The information and views presented in this article are those of Guest Author: David Allburn, Executive Director, Safe Harbor Resources. Managers of volunteers who work with youth or other vulnerable populations may gain interesting new insights into standard screening processes.
Special thanks to Linda Graff for her review and edits of this article.
Introduction: Safe Harbor Resources is a national-in-scope nonprofit registered in Ohio that aims to thwart sophisticated serial pedophiles who infiltrate youth and children's programs, and of whom 97% are undetectable by ordinary means. The author is a retired USAF electronics engineer and business manager trained in counter-terrorism during the Viet Nam era. His was one of the 34 grants awarded in the US by the United Methodist Bishops' Initiative on Children and Poverty in 2002. He founded Safe Harbor Resources on 9/11/2001. What follows are some of the discoveries he has made in his research about volunteer and worker screening shortcomings and some ways to plug those loopholes.
This article is designed to increase awareness of the sexual predators who infiltrate youth-serving organizations. Since 97% of these predators have no criminal history, and virtually all of them maintain "trophy testimonials" to offer as references, ordinary screening methods are grossly ineffective. Worse, the customary reference-checking methods are mistaken for "screening" and further fail to elicit red flag information, which would suggest risks. Readers who screen volunteers will find a low-cost way to plug some of these screening loopholes if they are willing to devote extra time themselves to the incredibly important task of increasing the protection of the children. Policy-makers will find an opportunity to appreciate the enormous difference between risk-of-loss and risk-of-harm; to consider means of reducing both risks instead of just one; and to explore the effectiveness of current screening practices, such as criminal history, reference checks, and interviews.
WHO INFILTRATES AND WHY ARE THEY HARD TO DETECT?
Of specific focus in this article are the prolific serial, preferential predators described by Kenneth Lanning so well in his free book from the National Center on Missing & Exploited Children, www.missingkids.org. The Able & Harlow studies (1987) and others reveal that this type of predator averages from dozens to hundreds of victims, operating undetected for whole lifetimes because they are expert at deception, expert at terrorizing children into lifetimes of silence, expert at impersonating "the perfect volunteer" and because 97% of them will never have a criminal history or fingerprints-on-file. While they comprise a minority of predator types, they are responsible for the majority of sexually abused children outside the home. They can only generate such high victim-counts by infiltrating youth-serving organizations. Youth programs are prime targets for these predators as grounds for selecting and grooming the victims, not as venues for performing the sexual acts themselves. Thus it can sometimes be technically true that "It cannot happen here" because those cherishing that myth define "it" as the sexual abuse itself. In this sense it does not "happen here" because the abuse occurs elsewhere, in private, once sufficient trust and authority have been built up via the predator's grooming activity. What program administrators tragically misunderstand is that their youth serving organization provides the relationship and the opportunity for the abuse to occur by placing such predators in positions of trust in the first place. That the abuse may not actually take place on site does not in any way reduce the organization�s responsibility for the safety of the relationship it creates.
Facing these dismal facts allows us to critique the typical insurance-inspired policy or volunteer screening criteria, which center on the criminal history background check, the reference-check, and the interview. To understand the weakness in these traditional cornerstones of screening processes, it helps to divide child sexual predators into two groups: the Caught-Befores and the Never-Caughts. The Caught-Befores have criminal histories available to non-police inquiries, and the Never-Caughts don't.
On the written application, during reference checks, and during interviews, both types appear as The Perfect Volunteer. They attempt to conceal or minimize any complaint history and arrests, they offer "trophy testimonials" as their references, they demonstrate true devotion to children, and they are expert at holding an unflinching, steady gaze. With this information in mind we are ready to ask how effective these insurance-inspired screening criteria can be at screening out sexual predators.
CRIMINAL HISTORY BACKGROKUND CHECKS:
Criminal history background checking is obviously designed to expose sexual predators who have been caught before. What proportion of them has been caught? Studies beginning with the Abel and Harlow research in the late '80's have confirmed fewer than 3% of sexual predators are ever caught, ever thereby acquire a criminal history. This means the Caught-Before pedophiles are at least thirty-three times less numerous than are the rest of the Never-Caught-predators. Viewed the other way, there are 97 Never-Caughts for every 3 Caught-Befores or 33 Never-Caught predators for every predator who has a criminal history. With up to half of that 3% still in prison and the other half at least unlikely to immediately volunteer anew, it is easy to show that the criminal history check will reduce the ranks of newly-applying predators by perhaps a single percentage point, and likely have no effect at all upon infiltrated predators, staff and volunteers, who may not have been screened at all. This can be expressed as reducing the RISK-OF-HARM by a single percentage point at best. It leads us toward appreciating the difference between risk-of-harm (the child sexual abuse risk) and risk-of-loss (lawsuit awards made by courts.) Loss means losing money. Harm means children abused.
