My outrage at finding out about Dennis Hastert’s history as a child molester reached its limits when I saw the news during this past week. I was stunned into complete silence, my head shaking back and forth in disbelief.
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Wednesday admitted to sexually abusing teenage boys during his time as a high school wrestling coach in a Chicago suburb before his career as an elected official. He is the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House in history.
Struggling to stand in federal court Wednesday, 74-year-old Hastert gripped his walker, approached the microphone and said that he “mistreated” some of his wrestlers and apologized.”They looked to me, and I took advantage of them,” Hastert said as he awaited his sentencing after pleading guilty last fall to breaking federal banking laws in a hush-money case. “I apologize to the court and to the people of the United States.” Judge Thomas Durkin sentenced Hastert to 15 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, along with two years of supervised release on the condition that he get sex offender treatment. Prosecutors had recommended a six-month sentence. Durkin called Hastert a “serial child molester” and said he must not contact any of his victims. Judge Thomas M. Durkin said Hastert got off easy.
“Because the statue of limitations for your child molestation ran out many years ago, you can’t be charge for that” Durkin said during sentencing. “And I can’t sentence you as a child molester. It’s not what you were charge with; it’s not what you’ve pled guilty to and any sentence I give you today will pale in comparison to what you would have faced in state court.”
For an interesting and informative article about the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse crimes
please see:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-statute-of-limitations-hastert-met-20160429-story.html
Judge Thomas Durkin sentenced Hastert to 15 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, along with two years of supervised release on the condition that he get sex offender treatment. Prosecutors had recommended a six-month sentence. Durkin called Hastert a “serial child molester” and said he must not contact any of his victims.
While there is much discussion as to whether or not child molesters can be rehabilitated, I do not believe they can. Child molesters should be sentenced to life in prison. They do not deserve our mercy. While this may not be a very Christian attitude, as the mother of three children who were sexually abused I would be totally comfortable with the perpetrators being behind bars for life. According to the Old Testament, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”; this would be just retribution for the molester. Let them see what it’s like.
Even as Mr. Hastert was going to trial he defined his wrong doing as “mistreated”. What a coward. He couldn’t even define his acts by their true nature. People often mistreat an animal or mistreat their wife. While those too are reprehensible, the word mistreat does not come close to the true meaning of child sexual abuse. When you abuse a child sexually you take away all of the gifts they were born with. You take away their self-esteem, their confidence, their joy in life and you replace it with a life sentence of shame.
According to Andrew Vachss in an article originally published in the New York Times on January 5, 1993, “Some predatory sociopaths can be deterred. None can be rehabilitated since they cannot return to a state that never existed. The concept of coercive therapy is a contradiction; successful psychiatric treatment requires participants, not mere recipients. What makes sexual predators so intractable and dangerous is that they like what they do and intend to keep doing it.”
You can read this excellent article further at: http://www.vachss.com/av_dispatches/disp_9301_a.html
Please, if you have young children get a copy of “he told me not to tell, A parents’ guide to talking to children about sexual assault”. You can order it from King County Sexual Assault Resource Center in Renton, WA. Call 888.99.VOICE to receive your free copy.
