Cook County Public Guardian Patrick T. Murphy calls the videotaping of children who allege sexual abuse “treating child victims like the criminals” (Voice of the people, June 20).
It is no such thing, and I think he knows it.
Anyone who has followed the notorious Amirault case in Massachusetts and similar cases in Washington, California, North Carolina and elsewhere knows why it is essential to videotape the interview in which children are led to make such allegations. It is not because the children are inherently suspect, but because, sad to say, the “experts” in the child protection system have shown themselves all too often to be unprincipled and manipulative.
We may hate to admit it, but overzealous social workers and ambition-driven prosecutors can be found in any venue. Complete videotapes of the interviews that lead children to the point of making sexual-abuse allegations are the only available check on abuses by such adult professionals. With videotapes, judges and juries can evaluate whether the child’s allegations are spontaneous and genuine or whether they have been unscrupulously coerced, as happened in Massachusetts.
That is why videotaping is so important. It doesn’t treat children as criminals; it treats them as vulnerable and malleable creatures who deserve protection from the ambitions of unprincipled adults.
