Apart from the seriousness of the issue at hand, we are again dealing with something that really begs a larger question: Where does liability begin and end for protecting a victim, when you neither condone nor encourage nor in any way participate in a crime? Is the school liable to those down the line, for having sent the perpetrators on elsewhere?
Was Joe Paterno or the whole Penn football program guilty?
The Catholic Church did not sanction child abuse. It happened and was handled poorly, repeatedly, but during an era when things were not communicated so openly, before main stream media or round the clock cable news.
Folks find it easier to go after institutions so step back and think of it in a more personal way. How about the family of the child molester in Cleveland who kept 3 girls imprisoned for a decade? Are they to blame because they did not report wrongdoing? SHOULD they have suspected something?
Say there is someone in the next street over from where you live and that person seems like a real creeper. You have seen them cruising the neighborhood slowly in a van with no windows. You have seen lights on way into the night. You have seen them hanging out alone at the community playground. Eventually this person moves out of the neighborhood. Do you breathe a sigh of relief and go on with your life? or do you go to the next community and put the word out to be on watch?
Say the person was tried and convicted and had served their time. Now they move away and they prey on victims in their new community. Should YOU be sued?
I am not making the best arguments here nor am I writing clearly-chasing a few deadlines and shouldn’t even be on CC. Before you react, try to get the point I was trying to make, even if I did not do so eloquently. Once again, where and when does the liability end?