Child Abuse

On this episode of Tony Talks Charles County Crime, State’s Attorney Tony Covington sits with Executive Assistant Kristen Schulz and Public Relations Specialist Kandes Carter to discuss child sexual and physical abuse. Included in the discussion:

 00:01:06     What is Child Abuse?
00:03:07     Corporal Punishment
00:06:43     Child Sexual Abuse
00:08:37     "Stranger-Danger" and Danger from People Children Know
00:10:12     What is "Grooming"?
00:11:20     Grooming Children and Adults
00:13:11     Why Kids Don't Report Sexual Abuse
00:14:50     Indicators of Abuse
00:16:33     Communicating with Kids About Abuse (What to Say)
00:19:46     Frequency of Sexual Assault Victims Reporting Immediately and Why
00:22:28     How to Report Abuse
00:24:39     Abuse in Schools and What We Can Do for Prevention
00:30:22     Summary of Episode

SAO Information:
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Facebook: https://bit.ly/2QWIPOw
Twitter: https://bit.ly/2FwRaHn

Transcript

Tony Covington: 0:15

Welcome, Tony Covington here. Thanks for listening to Tony Talks Charles County Crime, the official podcast at the State's Attorney's Office here in Charles County. Today we're going to talk about a topic that is always relevant, whether or not it gets a lot of attention in the media on a day-to-day basis. We're going to talk about child abuse, two types of child abuse, physical child abuse and sexual child abuse. I'll define those here in a little bit, but first let me tell you that I've got Kandes Carter here with me and Kristen Schultz here with me and we're going to have a little discussion about this. Welcome ladies.

KS & KC: 0:50

Thank you.

Tony Covington: 0:52

Okay. Who wants to- we're going to talk about physical child abuse first. It's a little bit more straight forward. So let's talk about that first. Do you have any questions that we got from the citizens that pertained to physical child abuse?

Kandes Carter: 1:04

So let's start with what's the definition of child abuse?

Tony Covington: 1:08

Okay, that's pretty straight forward. Child abuse, especially on the physical child abuse side is inflicting any injury or type of abuse. I know you never define something with the word itself, but abuse can be more than just physical. For instance, if you were to terrify a child that here they're going to get hurt or something like that. We've had people literally tie children to trees or to rails and leave them there. There's no injury as a result of that. No, maybe not even any exposure to the elements, but that would be abuse. So anything that somebody does on the physical side, nonsexual, okay, that could amount to physical child abuse. Now, you got to point this out very quickly, it's not just anybody. If I'm walking down the aisle at some grocery store and some kid is screaming and hollering, I smack him upside the head. That is not child abuse. It's obviously an assault and I can get charged with that.

Kristen Schulz: 2:05

I didn't know that

Tony Covington: 2:05

But child abuse, there must be a particular relationship between the child and the adult committing the acts.

Kristen Schulz: 2:14

Just family? Or what kind of relationship?

Tony Covington: 2:16

Relationship has to be with somebody who has care and custody of the child, for instance: babysitter, teachers. If I let my kid go with you on an overnight camping, you have temporary care and custody of my child, you're not supposed to be abusing my child, right? So if you do something, that could be child abuse. So you have to have that particular relationship then they call it temporary care and custody or permanent care and custody. And if you live in a house with the child and you're assaulting that child, that can be child abuse. Or if you are a family member. Alright, so special relationship, temporary care and custody, family member or a household member, that all gets you in the ambit of physical child abuse and sexual child abuse. It's the same rules apply for sexual child abuse as well.

Kristen Schulz: 3:05

So speaking of families, does a parent have the right to physically discipline their child or no?

Tony Covington: 3:11

That's a good question and I hear about that all the time. Folks always want to harken back to the good old days when, you know, a parent could do just about anything to a child and not have to worry about it. Well, someone said, you know, the good old days weren't always good and the present is not as bad as it seems. But anyway, yes. Here in Maryland, contrary to a lot of people's opinion, parents do have the right to corporally punish their children. In other words, disciplining them with physical punishment, spankings, whatever. Alright. Now you can't get carried away.

Kristen Schulz: 3:53

Right.

