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In Carlsbad, CA, a private school administrator was arrested and is accused of sexually assaulting students who lived on or attended the grade 7 to 12, all-boys campus. The suspect had worked there for 18 years, and according to one lawyer familiar with the case, “There were allegations against him for years, so it was just a matter of time before they got this guy. His nicknames on campus were `pedophile’ and ‘Mr. Creeper,’ and they knew about those nicknames.” (1)
In the 1984 classic comedy Ghostbusters, the tag line of the TV commercial used by the guys to drum up supernatural business is, “We’re Ready to Believe You!” When it comes to the always-troubling issue of child sexual molestation involving adult employees or volunteers of a school or church, perhaps the line should be, “We Don’t Want to Believe It!”
Denial is both a big river in Egypt and a significant impediment to a hard truth, which is, adult males who want to engage in deviant sexual behavior with children often put themselves into work, social, group, association, or other membership situations where their targets are close. And few places create more opportunities for a “trusted member of the community” to become predatory than a school or church environment.
The problem starts when other school district leaders, school or church employees, and the many volunteers, want to believe the best in everyone who comes there, especially with volunteers, who “sacrifice their time and talents” for the good of the church, the school, the daycare center, or during the many on and off-campus volunteer activities involving kids. This is especially so if the suspect is likeable, believable, earnest, and seemingly a decent citizen. We think we can spot child predators based on either intuition or worse, our reliance on a non-existent “profile” of a child molester that errantly focuses on demographics like age, race, or marital status.
It can be useful to look at tendencies in terms of how child molesters choose their victims and whether they focus on certain age ranges, gender, or even how they justify their crimes. Criminologist Dr. Ronald Holmes, who has written extensively on serial crimes involving murder and sex writes about situational child molesters, preferential child molesters, or a rarer but more dangerous breed: try-sexuals.
Situational child molesters often rationalize their attacks by saying, “I was very drunk at the time,” or “I don’t know what came over me; I just did it,” or similar excuses made to say why the sexualized situation drove them to act out. While they may still be predators – with wives and children of their own, whom they may or may not have molested – their victim count is often much lower than the preferential molesters, who prefer sexual acts with children, often focusing on one gender, or only attacking children of a certain age range. Their victim count can list into the hundreds before they are caught and prosecuted.
The last and more rare category – the try-sexuals – have highly aggressive sexual needs and will rape or assault adult men, women, and children of all ages. They literally will try to do what they want with anyone who comes across their path.
As the worst example of a try-sexual, I’m reminded of San Diego child killer, Scott Erskine, who sexually assaulted and murdered 13-year-old Charlie Keever and 9-year-old Jonathan Sellers in March 1993. Erskine’s despicable criminal past included sexually assaulting his sister when he was 10 and she was six; assaulting his sister’s friends; raping a 13-year-old girl when he was 15 (after escaping a juvenile detention facility); assaulting a 27-year-old female jogger; attempting to rape an unconscious 14-year-old boy; raping a male jail inmate; and raping and sodomizing a woman whom he held hostage in his home for several days. It was from this act that police got his DNA and were able to tie him to the murders of Keever and Sellers. He was also convicted by his DNA of the murder of a 26-year-old woman in Florida from 1989. It was reported that in 1980, when he was 18 years old, Erskine tried to become a camp counselor. Imagine the physical and emotional devastation he could have created had he got that job? Erskine’s sexual assault victim pool knew no limits.
Part of the denial about predators who infiltrate our schools and churches starts with the screening process. Public school districts and larger churches (who have the money to spend) may do a much better job screening applications, doing through background checks (including LiveScan fingerprint checks), and conducting useful interviews. Smaller school districts, private schools, academies, or small churches (which may be run on a shoestring budget) may not be as thorough or exacting.
This is especially true when they rely on the “Myth of No Past Problems” (as coined by security expert Gavin de Becker), which uses misguided thinking that says, “Well, he has done this type of work before and we didn’t hear back from his previous employers, the other schools, or the other churches where he worked. He seems like a good person, answered all our standard interview questions, and really, really wants the job.”
An important part of the solution to this issue starts with changing the organizational mindset. School and church officials need to first start the process of bringing any new employee or volunteer into the facility by screening them out, not screening them in. In other words, prove to us all why we should hire you. Besides a problem-free background screen (civil and criminal checks), we can use panel interviews to get a group-wide assessment of the person.
And how about asking these types of questions to all applicants who want to work around kids: “What do you think should happen to a person who is accused of inappropriate sexual contact with a child?” The reasonable answer: “They should be immediately investigated and if it’s true, fired and prosecuted.” The red flag answer, “Well, I think a lot of it depends upon the context of the situation. Some kids lie and there are reasons why certain things happen.”
Or, “We ask all our applicants to sign a full waiver to release information about their past employment or where they worked in volunteer organizations. Then we send a detailed questionnaire to your previous school, church, or group, asking, among other subjects, if you have ever engaged in any physical violence or sexual contact with a child. Is there any reason those questionnaires about you would not be returned to us by your past employers or groups?” Reasonable answer: “No. Sounds good to me.” Red flag answer: “Well, some of the people that knew me at those other places might not know me very well.”
Again, the process here is to use legal, ethical, and useful tools and questions to screen school and church applicants out, based on their vague, sketchy, or ambiguous answers.
Using personal references is often a waste of time because a lot of people are not courageous enough to tell strangers bad things they might now about someone. And the problem with criminal background checks is that while they are useful in determining criminal convictions, because of legal reasons, they don’t tell us about criminal arrests. Any conviction involving any physical contact with a minor must be thoroughly explained. A misdemeanor conviction for furnishing alcohol could be a stupid mistake or a precursor to sexual behavior, even if there was no subsequent conviction.
In order to screen people out, we don’t need to be absolutely 100 percent correct in our suspicions, just have enough to say, “I think we ought to politely pass on hiring or bringing this person on board, based on the answers we have or have not received.” We don’t need to wait until the predator has acted with one more children, many, many times, to confirm our initial concerns. (Some people around the situation will not believe the victim, because to do so would prove their early naiveté with the likable, friendly, helpful suspect.)
Child predators follow a well-worn cycle: act out; deny, justify, or rationalize it; suppress the urge and pretend to be “normal”; fight the building tension and urge to act out again; prepare to act out by finding or grooming the target; act out; go into denial mode again; repeat the process until discovered; leave the school or church just before the water gets too hot; or get arrested and prosecuted. We need to a better job of interrupting these opportunities.
1. “Arrest Rocks North County School.” San Diego Union-Tribune, October 19, 2013, A-6.
Dr. Steve Albrecht, PHR, CPP, BCC, is a San Diego-based speaker, author, and trainer. He is board certified in HR, security, and coaching. He focuses on high-risk employee issues, threat assessments, and school and workplace violence prevention. In 1994, he co-wrote Ticking Bombs, one of the first business books on workplace violence. He holds a doctorate in Business Administration (DBA); an M.A. in Security Management; a B.S. in Psychology; and a B.A. in English. He worked for the San Diego Police Department for 15 years and has written 17 books on business, HR, and police subjects. He can be reached at drsteve@drstevealbrecht.com or on Twitter @DrSteveAlbrecht
