The state police investigation into Reverend Robert Carlson has left a lot of unanswered questions about how we fight child sexual abuse in Maine.
The 104 page State Police report in the case of Carlson and his alleged sexual abuse of numerous boys sites numerous red flags and warning signs that were either missed or ignored.
Penobscot County Sheriff Glen Ross was a close friend of Carlson. "I never saw a sign. There's nobody anymore stunned than myself in this matter," Ross said Thursday. "He was involved in everything. He was a well respected leader. He apparently did things that were out of the view of a lot."
According to the state police report, Ross tipped Carlson off about the child sexual abuse investigation being conducted. Shortly after Ross spoke to Carlson about the investigation, police say Carlson committed suicide by jumping off the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. Ross doesn't think he crossed any ethical lines by alerting Carlson, who also volunteered at the jail, about the investigation. "The bottom line is I did the right things for the right reasons. I did it not to warn him, but to prevent his access into the jail," Ross said. "You cannot fault somebody for trying to make sure they've protected their inmates and their agencies. That's my job as a sheriff." According to the report, Carlson never denied the allegations in his conversations with Ross.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Former Secretary of State and State Senator Bill Diamond literally wrote the book on child sexual abuse. His book "The Evil & the Innocent" chronicles the horrors of child sexual abuse and the devastation it causes for the victims. "The impact is lifelong," Diamond said. "And I've talked to victims who are adults but were sexually molested when they were children. It never leaves them. The amazing thing to me is how resilient these people are and they've made it through it. It's something that's such a horrific experience, in many cases they deal with it every day."
When it comes to how many signals it appears were missed in the Carlson case, Diamond says that's not uncommon. "Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me anymore, but it's so frustrating. Because the red flags are up in this case, the red flags are up in most cases."
Diamond says for whatever reason when it comes to reporting suspected abuse, the victims seem to be falling further down the priority list. "When you see the first instincts to be protect the institution or protect somebody else, protect anybody except the victim. That is the most frustrating part of all and that's where we need to have societal change."
A big part of that societal change is the reporting of suspected abuse to authorities. It's a practice required by law for people like teachers and law enforcement. "They need to report this and take it seriously," Diamond said. "Maine has what I think is a pretty good law. Now if we find there's some cracks in that law that need to be filled, that needs to be done quickly."
But spotting predators isn't always easy. "They have great disguises," Diamond warns. "The top drug prosecutor for the state of Maine in the Attorney General's Office, James Cameron, convicted on 13 counts of possessing and receiving child pornography. We know that people who look at child pornography, 80% of them will actually participate in molesting a child. So it can be anybody, from the Attorney General's Office to the clergy as we know. From other police officers to teachers."
Part of the solution is to see the signs of abuse in kids. "The research I've done shows that kids will do everything from wearing their clothes inside out when they go out to play. They will not want to take baths anymore. They'll show sexual games with their toys, or they'll use inappropriate sexual terminology when they're playing, or they'll just say somebody touched me or did something they shouldn't have done," Diamond said.
Diamond, who terms out of the Senate after this year, has several ideas to help the problem. He plans to write legislation that would make it mandatory for teachers in Maine to undergo training that will help them to better spot the signs of a child who may be being abused. "Just as we require teachers to be trained in other areas, this would be a 3 hour training they could do every five years or six years or so, and that would allow them to be better informed. That could save a lot of kids from being sexually abused," Diamond said.
An argument could be made that Maine needs stiffer penalties for the predators themselves when they are found guilty. Maine's penalties for people convicted of child sexual abuse are not as severe as federal penalties. "So anytime someone is arrested and goes to court for child molestation case, sexual abuse, they will try their darnedest to be tried under state statute, because the federal statute that penalty is much stiffer," Diamond said.
The proceeds from his book, "The Evil & the Innocent", will go toward buying a mobile computer crime evidence lab for the Maine State Police Computer Crime Unit, a unit dedicated to stopping child pornography in Maine.
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