Tony Covington: 3:53

Excessive discipline, meaning you went overboard when you were disciplining your child- and please make sure you understand something, when it comes to child abuse and it comes to corporal punishment, you must be doing whatever it is that you're doing for the purpose of discipline, not just because you're mad, not just cause you got a bad day at work.

Kandes Carter: 4:14

Right.

Tony Covington: 4:14

You know, not because you're going to come home and kick your dog and then beat your kids and then beat your wife. No, it doesn't work that way. It must be directly connected to discipline. Now, what is excessive? It's kind of hard to define. So, I'm being very careful with my words here because this is specific to the State's Attorney's Office here in Charles County. I believe, and I'm going to act accordingly, that if you go around leaving marks on your children, bruises, cuts, things of that nature, when you're disciplining your child, you have gone too far and that case will be presented to the grand jury. And then the grand jury may decide, you know what, given the circumstances, we don't think it's child abuse and they don't want to charge the case. But from my perspective, from the State's Attorney's perspective, that's the rule of thumb here in Charles County for me. I can't speak for any other jurisdiction. Just mine. And you know, that goes back to my childhood. You know, my father, my father and mother did not spare the rod. Okay. I was disciplined corporately all the time. My Dad was a big man, you know, six foot, two forty solid rock. He was an army officer, airborne ranger, the whole nine. And he never left a mark on me. And I got more than my- no, not more than my share of beatings. I deserved every single one of them. Okay. You know, and I got away with some stuff that I probably shouldn't have. But because of that, you know, that rule of thumb don't leave marks on your children, you should be alright. Excessive discipline can be a problem. Alright. When it occurs, oftentimes we find out from another family member, we find out from the schools- that's normally how we kind of find out about it because the kid will go to school and somebody will see something. That's how it normally happens. Rarely do the children call themselves.

Kristen Schulz: 6:07

Right.

Tony Covington: 6:07

Sometimes we have a mother and father who have split up and you know, one of them is mad at the other and then you find out about it that way too. But the bottom line is you have the right to physically discipline your child. You cannot be excessive about it. And here in Charles County, I take the protection of children very seriously. And if you are excessive about it by leaving marks on the child, that case will be going in front of the grand jury.

Kristen Schulz: 6:32

Absolutely.

Tony Covington: 6:35

Okay. So were there any other questions from the community on physical child abuse?

Kristen Schulz: 6:41

No, not on physical.

Tony Covington: 6:42

Alright, well, let me transition into sexual child abuse. That is a huge problem. It has been in the news in the last year or two, especially here in Charles County, and it should be. Child sexual abuse is one of the most under-reported crimes that there is, perhaps only outpaced by domestic violence. It is a huge problem that impacts not just the person who was abused at the time, but for a lifetime. It impacts their relationships with everybody else and it causes tremendous emotional psychological damage, like I say, temporarily and permanently. We don't deal with child sexual abuse well enough in our court system. It is a very difficult thing to deal with. You can never make your victim whole, but you try to hold people accountable. But again, it's very under-reported. One in five females will be sexually abused as a child.

Kandes Carter: 7:47

Wow.

Tony Covington: 7:49

One in 20 males will be abused sexually as children. The age range where they're most vulnerable is from seven years old to 13 years old. And it occurs in all places; homes; schools; unfortunately, churches; wherever it can occur. So child sexual abuse is a large problem. Here in Charles County, we recall the last couple of years we had the huge case with Carlos Bell. It had 42 victims. So it's a huge problem. I think I've laid that out pretty quick here. What questions do I have on it, on this very complicated issue.

Kandes Carter: 8:37

So we oftentimes teach children about stranger-danger, but how prevalent is it that a stranger is the one that's actually abusing a child?

Tony Covington: 8:45

That's a great question, Kandes. And it's the number one thing that I would like to say about child abuse. Parents, everybody who cares about kids out there, stranger danger, we need to keep talking about it. Okay. But fully 75%, three quarters of kids who are abused, are abused by somebody that they know and that they know well. This just isn't some acquaintance that they happen to see. Wherever it happens, wherever they happen to be, it's someone that they know well- an adult. And there are also- and I need to point out, point this out- there are also a lot of juveniles who make up the abusers as well. So you will have juveniles abusing juveniles and oftentimes, if not most of the time, that juvenile has already been abused themselves. That's how they learned the behavior to abuse somebody else. So that is something that's out there. But the stranger danger moniker, like I say, it is good to tell your children, you know, don't take money from strangers; don't take a ride from strangers; this, that and the other. But parents, guardians have to especially be concerned with the people that are in your children's life. You have to be vigilant because those are the people who are doing the abusing three quarters of the time.

