{"id":5253,"date":"2014-04-09T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=5253"},"modified":"2014-04-09T09:33:42","modified_gmt":"2014-04-09T13:33:42","slug":"oped-help-us-protect-pennsylvanias-kids-from-sexual-predators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=5253","title":{"rendered":"Op\/Ed: Help us protect Pennsylvania’s kids from sexual predators"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Heckler,<\/strong>\u00a0 Bucks County District Attorney,<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Tom Hogan<\/strong>, Chester County District Attorney<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jack Whelan<\/strong>,\u00a0Delaware County District Attorney<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Risa Vetri Ferman<\/strong>,\u00a0Montgomery County District Attorney<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Seth Williams<\/strong>,\u00a0Philadelphia District Attorney\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"pdaa\"<\/a>As prosecutors, we confront harrowing and heart-wrenching cases nearly every day.\u00a0\u00a0 It is the child sexual abuse cases that are among the toughest and saddest cases we prosecute.\u00a0 Government\u2019s first responsibility is to protect its people, especially our children.\u00a0\u00a0 That is why we have an affirmative and moral duty not only to hold the sexual offenders accountable, but to try to prevent these cases as well.\u00a0 One thing we know is that child predators often seek out positions that provide them access to and power over children.\u00a0 Few jobs fit the bill so well as that of a teacher.\u00a0 A predator hired as a teacher is the proverbial wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing, just waiting to attack our children.<\/p>\n

Consider that since January 1 of this year, 119 teachers have been arrested across the United States for sexual misconduct with a child. 119!\u00a0 That is more than one assault for every day so far this year.\u00a0 Twelve of those cases were in Pennsylvania. They are horrific.\u00a0 One child\u2019s abuse began at age 10 and only ended when, at age 17, she found herself pregnant with the teacher\u2019s child. An 11th<\/sup> grade English teacher accused of performing sex acts with a teenager in her classroom. A 16 year-old girl raped by her instructor in a classroom closet. And these are just the predators who have been caught.<\/p>\n

We need to prevent these kinds of terrible abuse. That is why we are asking the United States Senate to pass Senator Pat Toomey\u2019s bill, the Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act.<\/p>\n

This bipartisan bill requires any state education agency receiving federal funds to perform background checks on all employees and contractors\u2014new hires and existing workers\u2014who have access to children. Senator Toomey\u2019s bill requires that the background checks be repeated regularly to prevent anyone from slipping through the cracks, and that the checks be extremely thorough, spanning two state and two federal databases.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania, unfortunately, currently falls short of this standard: Pennsylvania law requires background checks only for new hires, not existing employees. And if an applicant has been a state resident for two years, the school is required to check only the state\u2019s databases, not the federal ones. Under Senator Toomey\u2019s bill, a school may not hire a person if he or she has committed certain crimes, including any violent or sexual crime against a child.<\/p>\n

Equally significant, Senator Toomey\u2019s bill bans the reprehensible practice of a school letting a child predator quietly resign and move along to a new school, a practice so common it has its own moniker\u2014\u201cpassing the trash.\u201d Complementary legislation also has been introduced in the Pennsylvania General Assembly by Senator Anthony Williams and Representative David Maloney.<\/p>\n

There are too many cases where schools, when faced with teachers who stand accused of sexual or other misconduct of students, have sought resignation of the teachers rather than an investigation.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 To avoid public disclosure of the misconduct. \u00a0That means a potential predator has landed at another school, ready to continue to abuse children.\u00a0 To value the reputation of a school over the safety of a child is a recipe for abuse, and it is time to stop incentivizing our schools to pass the trash.<\/p>\n

In short, cases involving children, particular when there are allegations of sexual abuse, are among the most challenging to investigate and prosecute.\u00a0 More information, not less, helps law enforcement identify perpetrators and ensure they do not victimize anyone else.<\/p>\n

We believe that Senator Toomey\u2019s bill is simple common sense, for Pennsylvania and all 50 states. Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives House passed this bill unanimously. The U.S. Senate needs to act, and act now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Heckler,\u00a0 Bucks County District Attorney, Tom Hogan, Chester County District Attorney Jack Whelan,\u00a0Delaware County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman,\u00a0Montgomery County District Attorney Seth Williams,\u00a0Philadelphia District Attorney\u00a0 As prosecutors, we confront harrowing and heart-wrenching cases nearly every day.\u00a0\u00a0 It is the child sexual abuse cases that are among the toughest and saddest cases we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14,7],"tags":[156,3388,3387,3386],"class_list":["post-5253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-columns","category-featured","tag-chester-county-district-attorney-tom-hogan","tag-protecting-students-from-sexual-and-violent-predators-act","tag-sen-pat-toomey","tag-sexual-predator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}