Failing the Vulnerable

The kind of abuse alleged at this Florida facility should come as no surprise to anyone. This is going on at similar facilities all over the country. Predators seek out the most vulnerable, and the disabled certainly fit that category. In fact this group suffers abuse at a rate 2 ½ times greater than all other targets of abuse.

Better screening of the workers at these facilities is the only hope of reducing the abuse. It’s not enough to conduct criminal or sex offender registry checks which is all that most organizations do. These methods screen out less than 2% of the predators.  Additional measures such as conducting interviews and reference checks most often do little to screen out the potentially dangerous.

Perhaps requiring prospective workers to undergo a battery of lengthy psychological tests might weed out those who pose a danger. But such testing would be far too costly and impractical.

A better way, a practical way, is to make use of profiling. While this term has collected a garbage heap of bad connotations, when used properly, when multiple valid variables are included in the process, profiling can be a simple and effective way to prevent most of the worst predators from gaining access to the vulnerable.

For more information on how to use this method in your organization contact me at ThomasHampsonTAF@gmail.com.  If you want to become part of our effort to reduce child sexual abuse, consider sponsoring our work.  While helping organizations set up child protection programs is not complex, it doesn’t come without cost.

Become part of the effort to stop child sexual predators.

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