Kristen Schulz: 10:11

You hear the word grooming. Is that what, you know, they're comfortable with the family? You don't suspect that it's the coach or whatever. Explain what grooming is.

Tony Covington: 10:22

When we talk about grooming, we talk about the effort that the predator, and I'll use the word predator because that's exactly what these people are, you know, you don't just happen to fall into abusing a child. This is something that is very planned, pre-planned, and people take a whole lot of steps to get to their goal of abusing that child sexually. Okay. So grooming is that process and the predator doesn't just groom the child. Sure, the predator might be on and meet a kid over the internet and that's a huge problem as well. Okay. Parents please pay attention to what your children are doing on their computers and on their phones and their iPads. But a predator may be grooming a child, getting to know that child, getting that child to trust him. Talk about those things that the 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, whatever it is wants to talk about. Okay, becoming a friend, befriending that child.

Kristen Schulz: 11:20

Being on their level.

Tony Covington: 11:20

But also, they groom the family. They groom the workplace. In the instance of say, the schools, the predators going to be the guy who's always helping everybody out.'Oh, somebody needs a ride home, I'll take him or her home.' Right?

Kristen Schulz: 11:35

Right.

Tony Covington: 11:36

Nobody has a bad word to say about the person because they're grooming the person. They want everybody to believe that if any child ever accuses them, there's no way in the world that this particular person would commit that type of, of crime. And it also happens in families. They groom people and the predators, it's, you know, there was a documentary out not too long ago. It's called Leaving Neverland about Michael Jackson's situation. I'm not going to get into whether Michael Jackson was a predator or not. I'm not going to get into that. What I do want to point out, and I recommend this documentary to everybody who wants to know how predators behave. Because the two individuals on there, either they have PhDs in child sexual abuse things, or they really did undergo the grooming process from a predator. Alright? All the things that you talk about there- having somebody- having a child trust the adult. All of that is in there. All the examples are there, but the most important thing that comes out of that and is true generally from my experience and you talked to all the experts out there, child sexual abuse is much less force than it is seduction. And the seduction comes in many forms. Whether it's you want an iPhone, do this for me, right? Get to be a friend. It's all seduction. And kids don't report oftentimes because they are fearful that something will happen, not to them, but to the predator.

Kristen Schulz: 13:24

Oh wow. Trying to protect them.

Tony Covington: 13:25

Right. That grooming process is so well done that they don't want the predator to get in trouble and the predator will tell the child,'Hey, look, if you ever tell our secret, my life is going to be ruined and your life will be ruined too.' But the kid doesn't worry too much about his own life. Worries more about the predator. You know, I know that we have this vision of a child walking home from school and somebody snatching him or her and taking them off and doing something to him or her. And undoubtedly that does happen, but it's very rare. Most often it is the seduction process. It's the grooming process of getting the trust and getting the child to feel for the predator, but also making the child part of the wrong that's being done. For instance, predators will oftentimes introduce alcohol, marijuana- and every kid knows their not supposed to be drinking or smoking marijuana at that age. So they know that what they're doing is wrong. That's another level of...

Kristen Schulz: 14:33

Gives them leverage.

Tony Covington: 14:34

Right. That's another level of keeping the child's mouth shut about what's going on. Yeah.

Kandes Carter: 14:42

So now we know a little bit about the grooming process and we know that kids don't always open up to their parents about abuse. So what are some things or some indicators that a child might be being abused?

Tony Covington: 14:55

That's the real difficult part. Okay. Because some of the things that behaviors that a child will enter into after being abused over time or for the first time could also be something else. You know, the problem with teenagers is, you know, those hormones are going; they're growing and you have all that teenage angst and everything that goes on. And so identifying this new behavior that's coming up and pinpointing it to abuse is difficult. Alright? But that's part of it. And of course, that's part of being a parent and part of being a guardian part of caring for children is to pay attention to what's going on in their life, pay attention to their moods and everything. If your child, you know, very simple one, if your child's a straight a student, all of a sudden the grades go into the toilet. You need to be talking to your child.

