Topic of Tuesday May 22 program at the Legislative Office Building in Albany.
As common as headlines are about adults being arrested child sexual abuse, the cases that make the paper are the tip of the iceberg. Most children who are sexually abused don’t disclose the abuse before adulthood. Why? Often the abuser manipulates or threatens the child into silence. Very young children sometimes lack the vocabulary to describe their ordeal. Some children don’t realize that what they’re experiencing is considered wrong, abnormal, or noteworthy to the outside world. Almost 40% of sexually abused children are abused by someone in their family, and family members are often reluctant to believe a child’s revelation of abuse, or are willing to dismiss it in order to prevent family upheaval.
Children generally survive acts of sexual abuse by forcing themselves to not experience it, through disassociation or other means. Victimized children get very good at blocking out and not thinking about their abuse. Before they can disclose, they must be able to survive without those coping mechanisms. They also must be able to verbalize what happened, and have someone in life to disclose to. They must be able to survive rounds of questioning by police, social workers, etc. They may need to brace themselves for living without their family of origin, a decision a child rarely can make. Thus, many children simply can’t disclose the abuse while they are children.
Changing the statute of limitations. All of that means that we often have to wait until their victims are adults if we want to arrest child sex abusers. How long do we need to wait? At the least, we should allow grown children enough time to gain complete independence from their family, and allow for them to “outgrow” those survival mechanisms that served them so well. How long does that take? Statistically, most survivors who disclose their abuse do so in their late 30’s to early 40’s. I have had the privilege of meeting one survivor who didn’t disclose until her 60’s. Currently in NY, the statue expires on a victim’s 23rd birthday. Ideally, we should eliminate the statute of limitations or extend it for decades after the survivor reaches the age of majority.
But changing the statute of limitations will only catch tomorrow’s offenders. Crimes committed before the law was changed will not be prosecutable.
Creating a window for civil suits. An interesting solution that some states have found is to include a “civil window” in statute of limitations reform. The “window” is a limited period of time following the law’s passage, most often one year, when survivors may file suit against their abuser, for abuse that happened at any time in the past.
Civil suit windows have seen survivors awarded money for damages. (A recent study estimated that surviving childhood abuses costs the average survivor $400,000 in increased medical expenses and decreased productivity.) They have seen court documents naming specific abusers committed to the state’s record; those documents can limit offenders’ access to additional victims. And they have given many survivors the chance to tell their story, under oath, to a judge and have the judge say “I believe you”, a phrase most survivors rarely hear.
Learn More: A panel discussion about the civil window and statute of limitations reform in New York will be held in Tuesday May 22, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Legislative Office Building, Room 104A, in Albany. Experts in the fields of law, and advocates who have brought similar legislation to other states will be in attendance. Everyone who is interested in making New York safer for children is welcome to attend and show their support for this important legislation. For more information about the event, contact Bob Kristan, (212) 989-1285 or Assemblywoman Margaret Markey’s office, (518) 455-4755.
