Recent events have set us to thinking about the mindset of people thrust into intense, "My God, what am I seeing?" moments.
Everyone would like to think they would do precisely the right thing at the right moment, but it is evident that different people react in different -- outwardly strange -- ways. In the recent, headline-grabbing case of Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky, a junior member of the coaching staff who allegedly walked in on Sandusky as he was sexually attacking a boy in the university shower room left the area, calling his father and revered Coach Joe Paterno to ask how to proceed.
Another potential witness -- a university custodian and Korean War veteran -- also allegedly walked in on Sandusky as he was attacking a boy in the Penn State shower room. According to one of the man's colleagues, the janitor, who was reportedly “upset and crying” as he talked about what he'd seen, said that he had “fought in the war…" and that he had "just witnessed something in there I’ll never forget.”
The janitor told his immediate supervisor what he’d seen, and the supervisor “told him to whom he should report the incident, if he chose to report it.” The janitor, who now suffers from dementia and is unable to testify before the grand jury, never made an official report.
So, dig deep. Put yourself in the scenario: at work, surrounded by people on whom your job depends, and you see a colleague perpetrate a crime in front of your eyes.
What would you do?
For most ordinary people, doing the difficult thing is too difficult. They will look for ways around it. In this case, the witness decided to report it to Joe Paterno. Let him deal with it. He's older and wiser, he'll know what to do. But Joe Paterno had the same idea: tell the athletic director. Make it his problem. What did the athletic director do? I don't know, exactly, but I did read that they told Sandusky he couldn't bring kids there anymore. That, of course, was meaningless. It was like saying, "Do not bring disgrace upon Penn State by dragging us into this. We will forget what just happened, but don't let it happen [here] again." That kind of thing happens all the time. Even here among the well educated and cultured people of Lamorinda, if faced with similar circumstances, I would bet at least 80 percent of us would not have the courage to report the incident to police. It would be social suicide, at the very least. Legally, the witness is probably in the clear. But Joe Paterno and the athletic director are not, being more senior and failing to uphold their duty to the public. It is a school, after all.
Suppose you're a junior attorney at a large, prestigious law firm in the city, one whose name is known around the world. Hundreds of partners, hundreds of high profile clients. Late one night, thinking nobody else is there, you open the door to a partner's private office and you see that partner committing a molestation right before your eyes. Of course, you would be shocked. Now, let's assume you left the scene. It’s a few minutes later. You have left the office because you cannot imagine staying there. You prepare to call the police, and then it hits you. This could kill the firm. Every high profile client will find a new attorney, because nobody would want to be associated with that firm. The partner will deny your assertions, say you made it up. You will lose your job. You will be accused of destroying the firm. You will not be able to get another job. Everybody will know who you are, and nobody will want to hire you. You will lose your house. Your life will be shattered. Does that clarify the situation?
The consequences you lay out for taking action are pretty weighty. But one thing I know that outweighs that --- I couldn't live with myself if I let it happen and a child rapist was allowed to walk away and, probably, continue to assault children without my doing SOMETHING about it. Does that clarify my position?
But really, what we're all considering are the complexities of community power dynamics and how we treat "whistleblowers." It's often been said that everyone loves a whistleblower, but no one wants to hire one. (And, in my professional life, I've known one such whistleblower who faced a long, hard road to re-employment in her industry after blowing the whistle on her employer.) Perhaps, for those who want to effect change, we should consider, when we are in a hiring position, valuing past whistle-blowing rather than punishing it.
My purpose in writing the follow up was to challenge people to think about just how difficult it might be to do the right thing. If you realize that doing the right thing, in some situations, could alter the future course of your life -- not for the better -- and yet you still insist on the necessity of doing the right thing, that is the way we should all hope to be.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to avoid hiring someone with a track record of calling authorities with unfounded/flimsy allegations.
I am also disturbed be the sentiment portrayed above regarding a sort of sliding scale moral code regarding one's responsibility to protect the innocent. In such cases I would not stop to consider how my saving a child from continued adult debauchery might somehow negatively effect my future earning power! We are not talking about white collar crime here. This is not embezzling or stealing intellectual property, this is an unimaginably sick premeditated crime perpetrated on a child. And Sandusky's nonchalance indicates to me that this may just be the tip of an ugly, deep-rooted iceberg. Do not lose sight of the victims here!
You, Chris, seem to have a faith in the basic integrity of a partner in a top legal, management consulting or banking firm - and, likely, the impartiality of the judicial process - that I might once have assumed, but lost through personal experience. And you'll likely still apply some prejudice when considering employing someone who's claimed discrimination, without considering the merits of her situation.
http://boxer.senate.gov/en/press/releases/111611.cfm Senator Barbara Boxer, “To protect our children from violence and abuse, anyone who sees or knows about a crime against a child must report it to local authorities. Right now, the federal government and 32 states have no such requirement in law.” "Senator Boxer’s two bills – the State Child Protection Act and the Federal Child Protection Act – would correct this dangerous lack of protection for our children. The bills would require that anyone who witnesses or has reasonable suspicion of a crime against a child must report it to local law enforcement or a child protective agency. Under the State Child Protection Act, states that fail to comply would lose a portion of their federal justice assistance grants. The Federal Child Protection Act would require all persons on federal property to report child abuse." Unfortunately we do need new laws and associated sanctions to get some of us to do the right thing.
