Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of 45 of 48 counts in the child molest trial that has disgusted our nation, we learned tonight.
Sandusky was without emotion and made no eye contact with his family when the sentences were read, according to CNN. He will be sentenced in 90 days.
Let’s hope our society learns how a revered institution such as Penn State – in a supposedly upstanding, conservative community – can somehow cover up repeated incidents like this.
Sandusky will go straight to a local jail, pending sentencing. He’ll be under “suicide watch,” which is standard operating procedure.
We are going to discuss this with our 10-year-old son soon, but I am not looking forward to it. He’s on summer vacation. But he’s also old enough to learn that there is dysfunction in our society and that you need to address it.
Sandusky’s lawyer said he will appeal. Hey, it’s the American way.
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From what he did, hopefully he gets the help he needs to comprehend how immoral and damaging his actions have been before he takes his last breath behind bars. Pedofilia is a very disturbing mental illness.
I agree that pedofilla is a distrubuing mental illness but the instutional illness of Penn State’s Cult of Football that allowed these crimes to continue after discovered must be addressed. I used to be a proud alumni but that is over for me.
I know too many adult survivors of childhood abuse and sexual molestation.
Jerry Sandusky is a classic pedophile, selecting his victims carefully from children already at risk.
The initial “grooming” phase of molestation is the part where the child receives what appears to be love and affection from say, a coach, an uncle or a family friend.
Later, when the behavior turns sexual and invasive, the confused and frightened child feels culpable and reacts with submission.
In other words, these monsters make the child feel responsible for what is happening.
That’s the hardest part for survivors to get past, the guilt of thinking they caused their own sexual assault.
I have seen this personal agony follow people well into their middle years, affecting all aspects of their lives.
So, yeah, Sandusky deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
I’m not in favor of the death penalty, but when children are abused , and sexually molested, for me, the rules change-
Chip,
Most abusers were abused themselves when they were children. I have a hunch that this was the case w/ Sandusky.
The conversation we need to have with our children is that the cycle of abuse must be broken. We are making progress, but until we break these cycles completely, these stories will continue to crop up.
I suspect that sexual abuse such as this has been prevalent in human societies for hundreds of generations. Sandusky is a victim as well as a victimizer.
Jeff, I don’t envy your talk with your son, but we’ve had to do that dance as well. Pretty unpleasant, but extremely necessary. Predators will continue to be in our neighborhoods as long as we are unable or unwilling to stop the cycle of abuse.
M.
Mike- I can’t take this “easy” way out, so somehow I could be considered “understanding”. If Sandusky was caught chasing my kid around a shower then raping him? Or your kid, you would say that it is just “a continuing cycle of abuse”. If you can picture your kid bent over in the shower with Sandusky on top of him, can you also see yourself saying all is forgiven? That because he (Sandusky) was abused, it’s going to give them an alibi?
You are a stronger character than I, because I would have a knife in my teeth and a gun in both hands. Kids are where the line is drawn for me, they are off limits.
Such an unpleasant topic–violent rape and child abuse/molestation are crimes/behaviors I just can’t understand, though I’m aware of the explanations of these acts by the so-called experts in theses fields.
I strongly agree with Michael Anderson, in fact will raise the bet, and emphatically state that the probability of this behavior old–prehistoric even–
is astronomical, IMO. Maybe I’m the oddball, buut there is much in the historic Japanese culture I admire–Samurai and Bushido. A code of honor. Sandusky has disgraced himself and perhaps is undeserving of an honorable exit, and usually I wouldn’t advocate this, but he should have ended his misery as he’ll probably met Dahmer’s fate in prison.
In today’s world it’s hard to imagine youngsters not being aware of predaters. In my household, the words sex, love, rape, molestation, etc., were never spoken, yet instinctually I knew that older man was up to no good when he had me firmly by the back of my neck, almost pushing me down the steps leading to the subway of NYC. The vibes were all wrong and I knocked his hand from my neck, and ran back up the stairs to the street. And when a trusted man at camp, an Indian expert who took a liking to me–like Judith explains–became overly intimate as I changed into Mohegan and other Indians’ scanty loincloths, I became very suspicious and broke off contact before he scalped me or worse. I sure didn’t learn this from watching Leave it to Beaver; maybe the pervasive chaos and violence dominating my house and those formative years tempered my character with a feral cats instinct of impending danger.
As a wrestler at both the University of Illinois and UCONN, I witnessed no such incidents and find it a bit unfair to hold Penn St. as a whole reponsible for Sandusky’s diseased depravity.