The teacher abuse double standard

Teachers sexually abusing students has unfortunately become a normal news item in the last twenty years. Female teachers abusing male students garners the most media attention. That coverage may lead some to believe that women who abuse students face harsher sentences when convicted. However, it appears the opposite is true. According to a Star-Ledger investigation of 97 cases in New Jersey, male teachers are more often convicted and face longer sentences:

The data about 72 men and 25 women also shows:

• Male defendants went to prison in 54 percent of cases compared with 44 percent of cases for female defendants;
• Men averaged 2.4 years in prison compared with 1.6 years in prison for women, or 50 percent more time;
• Ninety-three of the 97 cases ended in plea deals;
• €…Forty-seven cases ended in noncustodial sentences, which typically involved pre-trial intervention programs or probation.

This comes as no surprise to anyone following the media coverage of these cases. As the paper noted:

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Boy Scouts agree to release ‘perversion files’ — The Boy Scouts of America said Thursday it will release to attorneys 10 years of confidential files it uses to keep pedophile suspects from becoming troop leaders or volunteers. The decision comes after the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio denied an appeal from the BSA to keep the files sealed. “Youth protection is of paramount importance to the Boy Scouts of America,” BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in an email. “We are thankful the court reviewed this matter and will comply with its order.”

Discrimination against men? — Recent Virgin airlines passenger, John McGirr claims Virgin airlines treated him like a sexual predator on a flight to Sydney. He claims a flight attendant asked him to move saying he was not allowed to sit next to children because he was male. According to Mr McGirr the flight attendant walked up the aisle and tried to find a female to swap seats with him. “By that time, people had looked around and it was like I’d done something wrong, (I felt) defenceless.

Ex-Scout leader admits sexual abuse of boys — Henry Calder, 60, who had been in a position of responsibility in the Scout Association for about 40 years, had taken videos between 1982 and 1991 at camps organised by the movement. He had also been an employee in the finance department at East Dunbartonshire Council until his retirement in 2010. Calder, of Kirkintilloch, was arrested in a raid organised under the auspices of Operation Alba, which targeted people who downloaded child pornography on the internet.

Too racist to molest a child

Over the years, we have heard sex offenders use a number of excuses to rationalize their actions. We have also heard them use a number of excuses to explain why they should not go to prison. But never have we heard this:

A first-grade teacher at an Humble prep school cited her racial prejudice against black students in denying allegations that she fondled a girl in her classroom last month, according to court records.

Esther Irene Stokes, 61, of Montgomery, was charged with indecency with a child April 10, court records show.

The 7-year-old student told police that Stokes, her teacher at Northwest Preparatory Academy Charter School, sent all the students out of the classroom and touched her on her “private part” on the outside of her clothes on March 1, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

Humble police met with Stokes after she failed a polygraph examination. Stokes denied touching the girl “on any part of her body,” prosecutors said.

“The defendant stated that she doesn’t like black students because she was prejudiced,” the complaint states. She told police that “she does not like the complainant” and has “very little to no interaction” with her.

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Accuser in Sex Slave Case Allowed Restitution — A 25-year-old Vermont man who says two former West Haven firefighters sexually assaulted him since childhood has been allowed to seize a house and bank accounts belonging to one of the men he accused. Earlier this year, state police charged Frank Meyer, 39, of West Haven, and Brett Bartolotta, 42, of Cavendish, Vermont, with aggravated sexual assault and slave trafficking.

Former teacher is jailed for sexually abusing boy — A former teacher who watched teenage boys being beaten with a whip before sexually abusing them has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years’ imprisonment. Mario Bugeja, 45, from Qala had been accused of abusing four boys but three of them withdrew complaints against him, placing the blame instead on another former teacher, Martin Cefai, as the one who “ruined” their lives. Mr Cefai is currently appealing against a custodial sentence.