What this analysis reveals is that current screening methods result in so little risk reduction for the children as to make insulting the observation, "Nothing gets them all!" None of us would use a seatbelt or any other form of protection that claimed 1% effectiveness.
Criminal history background checking responds to the "you get what you pay for" rule. Little League Inc. obtains a lookup of "who's-been-in-jail". Cheap online lookup services can offer low prices because they only compile otherwise freely available jail data (Dept Of Corrections) and make searches of it available for what was a winning low-bid of $1.50 per inquiry. Of course only a small fraction of those arrested for sexually abusing children are imprisoned. Many arrested for gross sex crimes "plead" to lesser offenses, which might have stiff probation terms but no jail time, hence no listing for those cheap services. The customer lists of many such services represent organization leaderships who have been duped into thinking they are doing �effective screening.� Unfortunately, what is really taking place is that we are unknowingly trading children's safety for low cost.
Predators are clever. Youth serving organizations that don�t plumb deeper represent "prospecting lists" for predators who realize which organizations are the most "ripe" for infiltration. What we are now beginning to realize is that the screening mechanisms we have been relying on to protect the children we work with turn out to be largely ineffective as detectors of the offenders we fear the most.
Many groups erroneously believe that once a background check comes back �clear�, no further checks should be necessary because the individual has been "proved-not-a-criminal." Recently arrested predators count on such widespread beliefs and in fact, quickly apply to additional venues in order to be screened-IN �while there is still time." Predators know it often takes more than a full year for the details of the arrest and disposition to percolate upward into state and federal records. This interim period is prime infiltration time for them, and they often apply and accept offers in more than one venue because they know leaderships don't want to pay more than once for the background check. These predators eagerly offer to "reimburse for the background check" in order to make sure it is accomplished quickly before the upcoming conviction or plea-bargain shows up. If you choose to use the criminal history check, it should be repeated for all, at least annually. A substitute for such checking is suggested later in this article.
REFERENCE CHECKS
Let's examine a second cornerstone of screening processes - the reference check. Who furnished those references? Is there even the slightest possibility one of those references might say something bad about the applicant? The predator�s life-style depends on those good references, and they go to great lengths to assure the referee dependably gushes with praise. That is why they are called "trophies." Predators all keep "trophy testimonials" which they offer as references. Perfectly credible and authentic, these gushing praises from single moms who benefited from free babysitting without any signs of problems, always impress amateur reference-checkers. That is what they are designed to do. A background check is not a pre-employment reference check. Reference checks seek to confirm QUALIFICATIONS. Background checks seek DISQUALIFICATIONS.
Remember, the serial predator is characteristically an intelligent, well paid professional who is prominent in the community, active in church, married with children in school, and to all appearances above reproach. It is not the screener's job to accuse him. It is the screener's job to prevent him from infiltrating to transform the children's program into a supply-source of victims.
Conducting background checks by contacting references not provided by the applicant is best done through an FCRA-compliant third party service because the handling of the results and the necessary advance permissions are governed by federal law. The results have to be protected, have to be disclosed first to the applicant, the applicant has to be informed of his rights, and there are obligations his exercise of those rights can trigger for the screener. Litigation-tested disclaimers must appear on the forms to assure a complaint by the applicant's attorneys can be deflected. Serious and burdensome complaints can be lodged solely for disobeying obscure parts of the law, not necessarily for causing any harm to an applicant. So while it may be tempting to contact a reference not provided by the applicant, don't do it. Instead, try to get one of the provided references to do it FOR you. As long as you accurately repeat the voiced opinions of a provided reference you should be OK.
THE INTERVIEW
Beware the results of the personal interview. Managers of Volunteers (and psychologists, police, even polygraph experts) will gaze into the applicant's eyes and meet the steady, confident, friendly stare, which is supposed to indicate truthfulness and trustworthiness. What it actually may indicate is proficiency at deception. (Read Dr. Anna Salter's book, Predators et al., Basic Books 2004)
This is not to suggest that the interview is worthless as a screening tool because it does not detect predators. Interviewers, especially if they are, themselves, parents of grade-school age children, should trust their "sixth sense" which makes the hair on the backs of their necks inexplicably rise. Although interviews do not produce "evidence" that would be admissible in court, they often do produce "that bad feeling" which should be trusted. Since a solitary interviewer might dismiss the feeling as non-objective, having another interviewer with whom to discuss the results encourages thoughtful discussion of such feelings. Mothers make better interviewers for this purpose.
