The Power of Words. Why I write about child molestation

1/14/98
Laura Meade Kirk: Why I write
about child molestation

       A co-worker asked the other day when I was going to stop writing about child molesters. "When they stop molesting children,'' I said.
      I never set out to be the newsroom expert on child molestation. But after spending much of 1996 working on a monthly series on the crime, I learned more than any reasonable person would want to.
      Some of the stories focused on the victims, such as a 4-year-old boy who scratched his thin wrists and arms with a steak knife until he drew blood in a pitiful attempt to try to kill himself after being molested.
      Others examined the molesters, including the man who raped and impregnated the 12-year-old daughter of his live-in girlfriend and another who climbed into bed to fondle his stepdaughter and was caught there by his wife.
      The stories, which ran on the front page of the Providence Journal-Bulletin month after month, underscored the devastating physical and emotional effects of this crime.
      They also confirmed what child sexual abuse experts had suspected for years: that most child molesters arrested in Rhode Island serve little or no prison time, even though first-degree child molestation is a felony that carries the same penalty as murder -- up to life in prison.
      This series, called Innocence Lost, was one of the toughest assignments I've ever had. To me, it was also one of the most important.
      We were able to show readers that child molestation can and does occur, far more often than any of us would like to acknowledge. The series also showed that most molesters aren't strangers lurking in bushes, but rather people with close relationships to their victims -- often family members and friends.
      It wasn't easy. Court records of child molestation cases in Rhode Island have been sealed by Superior Court Chief Justice Joseph Rodgers, who says courts must protect the identities of children who are sexually assaulted. (The Journal-Bulletin last year filed suit seeking access to all information in the court files except that which identifies the victim. That suit is pending in state Supreme Court.)
      But once I started writing about the topic, many people called or wrote of their experiences with the crime, pointing me toward many of the later stories. In addition, digging led to other stories, such as the ones that showed how most child molesters arrested in a given year received little or no jail time after conviction. (We used our computer system to check court files provided by the Superior Court to identify every case in which a person had been charged with child molestation, then further checked the records to learn the disposition of the case including sentencing.)
      The biggest challenge was to be explicit enough to shock and outrage our readers without grossing them out to the point that they wouldn't believe it, or would simply tune it out.
      Clearly, people read it. We received more than 100 phone calls, letters and e-mail messages in response to the series -- most from people with their own stories to tell.
      And though the series is over, the stories continue. Just the other day, I was working on a story of the painful legacy left behind by Dana Waters, a camp counselor, nanny and babysitter, convicted of molesting nearly a dozen young boys in his care.
      So I can't say when I'll stop writing about child molestation. I only wish I could.

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