriate contact with trainees under his guidance, but it pales in comparison to the 27 years received by former recruiter Jaime Rodriguez earlier last month. Rodriguez's sentence seems deeply harsh, but the trust he betrayed and power he abused in order to victimize mostly adolescents with dreams of entering the Air Force are considerable. Recruiters have immense power, usually over the lives of young and impressionable teenagers hoping for the opportunities that a military career can offer. It's sad, but not uncommon to see young people enlisting from challenged backgrounds and difficult circumstances. Sadder still is that recruitment posts are also attractive to predators who seek to offer the promise of the military, to those most in need of its attributes and opportunities, only for a price. As usual, most recruiters and instructors are not predatory. But the few who are, and Rodriguez is a particularly vicious example, create untold damage to young people subjected to the exact opposite of the example they hope and in some cases pray to receive when they seek to enlist and serve.

On Suicide, Sexual Violence, and Army Civilian Service: I'll Be Silent No Longer

Exactly four years ago, I was hired by the best equipped, most richly funded and lethal fighting force ever assembled. Their primary need for my expertise surrounded the scourge of sexual violence occurring within their ranks. I gave them everything I had for 32 months as a civilian with a background in special victims prosecution.I was supposedly hired to do far more than train JAGs on the investigation and prosecution of sexual assault. I was told- initially at least- that my mission was to make candid observations and help create meaningful changes; hence bringing me in as an HQE or “Highly Qualified Expert” at a level on par with general officers and the Senior Executive Service.I took the mission seriously, and in return I was largely bullied and marginalized, almost exclusively by a tiny handful of unfortunately placed mid-level officers who viewed myself and my two colleagues as subordinates, there to carry out their pre-planned agendas, rather than the change agents we were supposed to be. To my detriment, I fought back. The bullying continued, blossoming into what amounted to stalking humiliation as I entered my third year of service. I left honorably in February of 2012.I have never written of that experience in this space, for two reasons: First, I encountered largely honorable, dedicated and decent men and women in every facet and at every level of the US Army, and did not want anything I said to create an unfair impression of a group I admire greatly and through which I made lifelong friends. Second, I simply feared I could not do it fairly.Instead I wrote privately to the JAG leadership who hired me, several months after leaving, to express what I believe were ignored blind-spots despite the valiant efforts I had seen and in some measure been a part of. I got a polite non-response and decided I had done and said enough.And then I saw this. The Army reported a record 325 suicides in 2012, up from 283 in 2011. The issue is of course deeply complex; 12 grueling years of war provide infinite reasons. But the analyses I have read remind me darkly of things I suggested with regard to the mental health of not only JAG lawyers themselves but also investigators, commanders, support personnel and soldiers of every rank and responsibility who were witness to or otherwise affected by the crimes I was hired to help reduce. Two of these issues stand out in particular, and on both I fought for changes and development. I did so largely in vain.One issue was same-sex sexual assault. Whether or not the victim identifies as homosexual (most perpetrators do not), they are uniquely disadvantaged. Prior to the final repeal of the odious ban and the "DADT" compromise, many victims remained silent because any real or perceived consensual homosexual conduct before an attack could still lead to discharge. Prior to the lifting of the ban in 2011, I implored the JAG to bring in nationally known and respected experts to help us understand the issues, believing that reports of victimization would likely rise. Same-sex rape victims are some of the most wounded, vulnerable and isolated imaginable; we needed specialized resources as investigators and prosecutors to assist them.I was ignored, at times aggressively so.I also petitioned for better vicarious trauma services for the JAGs- both prosecutors and defense counsel- who had to consume not only the facts of the cases we regularly saw, but also things like high definition video of child rape and torture in the context of child pornography cases. Again, I was ignored; Army officers, I was told, received vicarious trauma training already. When I pointed out that this was largely combat related (a very different stressor) it was suggested that I alert the leadership when I encountered someone who “seemed to need help.”These two examples address a tiny percentage of the issue of mental health and the danger of suicide within the military context. But they were two that I felt I had a responsibility to address, even if tangentially, as part of my mission. I quickly became used to my ideas being ignored while working for the Army. Such is life, and I do not begrudge substantive differences in opinion, particularly with regard to an institution and culture that I only served temporarily and without wearing a uniform.But when those differences are more about posturing and personality conflicts than rational argument, and when present and former warriors are taking their own lives in desperation and despair as war and its accompanying hardships continue, I cannot in good conscience remain silent on any aspect for which I have insight.I know the concern is there. I know that general officers understand the pain of suicide; they attend the funerals without exception. They engage the families. They bear the misery themselves in large measure. I simply wished then and wish now that the ones I worked for would have given me more of an ear than their subordinates did. 

"Military lawyers should handle sexual assault cases"

Lost in the discussion about the alarming rates of sexual assault in the military is the fact that this is not a recent phenomenon nor is it the first time the military leadership has been called out to address the problem. I was hired in 2009 by the US Army as a Highly Qualified Expert and tasked with teaching the Army’s JAG prosecutors how to prosecute such cases and to report what changes the Army needed to make to reduce instances of sexual violence in its midst. I observed a culture ripe for exploit by predators and an incoming population particularly vulnerable to their tactics. The leadership I engaged with was, at higher levels at least, open to change. But I also encountered mid-level managers far more concerned with controlling me as a consultant than they were with exploring how to best address the problem in their midst.Yesterday’s San Antonio Express-News published a commentary piece by me that addresses one of the most essential changes that must occur for the military to effectively address sexual abuse: taking crucial decisions out of the hands of commanders and placing them in the hands of military prosecutors.