Jerry Sandusky And Socialization In Criminology

Of the many problems faced by children and adolescents, few provoke such moral outrage as childhood sexual abuse. Many times, as on the television show “To Catch a Predator”, such abuse can be inflicted by strangers who may gradually become familiar with the child online. Sadly, however, often times the perpetrator of sexual abuse on children is someone much more familiar to the child- someone the child may even love.

Child molestation and sexual assault is an ever growing problem in the United States today, but an even bigger problem is that these pedophiles are being released after only serving as little as one quarter of their sentence. In California alone (at the time the bill was first passed), there was an estimated 680 individuals on parole for molestation and other sexual assaults including sodomy by force with a victim under the age of thirteen as well as child molestation with foreign objects.

Throughout the ages, media and society have been concerned over children. Instead of youth as folk devils, children nowadays serve as the victims of folk devils (Critcher, 2002, p.532). With these trigger events popping up, stereotypes are gradually formed. In recent British history, Paedophile had become one of the most terrifying folk-devils (Jenkins, 1992, p.99). Paedophile behaviour is a moral panic one legal case and the panic is generally fuelled by the sensationalism of media in

Spohn, Beichner, and Davis-Frenzel do not conduct a field study as Frohmann does, instead they examined all sexual assault cases cleared by arrest in Miami Florida in 1997. They did however replicate Frohmann’s design of interviewing a sample of the prosecutors who handled the cases. By using this different method of research, Spohn, Beichner, and Davis-Frenzel’s are able to show the frequency in which prosecutors used discrepant accounts and ulterior motives to reject cases. This extends upon Frohmann’s research. Their findings that, “charging decisions primarily reflect the prosecutor’s assessment of the likelihood of conviction” (Spohn, et al. 2001, p. 206) is consistent with Frohmann 's Findings. They also agreed with Frohmann’s categories of typifications, however they found that a substantial amount of cases were rejected for reasons other than discrediting the victim such as, the victim’s failure to appear for a pretrial interview, refusal to cooperate in the prosecution of the case, or admission that the charges were fabricated (Spohn, et al. 2001).

Medina, B. (2011). How Penn State's Sex-Abuse Scandal Unfolded: A timeline. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 58(13)Link

At the age of 22, Sandusky married his wife Dorothy. At the age of 25, in 1969, he served as defensive line coach, and in 1970 became linebacker coach. The year of 1977 was a highlight on Sandusky’s life, he was promoted to defensive coordinator, position that he held until his retirement in 1999, and opened a charity foundation dedicated to help children with dysfunctional families that was called “Second Mile”. The

The environment a child is surrounded in is what develops a child’s perception into the mind of a criminal. The mind of a child is made purely of innocence until one is exposed to destructive developmental patterns. Children that have grown into the shoes of a criminal had been raised into a home with no control and where the environment creates vulnerability. Those who grow up into childhood with an unorganized lifestyle only want to possess the control and power that criminals contain. Children raised in this unstable environment develop a slow pace of skills adolescents learn earlier on (Shi and Nicol par.2). Juvenile sex offenders do not fully develop basic skills which makes it easier to be negatively pressured by society (par.

A common assumption amongst those in the field of criminal justice is that most adult criminals were victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and/or neglect in their childhood. A study by Steele in 1975 found that, of 200 detained juvenile offenders, between 72% and 84% had backgrounds of child abuse (Weeks & Widom, 1998). A 1979 study by Lewis, Schanok, Pincus, and Glaser found that of a sample of male juvenile offenders, 75% had experienced childhood physical abuse. In follow-up interviews with the same subjects previously surveyed, 80% reported childhood physical abuse (Weeks & Widom, 1998). A study done by the Department of Correctional Services Research and Reporting Unit in 1983 had inmates answer a questionnaire; 25.2% of the inmates who answered the questionnaire reported childhood victimization (1998).

In 2011 the initial shock of the media and reports of the Sandusky scandal uncovering years of victims and allegations, left spectators in disbelief. The idea that this type of abuse went undetected from 1994 to 2009 seemed preposterous. The fact of the matter is that Sandusky was enabled to continue his abuse through high ranking school officials sweeping Sandusky’s behavior under the rug (Chappell, 2012).

Freeh Sporking & Sullivan, LLP. (2012). Report of the Special Investigative Counsel Regarding the Actions of The Pennsylvania State University Related to the Child Sexual Abuse Committed by Gerald A. Sandusky. Retrieved from http://progress.psu.edu/assets/content/REPORT_FINAL_071212.pdf

For over thirty years Gerald “Jerry” Sandusky abused the trust of the residents of Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. For over thirty years Jerry Sandusky robbed, traumatized, and manipulated over half a dozen innocent boys. And in those thirty years numerous individuals knew and remained silence, and watched Jerry violate these children. Jerry used his organization, second mile, as a shield to lure in his victims, showered them with gifts, attention and special trips to Penn State esteemed football facility. On those trips, numerous times concluded with inappropriate molestation and even penetration.

The Jerry Sandusky investigation would continue after subpoenas would be served into his records at Penn State University. Just like anything else, past reports begin to become known even though it took the 1998 reports before these older reports were known. These incidents were reported 1994 – 1997. “According to the grand jury report, Sandusky allegedly engages in inappropriate conduct with three different boys he met separately through the Second Mile program. One boy was 7 or 8, another was 10 and the third was 12 or 13 at the time. According to the grand jury report, the now-grown men said Sandusky engaged in inappropriate conduct ranging from touching to outright sexual encounters, including several incidents during the night before Penn

Prior to this assignment, I’d heard about the Jerry Sandusky case but never did much research on it. I knew the basics about the molestation allegations and him eventually being convicted but that’s about it. Doing further research and looking more into the story in regards to this assignment, I’ve learned a lot about the case and it is actually very interesting topic. I believe that many factors come

Perpetrators of sex crimes committed against children often start by gaining the trust of potential victims and the adults in their lives’ by using a tactic called “grooming.” The purpose of this memo is to give the court a baseline understanding of what sex offender victim grooming is, its purpose, and techniques. Because of the extensive amount of research and information on this topic, this paper does not detail all of the grooming techniques used by child sex offenders to groom potential victims.

Central Idea (Thesis Statement): Most people fear the fact’s of child molestation, but the truth is there is a very distinct definition to child molestation, severe effects to the child in the aftermath, and a long road to a successful recovery.