Former voice of Elmo hit with 5th sex abuse suit — A fifth man has filed a lawsuit alleging sex abuse by Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who gave Sesame Street’s Elmo his voice. The allegations that Kevin Kiadii, 25, made against Clash, 52, are similar to those made by four other men who said they were courted and seduced by Clash when they were underage teenagers. The lawyer defending Clash called the other suits “meritless and barred by the statute of limitations,” but he did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on the newest filing.

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Art teacher sexually abused boy for years, court told — A high school art teacher on Sydney’s northern beaches gave drugs to a teenage student and then performed sex acts on him on multiple occasions, subjecting him to years of abuse, a Sydney court has heard. Peter Wayne Scott, 62, is facing child sex and drug supply charges over a series of incidents at Cromer High School in the mid-1980s with a boy then aged between 14 and 16.

Evangelical church accused of ignoring sexual abuse, “pedophilia ring” — I was not surprised when Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), the church group I grew up in as a teen and young adult, was served with a lawsuit this past October, alleging clergy cover-ups of sexual abuse. Sadly, I was even less surprised when the suit was amended in January to include Covenant Life Church (CLC), the congregation I had attended for nine years, and to add new charges of physical and sexual abuse by pastors, as well as allegations of abuse on church property.

Exploited boys remain invisible — Yoyo was 14 when he was thrown out of his house. He knew even then he was gay, but coming out to his family left him homeless and broke. He lost one job after another. He thought about suicide. He traveled around, voguing in ballroom dance events and looking for work. Then one of his women friends suggested they try to make money “escorting,” to use the popular euphemism. Soon enough, Yoyo was in “the life.”

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16-year-old boy sexually abused by teacher — A 16-year-old boy was allegedly sexually abused by his teacher inside a residential school located in south Delhi. The 45-year-old accused, who is employed as a Yoga teacher in the school, has been arrested and remanded in judicial custody. The incident took place on January 11. According to the police, the victim is a class IX student.

Child Soldier’s Tale Illustrates Mali’s Dirty War — The boy sits with his knees tucked under his chest on the concrete floor of the police station here, his adolescent face a tableau of fear. He’s still garbed in the knee-length tunic he was ordered to wear by the Islamic extremist who recruited him. It’s these same clothes, styled after those worn by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, which gave him away when he tried to flee earlier this week. They have now become his prison garb.

Facing a painful cross-examination, a 9-year-old boy who alleges a former school aide sexually abused him stood up and screamed at the defense attorney — A 9-year-old special needs student testified Friday against the school aide accused of sexually abusing him — at several points, rising from the stand and screaming at the defense attorney for “being a bully” as he was peppered with questions about his problems at school. The child witness — barely tall enough to reach the microphone — told jurors that former Department of Education employee Gregory Atkins followed him into the bathroom of his Upper West Side school multiple times on Feb. 2, 2012.

Fourth-grade teacher in LA charged with molesting 20 students — A fourth-grade teacher who worked nearly 40 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing 20 students, a year after another veteran teacher accused of molesting nearly two dozen pupils brought national attention to the district and the problem of classroom sex abuse. After a 10-month investigation, eight felony counts of continual sexual abuse and seven counts of lewd acts upon a child were filed Wednesday against Robert Pimentel, of Newport Beach, for abuse that allegedly took place at George De La Torre Jr. Elementary in the Wilmington area, officer Christopher No told The Associated Press. 

Woman gets away with rape by marrying her victim

This is a first:

A former Brunswick County teacher charged with having sex with a student pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge after she married the victim, preventing the state from compelling him to testify against her, a prosecutor said this week. [...] [Leah Gayle Shipman] was a married Brunswick County Academy teacher when she was arrested in January 2009 on charges of sexual offense with a student, statutory rape and taking indecent liberties with a student. Shipman was immediately suspended from her job and her contract wasn’t renewed.

According to court records, Shipman divorced her husband on January 19, 2011 and six days later married her victim. Apparently the boy had his mother’s permission. The tricky issue is this: the boy was 15-years-old when Shipman began the abuse. She should be charged with a sex offense, but: