413.
Published news story by Lurene Kathleen Helzer, March 21, 1994, East Bay Journal, “Berkeley school district under fire in court” with additional facts/history in adjacent text box, “Not the first time for Berkeley school district”. Overall, the reader gets some insight into how California’s schools dealt with -– had to deal with -- allegations of sexual misconduct, and how accused employees (teachers) successfully defended themselves even AFTER they admitted to the sexual misconduct in a California courtroom.
The story goes over a 1994 case against the Berkeley school district, but also has a companion story about past cases of alleged sexual molestation or abuse by Berkeley teachers.
What the reader learned in 1994, and still perceives in July of 2009, is that the sexual abuse of a child is difficult to prove in court. The alleged offender often gets away with the crime, and easily. Why?
For one thing, the victim does not have the same cognitive abilities as the alleged abuser. For another, a California school district must have rock-solid proof that something happened to the student before it can take legal action or even dismiss the teacher.
It also becomes clear to today’s reader that juvenile sexual abusers carefully plan their acts, and plan their explanations in advance in the event they are caught. They know the laws regarding kids and sexual behaviors from the get-go, thus often manage to manipulate those laws, re-humiliate the victim.
In other words, if the child manages to relay the story of what happened to him/her accurately, the offender’s counter-attack through law forces the child and his/her family to re-live the event. So, the reader ends up feeling seriously angry and suspicious of this school district, at least temporarily. In reality, all area school districts face similar problems. Berkeley is not different than Hayward or San Jose when it comes to law.
Check out my other blogs:
bayarealurene.blogspot
fecklesspreapproved.blogspot
unbelievableanimalstories.blogspot
baghdadiproposal.blogspot
risksinreporting.blogspot
genesisoutline.blogspot
nightclubman.blogspot
blackholeeconomics.blogspot
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