The Penn State Child Sex Abuse Case

“One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college” (Not Alone, 2014). In our class of twenty women that means that possibly five women have been sexually assaulted. Out of the five women that I stated could have been sexually assaulted they may have known the perpetrator and often will not report what has happened. According to the spring count of students completed by West Chester University, 9,211 of those students were females (“Headcount Enrollment”, 2014). If I go by the statistic mentioned earlier that one in five women is assaulted that would mean that 1,842 women have been sexually assaulted while enrolled at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Out of 1,842 possible assaults only four were reported last year. Two of which the victims knew prior to the assault. Rankin and Associates consulting conducted a Climate Assessment on West Chester University in September of 2010, a section of the results focused on sexual assault on students. According to the report seven people who reported a sexual assault to the university described their reactions to the universities response. Two students shared the way they felt the response was inappropriate or poor. One described that they felt the suspension for one semester was not an appropriate response to an admitted rape, that public safety lost the victims statement, judicial affairs painted the victim offender as innocent, and that the registrar protected the offender putting the victim in harm’s way and everyone

"Joseph Miller testi ed that he was head wrestling coach for the elementary wrestling program for that school district. He knew Victim 1, who had wrestled for him. Miller corroborated that one evening in 2006 or 2007, he returned to the high school to retrieve something he had forgotten. He saw a light on in the weight room which should have been turned off and when he went in, he discovered Victim 1 and Sandusky, lying on their sides, in physical contact, face to face on a mat. He said both Victim 1 and Sandusky were surprised to see him enter the room. He recalls

Penn State spent millions maybe billions in lawsuits, not only defending the college but paid out to victims as well. They lost contributions from Alumni’s; the university lost advertising deals, the support of major companies such as General Motors. The football program was sanctioned and could not participate in some of their games.

Taking risks because of a higher amount of optimism, not taking warnings seriously, and being accustomed to not arguing against views within the college all contributed to the Penn State Cover up. When officials had doubts or differing ideals from those of others at Penn State, they simply kept them to themselves by self-censorship. In fact, head coach Joe Paterno knew as far back as 1972 about his assistant coach Jerry Sandusky being involved in molestation allegations and never brought allegations to light ("Penn State Scandal Fast Facts - CNN.com," 2016). The Clergy act requires college universities to report crimes on campus and the Department of Education fined Penn State several million dollars for not reporting misconduct on campus citing that they disregarded multiple reports of sexual abuse of a child and therefore helped a long time sexual predator. Unfortunately, the culture in the college football world puts the highest priority on the game. This lead to major collective rationalization,

Everything was looking good for Joe Paterno and Penn State football as his football managing career rose with an overall record of 298-136-3 but in 2011, all that changed. Back in 2000 a janitor of Penn State witnessed Sandusky receiving oral sex from a young boy, the janitor reported what he saw to co-workers and his supervisor but none of these men reported these actions to authorities. It wasn’t until November 5, 2011 that Sandusky was arrested on a $100,000 bail and up to 40 criminal counts. ESPN were quickly in the scene to investigate and report the allegations on Sandusky. They quickly reported saying Sandusky was charged with more than 50 counts of child sex-abuse involving 10 boys he met through The Second

After retirement, Sandusky was still active in “The Second Mile” and used the school's facilities for meetings and activities. There, he was seen allegedly sexually assaulting two different boys in two separate incidents in 2000 and 2002. An investigation was initiated by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office into sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky in 2008. The investigation reached a new level of urgency when it became apparent that the allegations were not an isolated set of incidents, but that Sandusky had a strategy to abuse vulnerable boys. In 2011, Sandusky became infamous for allegedly committing numerous sexual offenses involving young boys. In October 2012, he was found guilty of 40 counts of sex crimes and sentenced to serve 30 to 60 years in prison, at his age, effectively a life

The school officials that contributed to covering up the Sandusky scandal were: Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, senior vice president for finance and business including overseeing the university police Gary Schultz, Penn State football coach, Joe Paterno and university president, Graham Spanier. All four of the elite university officials became informed of Sandusky’s sexual misconduct by a graduate assistant Mike McQueary who later became assistant coach to Paterno (Chappell, 2012). After Sandusky’s sexual misconduct was officially brought to the attention of these key officials the solution was to basically punish Sandusky by telling him he is no longer allowed to shower with the boys on campus facilities. The core group

