Welcome to another week.
As part of its Truth Project, which records and publishes individual experiences related to abuse, it has been revealed that the nation’s child abuse inquiry will be going into jails to ask prisoners about their personal experiences of child abuse.
The Inquiry believes the prison population harbours a significant portion of victims of child abuse and that several inmates may have turned to crime after being damaged by their treatment as children.
Critics of the move have expressed concern that some prisoners may lie about having been abused to justify their offences or make fraudulent compensation claims. Others are questioning the way in which the experiences will be collected, suggesting that allowing experiences to be recorded by the Project before checking the facts could lead to innocent people being implicated.
Barrister, Barbara Hewson:
“I think it is trawling. It’s all very well to say they want to look into institutional abuse but the more they do this and encourage people, some people will start to think maybe they can go for compensation.
They may well be people who have a long history of dishonesty and who see this as an opportunity to portray themselves as being wronged.”
Former Tory MP, Harvey Proctor, who was investigated over child abuse claims:
“There is no veracity in the Truth Project because statements are made to it without any checks.
Anyone can say anything about anyone and it is not checked, but it goes down in history as truth. Many of the prisoners will have lied to the courts, but the inquiry has the default position that they believe what is said.”
Those in favour of the Truth Project and this latest initiative explain that there is strong evidence to suggest that victims and survivors of abuse are over represented in prisons, and whilst claims made won’t be checked by the Inquiry itself, cases will be passed on to the police to investigate.
The Truth Project was designed to allow men and women abused as children to share their stories. Being able to share experiences in this way is believed to be cathartic and offers those abused the chance to feel vindicated after long periods, often, of having to conceal abuse or face ridicule and disbelief when trying to alert others to their experiences.
Our question this week then, is this: do you agree with those against the initiative, or those for it?
Researching Reform 
The fact remains that when children in care are beaten,starved,or abused in fostercare or care homes they are IGNORED by police ,,childline,nspcc,and anyone else they complain to because workers for the State seem to be both above approach,and above the law !!!
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This sounds suspiciously like the powers-that-be seeking to muddy the waters to start casting doubts before the start of any enquiries.
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Reblogged this on Musings of a Penpusher and commented:
This sounds suspiciously like the powers-that-be seeking to muddy the waters and casting doubts before the start of any enquiries.
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I think the whole concept is wrong in that those abused in childhood who have been abused will come out to someone when they are ready to …they come to you it seems odd to go into a prison population asking this as it is so obviously open to abuse. To children who have been abused come out in their own way in their own time as they had no ‘power’ when being abused it is essential almost to take that power back by revealing it, police protocols should be used when talking to children or adults about any abuse they may has suffered it needs to be both forensic and sensitive to the victim. Another danger is social workers convince family law judges that parents abused in childhood may not be able to be ‘good enough’ parent’s i.e. not able to protect or future emotional whatever on earth that means? This will be yet another way of labelling survivors as likely to end up in jail take drink/drugs etc adult survivors do survive and make excellent parents as they know the signs of abuse better than most and did not learn child protection out of a book like social workers who know theory but no practise.
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It is very open to abuse by prisoners and the powers that be and it is insulting to abuse survivors who do not go on to commit crimes. Plus you cannot force genuine survivors to ‘talk’- they need to be allowed to come forward in their own time with adequate support. Abuse/ sexual assault is not taken seriously by police, the CPS, judges, social workers etc and the elite in particular are allowed to walk. Sentences are a joke, as is support for victims. They have got this the wrong way round- they should be supporting the victims, not the criminals. Get them a priest if they want to confess, then consider it in their next parole hearing. Too many people get ludicrous sentences, then do less than half the time for ‘good behaviour’?! They should do the time allocated then be sent for proper ‘rehabilitation’- apparently it worked for gays? Could they not go ‘Clockwork Orange’ on them?
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