WHY IS THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY (AND LEADERSHIPS) CONTENT?
Despite the weaknesses so far revealed in the traditional screening protocol, insurance authorities and youth-serving leaderships are content with criminal histories and reference checking screening criteria for a very understandable reason. These inquiries meet courts' definitions of "duty-of-care" because information gathered from those sources are likely to be admissible in court where matters of lawsuit losses are decided. Thus the risk-of-loss is practically eliminated by the traditional screening methods. These three screening mechanisms, no matter how ineffective they may be at reducing the risk of child sexual abuse, are very effective indeed at nearly eliminating the risk of having to pay a negligence claim arising from such abuse.
How can it be that the children's risk-of-harm of abuse can be virtually unaffected by screening procedures that at the same time are judged by the courts and the insurance industry to be sufficient proof of due diligence by the organization? Consider the steps between an abuse incident and the insurance claim arising from it:
(The reference citations for the above estimates* are numerous and span dozens of studies whose definitions were not consistent. If other authors wish to cite these estimates they are urged to contact this author for all the actual citations and to generate their own estimates from them.)
While the full statistical picture of abuse, charges and convictions remains sketchy, even if the combination of these seven estimates are "off," even by a sizable degree, when combined, they still suggest that it "takes" over a thousand molestation incidents to generate a single negligence lawsuit claim. This is due to the combined effects of severe underreporting, lack of admissible evidence, overloading of Children Services and Law Enforcement agencies, threats of defamation by the soon-to-be-accused, and the tendency of a majority of so-affected parents to be persuaded to not bring suit. Faced with such a disconnect between the occurrence of molestation (risk-of-harm) and the occurrence of an insurance claim (risk-of-loss) it is easy to see why insurance firms have no incentive to invest large sums in reducing the risk-of-harm. Doing so will have little effect on lawsuit claims losses.
Unfortunately, the current situation is one of low levels of detection, reporting, charging, trying, and convicting of child sexual predators in the first instance combined with an associated infrequency of subsequent negligence charges against youth serving organizations that have �screened� and then accepted predators and placed them in positions of trust from which the abuse can take place. Hence, the appearance of due diligence suffices. Nowhere in this equation is there pressure on organizations to upgrade screening protocols to the point of actually reducing the risk-of-harm.
HOW IMPOSSIBLE, IMPROBABLE, UNLIKELY, IS INFILTRATION?
It is tempting for policy-makers to believe that since no complaints have come to their attention there is no "problem" and hence no "risk" either. That is faulty reasoning. A survey of a random 1,000 churches chosen anew annually over the last twelve years (Christian Ministry Resources Annual Survey) reveals that a steady (different) one percent of the sample report filing an insurance claim for protection against an expected lawsuit involving a child molested by staff. Every one of the thousand, including the ten who had claims that year stoutly insisted, "It can't happen here!"
Consider several points: Churches have youth groups, which meet for activities other than Sunday school. (In this respect they are like every other youth-serving group except mentoring, foster care, and adoption, which are one-on-one programs.) It is not the same churches reporting each year, and it is unlikely that more than one predator infiltrated the same church/organization at a time. This implies that in five years the percent of churches for which an infiltrator (a) was caught and (b) provoked a lawsuit adds up to about five percent. These are cases of predators leaving the 97% Never-Caughts and joining the 3% to become Caught-Befores. Keep in mind that these Recently-Caughts are readily replaced by juvenile sexual predators whose convictions, incarceration, residential treatment, and records of heinous crimes are wiped clean at age 18 and who therefore present as youth leader trainees with a completely clear criminal history. (Five states including Florida do not seal juvenile records in this fashion. The rest do.) The point to be made is that serial predators are variously estimated to be a half-percent of the male population and a twentieth of a percent of the female population. But since they are compelled to locate a supply of victims, the predators concentrate in youth-serving groups, making their prevalence in such groups much higher than in the general population. The conclusion: It definitely CAN happen here.
