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 on August 29, 2011
The Day America Changed Forever
As anyone who hasn’t been living on the moon knows the 10th Anniversary of the horrific September 11th attacks is fast approaching.
I, for one, don’t want to hear about it. I really just want to stay in bed all day and bury my head under a pillow.
That doesn’t mean I won’t commemorate the anniversary – because I most definitely and painfully will. But the media drum beat toward the date has already begun and it has put a pit in my stomach the size of a grapefruit.
There are at least 40 different TV specials planned over the next few weeks leading up to the awful date of September 11th. Each of the top three networks – ABC, CBS and NBC has a big boffo special planned, plus extra coverage on their early morning and evening news programs. CNN has no fewer than four separate documentaries on the 9-11 attacks scheduled. The National Geographic Channel plans to devote a full week to its coverage. Countless other cable channels have their own 9-11 plans. And, of course, just wait till you see the onslaught of coverage from your local news stations. I predict it will be non-stop as the date approaches. [click to continue…]
by Diane on June 22, 2009
Returning Vets Need Understanding
In America everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law. But we’ve got a growing group, a particular class of defendants entering American courtrooms who I believe need special consideration. They are soldiers returning from war.
Several studies conclude that between 30% to 40% of the approximately 1.6 million vets of Iraq and Afghanistan will “face serious mental-health injuries” like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and problems from traumatic brain injuries. Experts in the field report both those conditions are linked to anti-social and criminal behavior.
Now, to me those numbers – up to 40% of the troops afflicted – seem high. But if it’s even half that it’s too many brave souls returning home needing special help. So, what do we do with a soldier, who put their life on hold to go to a foreign land to fight for our liberty, when they come home and get into trouble with the law? [click to continue…]
by Diane on January 10, 2009
The Day The World Changed
Newsweek Magazine has put a criminal justice conundrum in my head.
In a piece called, “Remains of the Day” Correspondent Eve Conant writes in detail about how forensic scientists in New York, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia painstakingly went about identifying what was left of the human beings caught up in the worst crime in modern American times – The attacks of September 11th, 2001.
Now, wait. Before you stop reading, thinking this is just another tearjerker tale that you’ve read about before – it isn’t.
It’s all about the science of getting justice. [click to continue…]
