Reply To: Protecting the innocent and false accusations

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#2046725
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Participant

To me it seems that putting windows and glass doors in therapists offices wouldn’t be very conducive to productive sessions. Although the risk of anything untoward happening is significantly lowered, many people, especially children with low self esteem, would not be able to openly express themselves in a more open area where anyone can just look in and watch. The idea of cctv in every room seems like a much better idea, but only if there’s a trusted person outside of the school or office who is administrating them. Cameras are pretty much useless if an abuser can simply delete or doctor a recording at will. People need to know that if something happens they will be held accountable, with no way of covering this up.
However, just cameras may not be enough. When I was in school they had cameras in every conceivable place(to the dismay of students trying to get away with things), and even with these precautions I still know of several incidents that happened just in the last few years, and I’m sure there’s many more that I don’t know about. Cameras have blind spots, and a determined predator will always find and exploit them. IMHO, the best possible precaution is to do more than destigmatize these issues in adult circles, where everybody is already pretty aware, now more than ever, of what can happen. The real issue is the children. If children will be afraid and unaware that this can unfortunately be a common occurrence, they will never come forward and the cycle will continue. Parents need to have conversations with their children, uncomfortable as it may be, and educators should speak openly about it in their classes. Schools should have assemblies discussing the issue frankly which will also serve the purpose of hopefully instilling fear in predators as well as spreading awareness.
I don’t expect anyone to take my suggestions into account, it’s too uncomfortable and ‘if we talk to the teachers we can stop it’. Those people need to man (or woman) up and do what needs to be done, before more of our innocent children are hurt.