Kristen Schulz: 15:53

Right.

Tony Covington: 15:53

If all of a sudden, kid doesn't want to go over to somebody's house anymore, say a relative's house,'I don't want to go over to uncle so and so's house. I don't want to go to grandpa's house. I don't want to go to cousin so-and-so's house.' Well it might be because somebody over there is abusing them. Right?

Kandes Carter: 16:09

Right.

Tony Covington: 16:09

And if children are having excessive secrets about this, that and the other- I don't know, kids always have secrets. Like I say, it's very difficult to see these things. Alright, but you have to remember because the predators are rarely, and I mean very rarely, using violence to commit the abuse, you're not going to see physical signs of it; you're not going to see physical injuries or things of that nature.

Kristen Schulz: 16:32

It's probably confusing to the kids too. They think abuse, I must, I have to be getting hurt for it to be abuse.

Tony Covington: 16:38

Absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up Kristen, because language and how you talk to your kids is really important. If you say to your child, if anybody ever hurts you, make sure you tell me. Well, we have to be realistic about this. When you're talking about sexual acts, even with a child, certainly a teenager, but even a child, those acts may not be hurtful. They may be pleasurable. And so when you say if somebody ever hurts you, tell me about it. Well as far as they're concerned, in their mind they're not being hurt. Alright. The language should be, if anybody touches you here, anybody touches you there, anybody asks you to touch them here or there. You have to be very, very literal with children, very little with them. And I'm not talking about just under age 10, I'm talking about in the teenage years as well. You have to be very literal with it because it is confusing for them. It's confusing for them that'hey, my parents have told me that this type of conduct isn't something that I should do. Yet when I do it, it's pleasurable. Yet when I do it, it makes this person who I trust happy.' Right?

Kristen Schulz: 17:47

Very confusing.

Tony Covington: 17:47

So it's very confusing for them and that's why it's so important to have the line of communication; that is the most important thing when it comes to sexual child abuse and trying to prevent it. It's difficult to know what behaviors demonstrate that this child is being abused. But even if you do have those behaviors, you don't have proof of it until you talk to the child, which is why you have to be able to have that open communication where the kid trusts you. I can tell you from, you know, I mentioned the Carlos Bell case. So many of those victims' parents were distraught, not just because of the harm that had come to their children, but because they firmly believed and thought that their children would tell them. They had taken the time to sit down with their child beforehand and say, if this happens, if that happens, say something to me. And out of all the 42 victims that we had in that case, not a single one of them came forward on their own.

Kristen Schulz: 18:50

That's amazing.

Tony Covington: 18:51

All these children, not a single one of them. And we're talking from ages 11 to 16 or 17, all through evidence and investigation and videotapes, were the police officers able to identify people and go to these kids. So, the point is, is that kids don't want to talk about that stuff in the first place. Two, they don't necessarily see it as harmful. Three, they certainly see it as something, most of the time, that they shouldn't be doing, so they're not gonna want to talk about. So it is critically important to look for those signs. But again, you gotta be able to talk to your kid about these things and get them to open up about it.

Kristen Schulz: 19:34

Absolutely.

Tony Covington: 19:35

And please note, I need to add this to this real quick. These kids, they are the norm. What do I mean by that? I mean by that, sexual assault victims, whether they are children or the adults, rarely report in a timely fashion. They don't report immediately after the abuse or the crime. 70% of them, some of them never report. But even those children and adults who do report sexual assaults, 70% of them do so late. So they are the norm. I know that everybody wants to think about, well, if some, if something like that happened to me, then I would report it right away. Well, that's not the truth. And you say to yourself, why? And since we're talking about children, I can give you a couple of examples why. Had a case, it's a 40 year old case. Woman was sexually abused by her biological father for years. She never said a word. She lived a lifetime before she reported the abuse. What motivated her to report it 40 years later? Her mother, the abuser's husband, he was still living, but the mother died. And this lady said I was not going to break my mother's heart. She loved her husband. She wasn't going to do it, but she wanted him to be held accountable later on in life and the gentleman, he ended up pleading guilty to those charges. They were true. Another example, kind of the same, but a little bit different. Highschooler senior, she never reported. She didn't come forward. Somehow, some way the police found out about what was going on in her home. Her father was sexually abusing her for years. Police talked to her. She finally admitted what was going on and I personally had the opportunity to ask this young lady, why didn't you say something? And she told me, Mr. Covington got a mother who loves her husband. I have brothers who loved their father. I was not going to be the person to ruin my household. That abuser also pled guilty. So you never know why people aren't going to report, especially children, but they always have a good reason, at least to them. Because somebody does not report sexual assault immediately, does not mean that they're not telling the truth. Those two examples clearly show that. So again, it is critically important to try to talk to your children. Try to keep that lines of communication open because they have reasons for keeping their secrets.

