A System of Evident Bias: California as a Catalyst for Change by Randy Burton :: National Association to PROTECT Children :: Pro-Child

A System of Evident Bias: California as a Catalyst for Change

Randy Burton

Randy Burton is a former Texas prosecutor who has made fighting for children his life's work. He is the founder of Justice for Children, a unique and desperately-needed national resource that provides pro bono legal help for children trapped in the child protective and court systems. As a veteran of too many battles to count, Burton knows first-hand about the pervasive national bias towards family reunification: a bias that forces vulnerable young children to remain in or return to dangerous, abusive homes. Justice for Children was an early partner in the Circle of Trust campaign. Their website is: www.jfcadvocacy.org

On behalf of Justice for Children, I would like to congratulate PROTECT and its supporters for the passage of the landmark Circle of Trust legislation equalizing the 'charging and sentencing of perpetrators of sexual abuse without regard to familial relationship of the perpetrator to the victim.' It is my experience both as a former prosecutor of family crimes and as a child advocate with Justice for Children that crimes committed against children by a 'loved one' are consistently treated with less seriousness than stranger abuse. This bias is evident with law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts, and, to some extent, society as a whole. And, it is particularly obvious in the prosecution of the crime of sexual assault of children.

Whether the reason is due to a collective sense of denial that adults actually sexually abuse their own children or some misplaced notion of the importance of preserving biological families (no matter how dangerous or twisted they may be), the message to children is it's OK for your biological father, brother, uncle, or the live-in boyfriend of your biological mother to rape you and the Authorities and Society will do nothing about it. To the survivors of sexual abuse, it is often more traumatic when the perpetrator is someone who takes advantage of their special relationship of trust in order to satisfy their perverted sexual needs or uses the abuse as a vehicle for the physical and psychological dominance of the child.

We must send the message to victims and their abusers alike that we will no longer tolerate the rape of children regardless of the relationship of the perpetrator to the child. The passage of the Circle of Trust Bill is a huge step in this direction. We can only hope that California's act will serve as the catalyst for change in every state.


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