I think NOT! You stop the incident and clear the child from the situation. Then you call the managing general partner and begin to arrange for the surrender of the criminal to the police. If the MGP refuses, you call the police. If he concurs, the devious cloak of containment begin at once to encapsulate and sterilize the situation while the rapist prepares for a life with Bubba. 95% of child molestation incidents are preventable, that is, these perverts are allowed to continue their indecent, subhuman behaviors based on the rationale delineated above by 'A Guy in Orinda'. Sometimes you must take a stand, particularly where the innocent are concerned. If you do not, you tacitly condone this moral depravity, which makes you an accomplice and, by association, a victim yourself. So, if you choose a cowardly, self indulgent path, as 'A Guy in Orinda' suggests, everyone loses. The child in particular, but the swath cut through the emotional wellbeing of everyone else touched by this perversion is like having General Sherman decide how to punish your emotional stability on a daily basis. He most certainly "clarified the situation", but not the one regarding the disposition of monsters that rape children.
http://boxer.senate.gov/en/press/releases/111611.cfm Senator Barbara Boxer, “To protect our children from violence and abuse, anyone who sees or knows about a crime against a child must report it to local authorities. Right now, the federal government and 32 states have no such requirement in law.” "Senator Boxer’s two bills – the State Child Protection Act and the Federal Child Protection Act – would correct this dangerous lack of protection for our children. The bills would require that anyone who witnesses or has reasonable suspicion of a crime against a child must report it to local law enforcement or a child protective agency. Under the State Child Protection Act, states that fail to comply would lose a portion of their federal justice assistance grants. The Federal Child Protection Act would require all persons on federal property to report child abuse."
(CAPS below to differentiate from quote) "@Mblog: I hope your morals are really as pure as your sanctimony. I AM MORALLY NORMAL, IN THAT I TAKE THEM DEAD SERIOUSLY AND THEY SLIDE ON NO SCALE. THEY MAY BE TEMPERED BY THE SITUATION, BUT THEY ARE STEADY. I, along with the other "subhumans," are cursed to live in the real world, SUB-HUMAN REFERRED TO PEDOPHILES, OBVIOUSLY. where sweeping absolutes make for nice speeches, but sometimes don't provide a mechanical (SIC) and optimal (SIC) solution to many of life's predicaments. The world needs heros, but most of us would pause for half a beat before springing to action. Is that wrong? I THINK THERE ARE MANY MORE HEROES THAN YOU KNOW. PERHAPS IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE. As for moral stands, I have been in the position many times. When I was 30 or so, I took a stand that would eventually cost me a job (I did not consider it at the time) and I recovered over time. Your nihilistic pov leaves little room for the human spirit. We are in an era of the self-righteous and self-absorbed, where altruism is a dirty word. I also believe most people would consider saving a child from being raped an opportunity, not an inconvenient predicament.
Is it possible that you DO see shades of gray in the world?
As for 'tempering' as applied to a moral code, it refers to the action taken to achieve the applicable moral standard, not the COMPROMISING of said standard. In the case in question, something had to be done immediately to stop the rape and ensure the safety of the child. Then, the timely reporting of the perpetrator's identity to the "proper" authority would follow. 'Stop it' and 'Report it' both represent my moral obligation, both to be accomplished post haste. "Tempering", applied to the former, would include a range of possible behaviors in which morality would also serve as arbiter. For instance, I could pull the child to safety, then beat the reprobate to a bloody pulp, ensuring that safety, or I could simply remove the child and temporarily ignore the well-known miscreant knowing full well who he is and reasonably certain of his future availability. Clear? fyi: Your dogmatic style at times clouds your insight.
My simple point is: Although it would be nice to imagine that people would invariably "do the right thing" regardless of consequences, both the human brain and the real world are more complicated than that. If you want to predict and understand actual behavior, my model does a better job than utopian absolutest ones. I am a realist.
It is called a vocabulary, they are not that difficult to develop. Had it for years. Undergrad degree was in psych and this insistence on the last (correct) word may have another name now, but in the 60s it was about sublimated aggression and a few other aspects associated with external affirmation or some such. Be that as it may, the goal of this poll is to gather differing points of view in order to see if this sampling of the population trends toward some, as yet undiscovered, position. And it most definitely is not about establishing right from wrong, which is for the Criminal Justice System to decide. My position on whether or not the major crime one witnesses at their workplace should be reported (with a subtitle that infers a recent "Penn State type" crime) is: Yes, I immediately would do something to abort the disgusting crime against innocence then report it to the police. The responsibility I feel toward protecting the innocent would supersede any concern for myself. If the crime were of a "white collar" variety, a completely different animal in that the victim is a business, but of "major" proportion, I would make the perpetrator aware of the fact that I knew and if he did report him or herself, then I would. Life is too short to be hauling around that sort of complicit guilt as you would also have become an accomplice after the fact.