Kristen Schulz: 22:24

So you say it's critically important to look for the signs of abuse. So say you're a parent and you suspect or someone tells you about a physical or sexual child abuse. How do people go about reporting it?

Tony Covington: 22:36

Very simple. Call the police. That's the easiest thing to do. And the quickest thing to do. Or you can call department of social services, you can contact a number of places that will get the police involved. Many children and parents for that matter, will report through the school system because the schools kind of find out themselves. Oftentimes, it'll be a friend of the child who will say something to say their parent,'Hey, here's what's going on with Molly.' And then that parent, hopefully will talk to the victim's parent and then somebody will get some assistance. But reporting child abuse, whether it's physical or sexual is very easy. It's just like reporting any other crime. It is a crime and something needs to be done about it. And you report it. We have in our law, believe it or not, mandatory reporters, those are people who are in certain professions who are required by law to report child abuse and sexual child abuse, as well, to the authorities, the authorities being the police, basically, doctors, right. All sorts of folks in different walks of life, nurses, anybody in the hospital obviously, and the schools. Obviously cause our kids are in school all the time, it's going to be likely that the schools will see things. As a matter of fact, they've done some stats that the place where folks are going to have knowledge of sexual abuse the most- child sexual abuse the most- is the schools as compared to the church, the Boys and Girls Club, doctors even. Far more than, I mean doctors are, I'm not going to say the last to know, but are very small percentage of those folks who have knowledge of the sexual abuse that may or may not be going on.

Kandes Carter: 24:27

So you mentioned the school system and school employees being mandatory reporters.

Tony Covington: 24:32

Right.

Kandes Carter: 24:32

You also mentioned earlier Carlos Bell, who was a staff member from the school system, and it just seems like recently we've seen a lot of headlines unfortunately, where there are staff from schools that are abusing the kids. What are some things that we can do to prevent that?

Tony Covington: 24:51

Okay, well first let me say this: It's very difficult to know whether or not there has been an increase of child abuse within our schools here or anywhere because again, it is so rarely reported. Alright. But we shouldn't be surprised by it. Okay. Predators who have an appetite, and that's what it is. I mean, let's be, let's just break this down brass tacks here. Okay. Yeah. Someone who is a pedophile wants to have sexual relations with a child. Right. Where are our children every day? Matter of fact, by law where our children every day?

Kandes Carter: 25:36

At school.

Tony Covington: 25:36

They're at the school system.

Kristen Schulz: 25:38

The best place to put yourself if you're a[pedophile].

Tony Covington: 25:40

That's correct. We should not be surprised that pedophiles try to get into the school system or become a bus driver or become anything where they can be around children. And I'm not even going to get into the church issues, but same type of thing dealing with children. You're going to have people who are going to gravitate, if you will. But it's not just by happenstance. It's purposeful to be around kids, to have the opportunity to take, to feed their appetite. And you know, let's be real about it. That's an appetite that doesn't really change. I mean, it's just like asking any of us here, anybody who's listening to this, okay, yeah, we want you to change your sexual appetite and your urges. Now we're human beings, right? And we're able to overcome things that are not good and we can discipline ourselves. But some folks, they just don't want to discipline themselves. They don't want to not act on those urges and things of that nature. So it's a difficulty. Now you ask me and I said all that because you asked me about what can we do in the schools. I've advocated and I've talked to the people who have decision making authority on these things. It's very simple to me, especially in our school system. You know, everybody wants to harden our school facilities because we're so concerned about mass shootings and we should be, but we already have danger within our schools. I mean we can't pretend like folks who are going to do harm to our children don't exist and they are not there. They are there. I was in the military for about eight years or so. I was an Intelligence Officer, that means I had the highest clearances that you could possibly get. And one thing that we had to do, and I'm answering your question by the way, doesn't sound like I am, but I am. One thing that we had to do was we had to take a polygraph and lie detector test. Right. And we had to take them routinely, but you also had to take one in order to get your clearance. Right. I know that the police, some police agencies, in order to hire you, you have to take a polygraph, a lie detector. Let me ask you a question. If we know that pedophiles are going to be attracted to our school systems or any other industry that deals with kids all the time, why wouldn't we use polygraphs and lie detectors to determine if they have a penchant for pedophilia?

