New Republic Picks Up Donn Ketcham Story

To draw a picture of how powerful corporate culture is, I worked for a little electronics factory in Waseca for three years that had previously been owned by E.F. Johnson—your dad, or you, may have owned a CB radio built by the company. Whenever I would interact with anyone over the age of 50, it was clear that they were usually, in their heart of hearts, still working for “Edgar”, though he’d sold the company over 30 years back and died in the early 1990s. The company had been sold several times, and the quality systems had been totally gutted, rebuilt, gutted, and rebuilt again, but if you asked line workers how they wanted to do things, you could do little better than to “channel” Edgar as best as you could. It worked like a charm—you’d get double effort for double the time with no pressure applied.

In other words, until you get some very concrete things into quality systems at ABWE and back it up with managerial clout, the group is going to be, effectively, Wendell Kempton’s outfit for the forseeable future in the same way that 4th Baptist is in some ways still Doc Clearwaters’ church. So for ABWE to survive, they’ve really got to confront this, starting with something in policy (not just managerial discretion) saying that if you work to hide allegations of certain types, you will be shown the door. Policies need to be a lot cleaner in how they work, too.

When there is an allegation/report/hint of sexual misconduct the authorities and their professional investigators should be contacted immediately!

[Ron Bean]

When there is an allegation/report/hint of sexual misconduct the authorities and their professional investigators should be contacted immediately!

Completely agree. In Michigan whenever there is any alleged abuse, school administrators, licensed therapists, clergy, teachers, licensed child care providers, health care providers, and etc are mandated to report abuse right away no matter what the situation. Until ABWE becomes a mandated reporter, given their past history of cover-up why should we trust them?

….with “going to the authorities” for ABWE is that in many places, there are no authorities that will punish these crimes in a humane manner. In Bangladesh, for example, there is in effect no age of consent for marriage. Here’s a little bit about the justice system there. Put a guy wrongly in a Bangladeshi jail, and he WILL be coming after you in U.S. courts if and when he gets out.

So in my view, ABWE’s challenge in many foreign fields is to create an independent, but accountable, system for investigating these crimes to U.S. (and Biblical) standards while conforming to local laws. Not easy. This is also another reason why the ABWE reporting clauses simply don’t measure up; they don’t reflect the situation in their areas of work.

[Bert Perry]

….with “going to the authorities” for ABWE is that in many places, there are no authorities that will punish these crimes in a humane manner. In Bangladesh, for example, there is in effect no age of consent for marriage. Here’s a little bit about the justice system there. Put a guy wrongly in a Bangladeshi jail, and he WILL be coming after you in U.S. courts if and when he gets out.

So in my view, ABWE’s challenge in many foreign fields is to create an independent, but accountable, system for investigating these crimes to U.S. standards while conforming to local laws. Not easy.

The independent group they could develop a partnership with is Child Protective Services of Pennsylvania. If there are allegations of abuse on one of their fields, then send them over to investigate.

To quote a “Good Ol’ Boy” pastor, “I call the authorities and the abuser better hope that they (even if they are from Bangladesh) get to him before I do!”

[TylerR]

There is a natural tendency to keep things “in house.” I’ve been in law enforcement and investigations my entire adult life. I saw this pattern repeatedly in the Navy. A unit would try to “investigate” criminal misconduct itself, to keep things “internal” before going to military police, to see “if there is any credibility” to the reports. I saw it as a Pastor, and was criticized by some for refusing to do this very thing. We see it with the ABWE scandal. Let me be politically correct, nuanced and sensitive for a moment:

• THAT IS A VERY STUPID THING TO DO. REPORT ALLEGATIONS IMMEDIATELY. IMMEDIATELY. IMMEDIATELY. IMMEDIATELY.

If you don’t, you are being stupid. I don’t care what your motives are. You are being stupid. It will look like a cover-up. It will be a cover-up. You will contaminate testimony, destroy evidence, poison the well, and generally make yourself and your organization look like idiots. You’ll deserve the ridicule you get. You’ll deserve to be called stupid. You have no idea what you’re doing. You’re destroying the victims. You’re protecting the potentially guilty. The truth will come out in the wash.

Always report. Don’t “check on things yourself.” Don’t “consult with the deacons.” Don’t “get counsel and advice” from the local Pastor’s fellowship - two weeks down the road. Please, don’t be stupid. Pick up the phone and call the authorities. Do it now.

ABWE? They were stupid. Real stupid. Idiots. I’ve seen this my entire life, repeated over and over again. They deserve to go through the fire for their stupidity. Hopefully, others will learn how not to be so stupid.

Peace out.

We have an Awana ministry on Wednesday nights. Part of Awana is “Handbook Time” where the children are divided up into smaller groups of 5-10 to memorize Bible verses from their Awana handbook and recite them to a leader. There are one or two leaders in each group, and several groups are all meeting in different corners of the same room. In one particular group, a child starts acting up. The leader uses all the proper verbal warnings, but to no avail. The child starts becoming loud and disruptive so that it draws the attention of other leaders and children. The child’s leader, who is completely in control of his own emotions and words, looks the boy in the eyes, gently lays one hand on his shoulder, and calmly says to him, “Johnny, I’m asking you one last time to sit still and be quiet or I will be forced to find your parents [or bring the Awana Commander in or whatever the next step would be].” The child immediately yells, “HEY YOU TOUCHED ME WRONG! YOU TOUCHED ME IN A PRIVATE PLACE!”

