How universities are learning from the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal

"Before the scandal at Penn State, the university had a long list of rules that were in line with what existed at other schools. Despite that, the Freeh Report noted that 234 of 735 coaches paid to work at summer sports camps in 2009 didn’t have their required background checks completed before their camp began.

"David Finkelhor of the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center said anecdotes like that help explain why new policies and laws are important, but maybe not as important as the light shed on the issue of child sex abuse because of the Sandusky case.

“I don’t think the problem at Penn State was that they didn’t have enough rules, or that they didn’t have a mandatory law that required this reporting,” Finkelhor said. “I think the problem was that they didn’t have a higher level of awareness about the problem itself and they thought they could kind of get away with the way they were handling it.”

http://tribune-democrat.com/latestnews/x1253335523/How-universities-are-learning-from-the-Penn-State-child-sex-abuse-scandal

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