Kristen Schulz: 28:12

That's a good point.

Tony Covington: 28:13

Why wouldn't we do that? Other agencies, the military intelligence, police use polygraphs all the time. And I'm not talking about witch hunts, this, that, and the other. But you can design polygraphs very specifically to find out whether or not a particular person has an interest in having relations with a child. That would go a long way. And I'm not talking about- I'm being practical about it here- I'm not talking about going back and giving polygraphs to all the teachers who are already there. You'd never get that proposal pass the unions I suppose. Alright. But anybody, new hires, if I was in charge, I'd be imposing polygraphs in if you want to be hired as a teacher. And let me tell you something, I say this is a person who is related to a whole bunch of educators. Okay. All throughout my family folks, you know, my brother's retired, wife...okay. They're educators and I've talked with them about it and they're like, they would have no problem whatsoever taking that polygraph. Right. Because ultimately it's to protect the children. And our schools aren't just there to educate our kids, because the kids are there and the kids have to be there, part of their mandate is to protect our children.

Kristen Schulz: 29:28

Absolutely.

Kandes Carter: 29:29

Yeah.

Tony Covington: 29:29

So to me it's not a whole lot to ask. I know it will be money obviously. But I think money well spent.

Kristen Schulz: 29:35

Absolutely.

Tony Covington: 29:36

Money, well, better spent on that then trying to put metal detectors and everything else at the schools and all that. I mean those events that happen as tragic as they are, thank goodness are still not an everyday occurrence. When you start adding up the child abuse that takes place in our nation's schools compared to the mass violence that happens, trust me, they're far more victims on the child abuse side, and that's just a matter of are we going to do something about it? Can we do something about it? I think we can and one of them is to have polygraphs in those industries where people are taking care of our kids and have unfettered access to our children.

Kandes Carter: 30:19

Okay.

Tony Covington: 30:21

So ladies and gentlemen, that's it for the podcast today. But let me recap. First, on physical child abuse- that's using corporal punishment- please don't discipline your children when you are angry. You can get carried away and if you get carried away and you leave marks on your children, you may find yourself in front of a grand jury here in Charles County because as I've told you, that's my rule of thumb. When I look at a case, if there are marks on a child, the grand jury is going to at least look at it. Can't guarantee what will happen from there. From child sexual abuse, ladies and gentlemen, please keep that open line of communication with your children. Also, sometimes your kids may not talk to you, but guess what will talk to you? Their devices. These kids, not just kids, everybody really, lives their life on their devices nowadays. If you have some concerns and questions, look at their devices. I'm not one of those folks, one of those parents who believed in a whole lot of privacy for children because it's my job to take care of them and I got to know what's going on in their life. And lastly, we can do something to help keep predators and pedophiles away from our kids, especially at our schools, but any other industry where children have to be and pedophiles are drawn to. So seriously from a political standpoint, from a practical standpoint, if you think that polygraphs would be a good thing, contact the people who make that decision. Commissioners, your school board. Don't be afraid. I know it sounds trite, but guess what? You want change? Tell the people that you've elected to do things and change will happen if enough people say it. And also lastly, thank you for the questions that you send in that help us develop and produce these podcasts. Without your questions, we don't know what you care about. So we appreciate that and we hope that you keep on sending those in. Thank you for listening to the Tony Talks Charles County Crime and please take the time to subscribe to the podcast. Covington out.