If there exists opportunity to practically eliminate risk-of-loss via these simple screening criteria, why should insurance firms recommend more costly and complex criteria? And if those additional criteria have only a thousandth of the effect on lawsuit risk than the initial criteria did, why pursue them at all? This is indeed unfortunate because when the original three screening mechanisms were deemed sufficient the word went out quickly: "Screen this way and you won't get sued (successfully) and you will qualify for insurance coverage." High profile youth groups' liability attorneys pounced on the announcement. Legislatures based screening laws on it, offering "immunity from civil liability" for compliance. (See U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice Statistics) Public Relations and corporate communications departments proclaimed the news: "We're responsible now because we screen." Organization leaders and corporate financial allocations policy-makers found the economy and simplicity of the background check/interview/reference check screening protocol attractive. The myth of effectiveness and the comfort taken therein has mushroomed across the sector in the last decade. As a result, we have unknowingly become participants in the old fable, The Emperor's New Clothes. We are pretending that the system is effective. We believe that children are not being abused because abusers are not being convicted and organizations are not being successfully sued for not having done more to protect their young charges. The difference however, between the fable and the reality is that there is no humor in the latter.
Since the typical screening process is so easily eluded by the far more numerous Never-Caught pedophiles, organizations proclaiming program safety may actually become more desirable targets for infiltration than those which do no screening. Consider it from the pedophile's point of view: It is far safer to infiltrate where one can be screened-IN because any children's complaints will be even less credible there.
WHAT CAN ADMINISTRATORS OF VOLUNTEERS DO ABOUT THIS?
Can anything be done to actually reduce the risk-of-harm? Yes.
What follows is a manual version of one of Safe Harbor Resources' proprietary large-scale inquiry methods. It monitors the nation's newspapers and TV stations for announcements of arrests for thousands of name-age-address combinations. Although the full-scale version uses different resources and heavy computer power, a volunteer can conduct this manual process from home with nothing but an internet-connected computer and one evening per week.
Utilize the Google Alert process set to "weekly." (www.google.com/alerts) Enter the full name of the worker in quotes followed by the words "arrest arrested" and route the alert to your email address or to a special one you set up for the purpose. A separate alert is required for each worker. As a test, set up a common name as in "John Miller" arrest. Be sure to respond to Google's verification reply-email to initiate the process. When a namesake of your worker is arrested and a newspaper or TV report about it appears you will receive an email with a link directly to the article. Click to see the article, check the age and address, and if a match seems likely, do not start an investigation on your own. Simply forward the article to upper Management asking that they determine whether the article actually involves the volunteer and if so, what action is advised. Management's phone call to the county court should settle the identification question. While it may be tempting and even exciting to discuss such articles with others, doing so could make you and your organization liable for a defamation lawsuit.
CONCLUSION
Child sexual abuse generates two risks. They are risk-of-loss and risk-of-harm. Current worker screening background checks only control the risk-of-loss. New methods are becoming available to address the risk-of-harm without subjecting leaderships to liability. A manual version of the author's proprietary National Newspaper Check is detailed for free use by association members. Precautions are advised about the safe use of such
public information elicited by this method.
References
Abel, G.G, Becker, J.V., Mittelman, M., Cunningham-Rathner, J., Rouleau, J.L., and Murphy, W.D. SELF REPORTED SEX CRIMES OF NONINCARCERATED PARAPHILIAS, 2 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 3, 17-19, (1987) {�Pedophilia� is grade school age. Paraphilia includes teens.}
Christian Ministry Resources Annual Survey.
www.scmonitor.com/2002/0405/p01s01-ussc.html
(Contact this author for a copy of the complete details and results sent to him by Dr. James Cobble, author of the survey.)
Footnote:
* The estimates have been submitted for comment to the memberships of the American Professional Society for the Abuse of Children, and to the Association of Sexual Abuse Prevention to which the author belongs.
AUTHOR:
David Allburn is the founder and Executive Director of Safe Harbor Resources
www.SafeHarborResources.org
Morgan County Campus, 6999 Dolan Rd, Glouster OH 45732
Advanced screening to thwart pedophiles infiltrating vulnerable groups.
ph 740-767-3853, fax 425-696-3228
www.SafeHarborResources.org
Clients of SHR include Bucyrus After School Enrichment, Malta UMC, and KidsWay Daycare Centers. SHR provides invited workshops on "Solving the Liability Dilemma in Worker Screening." SHR is a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, the Association of Sexual Abuse Prevention, and the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations. SHR offices can be reached via the web sites or at 740-767-3853, or via their promotional phone number, 88-88-BE-SURE (888-823-7873)