Now, this is an “allegation of sexual abuse.” According to your standard, it should be reported immediately to the police for them to investigate. However, everyone in the room saw that nothing inappropriate took place at all. To report this to the authorities is a completely unnecessary attack on that leader’s character.

When I was doing research in preparing a child protection policy at a previous church, I found a statistic that in the state of Iowa, only 25% of the accusations of abuse reported to the DHS are found to be legitimate. Now, it’s very possible that in the case of the other 75%, there was actually abuse happening but there just wasn’t enough evidence. But even if that were true in some of those cases, the fact is that in the majority of cases, someone is being falsely accused of abuse.

Also—and this is very important—in the State of Iowa, we are called to report “credible” accusations. Not every single accusation, but “credible” accusations. An accusation that is not credible, like in the scenario I described above, does not have to be reported and in fact should not be reported (of course the church would want to document the situation including witnesses in case the boy went home and told his parents and they called the police).

Obviously I painted a very simple and obvious scenario. Not every scenario would be that simple or obvious. However, my point is that our standard CANNOT be that we automatically report every single accusation or else we might be harming the reputations of our own church members. So there has to be SOME level of basic “investigation” to determine if this is a credible accusation. By basic investigation I mean that church leaders (pastors, elders, etc.) would briefly interview the accusing party and the accused party to see if there is any credibility to the accusation. If there is, or if there is any doubt whatsoever, the accusation should be immediately reported.

Yes, of course in the ABWE scenario they were completely at fault for trying to “handle” (read: cover up) this situation in house. But let’s be sure to have some balance here.

Men’s reputations are ruined not when things are provided to police, but when they hit the press. This happens when:

• Someone sues or otherwise talks to the press
• Grand juries are convened and indictments are handed down

If those in and around your church know you have incident reports just about everything down to paper cuts, and that these documents will be made public when subpoenaed in discovery or after an indictment, then a lot of people are going to be a lot less eager for a legal confrontation unless they are very sure of the allegations and the likelihood of prevailing.

That’s true, Bert, but we also need to remember that kids today know exactly what words to say to get adults in trouble.

It’s all about risk management, as TylerR just noted.

I get that filing reports with the police are icky, painful and ugly. But I’d always rather report first and have it be nothing than be caught “holding the bag” if it was real.

As for dealing with false accusations - having been through that myself, although not in an abuse context - the only things I could hang my hat on to get through it was that 1. I knew I was innocent and 2. That God would clear and vindicate me. Fortunately, He did. But even if He doesn’t, and I can’t escape the accusation no matter how hard I tried, I could tell people that I was more than willing to sit down and answer any questions, turn over any and all appropriate documentation as appropriate, and do whatever I needed to in order to alleviate their concerns. If they decided to believe a lie about me anyway…well, there isn’t a whole lot I could do about it.

Joseph was falsely accused and went to an Egyptian prison for years (Genesis 39-41). That was just as much a part of God’s plan as selling him into slavery or raising him to be the most powerful person in Egypt outside of Pharaoh. It’s not the glamorous part we like to talk about though.

Jesus was falsely accused all the time by the Pharisees and Sadducees; eventually, they put to death unjustly, but He didn’t answer them a word, other than to confirm that He was their Messiah, for which they sentenced Him to death, also unjustly (Matthew 26:57-65, 1 Peter 2:20-25).

Paul was falsely imprisoned by the Romans, but eventually vindicated (Acts 16:37).

Trust in that, brothers. God is working in and through all of this - even if we are falsely accused of all sorts of evil. And frankly, we should expect it because Jesus told us it would happen in Matthew 5:11-12.

#1 A junior high girl tells her teacher that he father (a single Dad) hit her. The teacher reported the incident to authorities who immediately came to the school to interview the girl. They called in the father shortly thereafter. The investigation revealed that the girl had snuck out of her house to meet with her older boyfriend and Dad had caught her and spanked her. The investigating officer told the girl she needed to be thankful she had a father who loved her.

#2 A young girl who was sexually abused as a child was adopted out of foster care by a couple who were graduates of a Christian college and were involved in a good local church. The girl knew “the system” and would call CPS whenever she thought Dad and Mom were too strict. and accuse them of abuse. Each case was investigated and dismissed. When she reached her early teens she went to her pastor, who was familiar with the background, and accused her father of sexually molesting her. The pastor concluded that the girl was rebellious and recommended that the girl go to a Roloff type home. The parents moved to another church and their new pastor received a call from the home informing him that the girl had, in fact, been sexually abused by her step-father. The pastor immediately went to the step-father’s place of business and escorted him to the police station where he turned himself in. He was sent to prison and is a registered sex offender.

What Tyler is describing is the “hidden factory”, what really gets done vs. what the specs tell you to do, and to some point it’s unavoidable. That noted, I’ve always encouraged people to follow the policies fairly closely so that the problems become so obvious, even lieutenants and higher can figure it out. Using Tyler’s example, he had a certain set of criteria for what constituted a suspicious package—and then if you make EOD’s life miserable with all those packages, they’re going to set the MPs up with, say, an X ray machine or something so they can do that work themselves.

In the case Greg mentions, you keep filing reports and then as we have 1000 incidences of “kid makes public accusation with 12 witnesses saying it didn’t happen” with 0 real problems, you start returning discretion with the proviso “if you simply note that an accusation was made with a few witnesses affirming it didn’t happen, don’t bother with the police.”

Which is a long way of saying “as a rule, err on the side of documentation and reporting.”