The media had criticized the University for being so irresponsible. Many radio stations and newspapers harshly criticized the school for this scandal. Many people had criticized McQueary for not protecting the child that was being raped by Sandusky. The media criticized him for not protecting the child and reporting it to

The child sex abuse scandal overall is a public relations disaster that the university is likely to be dealing with for years to come. I definitely don’t believe this case was

Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory. It concerns how to evaluate a large range of things that involve choices communities or groups face. These choices include policies, laws, human’s rights, moral codes,

In this case, two English teachers at Destrehan High school were accused of having group sex with a 16 year old student at the time of report. Now being 17, Shelley Dufresne 32, held on bond for $200,000 and remains on house arrest and Rachel Respess 24, turned herself in after alleged reports. Both teachers are on paid leave and court hearings are still being assessed to determine the fate of their careers and future. This case I feel is biased towards deviance and crime. Deviance and crime is a behavior which goes against all the norms, values and expectations of society. The two teachers having sexual relations with a student aren't against the law, but in all reality they are meant to keep there students safe and educated. Education is the process of

The Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct, published by the American Psychological Association are the standard guidelines for all Psychologists. Forensic Psychologists are also informed by Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologist. Psychologists practicing forensic psychology can use these two documents to help clarify ethical questions. This paper will focus on role conflicts specifically in the area of Sex Offender Management and the ethical conflicts that may arise as a result and how to best handle this situation when faced with it. When an individual chooses to practice psychology within the legal system, they must be aware that this can at any point in their career lead to ethical conflicts. Just the possibility

In 1975, Pennsylvania enacted the Child Protective Services Law (CPSL) which was created to protect children from abuse and neglect. Ironically enough Sandusky created the Second Mile in 1977. Penn State only created a policy for reporting child abuse in May 14, 2012. According to the Freeh Report in both cases of 1998 and 2001 “the Board did not have regular reporting procedures or committee structures in place to ensure disclosure to the Board of major risks”. Penn State did not have any policies regarding reporting suspected child abuse or any policies regarding accountability between the Board and the staff of Penn State. If they had proper policies, the factor that Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley would have to report to the Board may have “inspired” them to act appropriately when allegations arose. Due to the fact that the Second Mile is no longer in existence I could not locate any old policies of the organization. I do believe that the Second Mile should have had proper policies in place regarding mandated reporting and proper conduct of the staff, volunteers and all involved in the organization. From what information was gathered the Second Mile appeared to give too much power to Jerry Sandusky and had no whistle-blower policy either. It is shocking for me to find out

I’m not asking for this to be reinvestigated as I think history has shown there is no point to that. The administration let the students down two years ago by allowing a culture of Joe being allowed to do whatever he wanted (evidenced in the attached picture) as he was protected by one of the very instructors who was supposed to protect ALL the students. This was proved again when two students finally after a couple of years of ongoing sexual assault went to their instructors to report what was going on. What happened? Basically nothing was done. He was told not to touch them anymore so he then started a campaign of emotional and mental abuse through social media and trying to turn the team against my daughter. Which sadly, he was partly successful in doing. People were afraid to stand up to him because they feared the repercussions that would come, which they did. Did the sexual abuse finally stop? Yes to me knowledge it did but it was replaced with verbal and mental abuse which is still abuse and again went unchecked. Even when Joe himself brought the social media information to the

Jerry Sandusky is a name no Pennsylvania State University football fan wants to hear on game day and 2011 is a year that many would likely forget if they could. On November 5th, 2011, several national media outlets reported Jerry Sandusky was a major part of an ongoing, three-year sexual abuse investigation (Klein & Cooper, 2016). The weeks following increasingly became harder to read news stories as more and more cryptic details began surfacing. Young children are so innocent and pure, what causes adults to rob them of their innocence? Reasons can vary from the thrill of molesting children, to feeling power and dominance over the child; furthermore, combining reasons like these to the childhood of Jerry Sandusky and socialization in criminology, one will better be able to understand the questions revolving around this topic.