Reply To: Molesters: Why Do Some In Our Community Cover For Them?

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Elliot Pasik
Member

Here are a couple reasons why I respectfully disagree with the opinion of Rabbi Klein, and I do agree with the majority of poskim holding that molesters should be brought to the police.

1. The underlying assumption behind Rabbi Klein’s opinion above is that once fired from a school, the molester is no longer a danger to the community. Not so. He can work in another school, or in another job near children, or move to a different community or country. Even the best of school authorities, in attempting to keep track of the molester’s whereabouts, will not succeed. Child molesters are notoriously devious, and their deviant yetzer hara is never fixed. Even with therapy, the consensus of psychologists is that there is absolutely no cure for child molesters. They have a high rate of repeat offending. Religious school authorities are no match for the power of the secular criminal justice system. A successful prosecution can result in a prison term which will take the molester off the streets for a period of time. There will likely be some publicity in local newspapers, so the community will know that this man is a molester, and proper precautions can be taken. Additionally, he will have a permanent criminal record, easily checked on the Internet, and it is unlikely that he will ever work again near children. Yeshiva administrators do not remotely have the ability to do any of this.

2. Additionally, Rabbi Klein appears to insist that a beis din may only adjudicate a molester through “proper witnesses”. Bizman ha’zeh, as others have ruled, this is too high a procedural burden, given what we know about the number of molesters out there, and the damage they inflict. Children and women need to testify.

Notably, also, Rabbi Klein acknowleges that other rabbis hold that molesters should be reported to the police.

As far as a beis din being required to reach a judgment with perfect “100 percent” certainty, I would suggest that those who raise this issue cite a source. I’ve never heard of this, and logically, it doesn’t make much sense. There are frequently witness credibility issues, memory issues, perception issues, and scientific, objective evidence has not always existed, obviously.