by Diane Dimond on November 21, 2011
The Fight Against Child Abuse Needs A Plan
Those who fight to stop child abuse need to get some pizzazz in their campaign. They need a marketing strategy. They’ve got no slogan or badge or colored ribbon for supporters to display to acknowledge their solidarity in trying to wipe out this criminal scourge.
As everyone knows the crippling psychological effects of childhood abuse and neglect often lasts a lifetime. And if the abuse is of a sexual nature a victim can grow up to victimize others in a similar fashion. It’s an awful cycle.
Those on the front line of this fight – abuse survivors, law enforcement’s first responders, social workers, prosecutors and medical experts need an enthusiastic movement like the one launched by the family of the late Susan G. Komen who died of breast cancer in 1980. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on November 14, 2011
How Many Boys Were Sexually Abused?
Imagine an 11 year old boy from an underprivileged family who gets help from a local charity called The Second Mile so he can spend time with members of the exalted Penn State University football team.
This little boy is ushered onto campus and is introduced around by one of the team’s top coaches. He gets to work out with the players and see the action up close. This kid feels like a King! Boy, wait till he tells his buddies back in the housing project where he lives with his single mother.
But a part of the boy’s dream includes something he wishes he could forget. The coach that brought him to this wondrous place suggests a shower at the end of their special day and when they are both naked engages in sexually charged behavior with the child. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on October 31, 2011
Can There Be Too Much Sunshine?
Every state has laws that govern the public’s access to government records. From New Mexico to North Dakota – Alabama to Alaska – each have varying degrees of these so-called Sunshine Laws. The media loves Sunshine Laws because they allow easy access to information. But many on the other end of the equation don’t feel so “sunshine-y” about having their business or personal information revealed to the public. There is no state more liberal in doling out government information than Florida — nicknamed the Sunshine State — and in my opinion their Public Records Law has now put some of their own citizens at risk. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on October 24, 2011
Halloween Fun! But Not For All
The spookiest time of the year is fast approaching and you have likely already heard about local law enforcement officers preparing to keep your area free of danger on Halloween night.
They may be visiting schools to counsel kids on safe practices, they may be warning drivers about watching out for children on Halloween night and in communities across America officers are fanning out to knock on the doors of registered sex offenders.
The idea behind visiting local S.O.’s (as they are referred to) is twofold.
First, it’s a transparent effort to check that the address police have on record for the ex-offender is still good. Second, it is a somber face-to-face warning to the S.O. that they are not allowed to interact with children on Halloween. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on October 17, 2011
Who Dreamed Up The Fast & Furious Plan?
What the hell is going on in this country? And why don’t our federal officials just man-up and admit when mistakes have been made?
Now, keep in mind – I don’t write about politics so this is not a partisan attack. I write about crime and justice. So, take what I’m about to say in that spirit.
And remember the name “Fast and Furious” because I predict you’ll be hearing a lot about it in the days ahead.
Here’s the backstory: Someone at the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives … [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on October 10, 2011
Those With Criminal Records Are Worst Off
With the U.S. unemployment over nine percent these days nearly everyone knows someone who is out of work or under-employed. It’s a tragic and desperate time for millions of Americans.
But there is one sector of the population hit harder than any other – those Americans who carry the stigma of a past criminal conviction. An almost unbelievable 65 million people – one in every four U.S. adults – falls into this category. And, in this War-on-Terror era employers are conducting background checks on new hires like never before. No matter how exemplary a life a person has led since their conviction, their past record will pop up.
Look, no one could fault an employer for thinking twice about hiring someone who has been convicted of murder or child molestation. But, according to the author of a [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on October 3, 2011
Jaycee Dugard - Survivor, Mother, Activist
My annual Hero of the Year award usually comes up in December but this year I can’t wait. I’ve already picked the person who I think has most changed the world of crime and justice during 2011.
My hero is Jaycee Dugard. She was held as a sex slave, finally rescued and now instead of being withdrawn or bitter, she has embraced us all with details of her harrowing story and formed a charitable organization to help other families recovering from abduction.
Jaycee’s ordeal began when she was 11 years old. Now she’s 30 and finally free of a pair of kidnappers – a convicted sex offender named Phillip Garrido and his accomplice-wife, Nancy. They used a stun gun to pluck little Jaycee off a country road in South Tahoe, California in June 1991 as she waited for a school bus one morning. She remembers clawing at the ground to try to escape, clutching a pine cone as her last touch with freedom. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on September 26, 2011
A Great American Past-time - Taking Pictures
The scene is repeated across America millions of times each year. Citizens raise their cameras to snap a picture and immortalize what they see. Taking photographs is as much of the American fabric as driving a car.
But since 9-11 that right has begun to erode like so many others: walking unencumbered onto an airplane; living without the multitude of leering surveillance cameras; gaining entrance to a public building without showing identification.
I get the reason for all the cautious security, I honestly do. I think our country is still under the threat of a terrorist attack. But some of those with badges tasked with monitoring the threat overstep their bounds in the name of national security. I can’t get over the feeling that every time they over-react the terrorists – who are determined to change our freedom loving way of life – win. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on September 19, 2011
Sperm Banks Are Big Business
Many years ago I was assigned to cover a story about a certain sperm donor, a newly graduated doctor in Kansas who had donated on such a frequent and regular basis that he was suspected of being the biological father to 500 children. You read that right – 500 children!
My research led me to learn that professors and medical mentors had often urged their male med school residents to donate sperm as a way to a.) Put a little money in their pockets and b.) To help propagate future generations of intelligent children. The belief was that if the sperm came from a person smart enough and driven enough to study to be a doctor, well, all of mankind could benefit from the children they would sire.
An elitist viewpoint, to be sure, but a prevalent one back in the early 90’s. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on September 12, 2011
Store Surveillance of Mother With Baby in Bag
It has happened again and it breaks my heart.
A young mother in Hendersonville, North Carolina walked into a grocery store recently clutching her boyfriend’s hand on her left and a big heavy looking shoulder bag on her right – a bag that nearly scraped the ground as she walked.
The teenager headed straight for the store’s ladies’ room and stepped inside. When she re-appeared on the grocery’s surveillance video exactly four minutes later she had exchanged her red sun dress for a pair of slacks and a blouse. Her bag was casually slung over her shoulder looking a whole lot less heavy.
Within hours a store employee cleaning the restroom found a dead newborn baby in one of the stall’s trash cans. The 9-11 call to police was painful to listen to as another worker gasped between sobs and begged for help for the dead baby.
Whoever abandoned the little girl had just committed a felony. [click to continue…]
