Child Molestation in Sports
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by user Jamel
Child molestation is a problem that is highly evident in youth sport leagues. Molesters are often found in these leagues because of the many targets for molestation present in the leagues. People involved in the youth sport leagues do not detect this problem because the type of molestation that occurs in these leagues is not the typical type that everyone thinks occurs. Not all molestation is the violent and forceful type that most everybody imagines. Most of the sexual abuse that occurs is called the "seductor" type. This type of molester gets in good with the families of the kids and also pays special attention to the kids. They take advantage of weaknesses in the family. If the father of the child is often away on business, the offender sees this as an opportunity to fill in the father's shoes. He is destined to give the child the father figure that he or she needs. The phrase used often in the article in SI was that the kids are "trading sex for attention." The kids are getting attention from the coach in exchange for sexual acts. These kids don't realize what is happening to them because "...they don't understand the seduction process."
Although this problem is such a terrible one, there are not many ways to prevent this. Among the ways of prevention are background checks, a better understanding of the problem, not as close relationships with the coaches, and education and communication with the children. In some states background checks for coaches are mandatory and free, in others they are not mandatory and if wanted they cost the person who wants to check forty dollars. Although this seems like a small price to pay, with all the positive remarks said about the coaches, parents might not want to go spend forty dollars on a long shot. If this situation came up when I was the commissioner or person in charge of the league, I would make these checks mandatory for every coach and every volunteer working with children and I would petition for this to be a nation wide rule. I know from experience that in Massachusetts it is mandatory for all people working or volunteering with children a background check must be done and papers must be filled out that say you have not been incarcerated for any offense in the past. All volunteers and coaches should be checked with the Megan's law CD-ROM sex registry and also checked for further offenses.
Another part of the solution to this problem is that parents need to be further educated on the subject. If parents are as ignorant about the subject as I was they need to be more educated. Before I read this article I did not know that this problem was so large in the United States today. Again if I were the commissioner I would make a class to educate them and teach them that the problem does happen and that it should not be ignored. In the class I would teach the parents how to confront their children and educate them on the problem. They should tell the children that they will not be yelled at for telling on their coaches and that it is not right what the coaches are doing.
A third part of the solution is to not let the coaches get as involved. Although in normal circumstances a coach that can also act as a father figure and be close to his players it is not good in these situations. As I said earlier, this situation is the exact situation that the coaches are looking for. The best thing to do is to keep coaches in their place and let them just be coaches and not go into the personal lives of their players.
I believe that with these new implications in place there will be a significant drop in the number of molesters and increase the percentage of molesters that are reported. Because children are more aware of the problem they will be more responsive to it and will tell more if it happens. It really shouldn't happen because known molesters will not be part of the league because of the background checks. It is unfortunate that we cannot totally eliminate the problem because it is impossible to keep coaches that are wishing to molest for the first time out of the league. With these implications the league should be safer and it should go back to being safe for little kids to develop into mature baseball players and also to allow them to grow up without the complications and problems that being molested can bring upon a child. After these problems are fixed the little league system should become a good past time again.
Jamel Bryant
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