Child Sexual Abuse

The report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh castigated the men in the upper reaches of Penn State's administration, as well football coach Joe Paterno, for not acting in 1998 when they learned that a mother had complained to campus police that assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was showering with her 11-year-old son in the football locker room. Mr. Freeh suggests, rightly, that more than a decade of sexual abuse of young boys would have been prevented if Mr. Sandusky had been stopped then.

Pastor Leon W. Jones, who founded the Renewed Hope Christian Church on the 700 block of N. Paca St., was convicted Wednesday of sexually assaulting a teen-age girl, the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office announced. The abuse occurred during a two-year period from April 2000 through March of 2002, prosecutors said. The girl, now 27, was introduced to Jones by her mother, who participated in the abuse and was convicted of five counts of child sexual abuse. A jury convicted Jones of eight counts of second-degree sexual offense, prosecutors said.

A Baltimore jury convicted a 31-year-old man Wednesday of child sexual abuse for "repeatedly attacking" a 10-year-old girl in 2010, the Baltimore State's Attorney's office announced. George H. Jones Jr., of the 4200 block of W. Rogers Ave., faces a maximum of 170 years in prison at his sentencing, set for April 16. tricia.bishop@baltsun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

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Maryland First Lady Catherine Curran O'Malley announced Monday that Baltimore City, Talbot and Worcester counties have been selected for a new statewide initiative to prevent child sexual abuse by training adults. The Family Tree, a Baltimore non-profit, was granted $25,000 in private funding to replicate the Enough Abuse Campaign, which originated in Massachusetts. The Family Tree will provide free training to child advocacy organizations in the three communities. The program emphasizes educating adults to recognize abused children, to communicate with children about appropriate interactions with adults, and to advocate for victims.

The child sex abuse scandal at Penn State University has captured the attention of the country. While the alleged perpetrator will be the focus of much of the discussion, The Family Tree, Maryland's leading child abuse prevention organization, suggests that we shift the focus to what we can do today to prevent this from happening again tomorrow. Unfortunately, it is all too often a public tragedy like this that reminds us that safety is not the responsibility of the child but the responsibility of us as adults and caring, committed others.

To all the self-righteous folks who are outraged by the Penn State sexual abuse scandal and pontificate about what they would have done in the same situation: It's hard to confront an abuser and it is harder still to report one. Jerry Sandusky was confronted in 1998 by the mother of one of the alleged victims. An investigating police officer from the university eavesdropped on her exchange with Mr. Sandusky. That confrontation reads like a tragicomic tale with the victim's mother trying to worm it out of Mr. Sandusky if his contact with her son in the Penn State locker room showers was sexual in nature.

The Penn State student rioters who overturned a TV truck and reacted so angrily at Wednesday night's firing of Coach Joe Paterno picked the wrong villain. The media did not take down their longtime coach, the winningest in college football history. It was the alleged actions of former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who is accused of molesting at least eight boys between 1994 and 1999, and those at the university who failed to take appropriate action when those claims were brought to their attention.

A celebrated liturgical scholar has been permanently removed from Catholic ministry in the wake of a "credible allegation" that he had inappropriate sexual contact with a child in Baltimore three decades ago, according to Jesuit officials. The acts by the Rev. James Glenn Murray allegedly took place at St. Frances-Charles Hall, now known as St. Frances Academy, where he taught English and religion for seven years starting in 1981 and served for three of those years as assistant principal.

Talking about childhood sexual abuse is uncomfortable, but that doesn't stop Shari Hammond from speaking up about this crime, which strikes one in four girls and one in six boys in this country before the age of 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She knows what can happen if she doesn't say anything -- because it happened to her, twice. Hammond was sexually abused as a young girl for several years but didn't report it until she was a teenager.