Abuse victims face so much after abuse is unearthed. Every institution in the United States has their own horror to further put victims through. I’ve tried below to capture a pattern seen across many institutions.
Law enforcement is understaffed and often poorly trained on how to treat victims. Perpetrators can seem charming and cooperative, often balancing emotional displays of sudden remorse with blaming the victims for their abuse. Defense attorneys engage in re-traumatizing of victims. Judicial officers can be swayed by shared interests or similarities to the perpetrator and lighter sentences are used. Victims are expected to navigate a complex legal system on their own. Paperwork is mountainous and in person visits are required for most steps in the process of justice. They are told “There are bigger fish to fry.” Family court becomes a weapon against victims, using their own children as a means for their abuser to have legal access to them. [See 11]
Within families, the victims can be blindsided by attempts to cover for the perpetrator. Trying to maintain their own sanity and sense of safety, the abuser’s familial enablers will employ habits of intense control and manipulation that have been forming for generations. The victims and other family members alike are bullied into “keeping it in the family” and not involving or lying to law enforcement. The family will do their best to minimize the abuse out of intense pain and denial of someone they love being an abuser, not realizing they are a part of an abusive system. Familial ties are used against the victims. They are threatened with the loss of their own children, siblings, parental figures or even pets. The victims are put upon to consider the hurt the feelings or reputation of the family as more important than the truth.
If the victims do not cave, they are often subjected to character assassination. Trope-like in their common threads, victims, even young children, are portrayed as “difficult and having lots of behavioral problems”, “bad at school or not very smart”, “attention seeking and crazy” or “seductive masters of manipulation”.
The family spends all their time and resources on defending the perpetrator in the hope that life will return to normal, minus the presence of the victim. All the good times and attributes of the perpetrator are discussed in detail and the years of horrific abusive behavior is portrayed as a single “mistake”. Cognitive dissonance abounds as loved ones refuse to grieve who they thought the abuser was and open their eyes to who they are. It is common for a perpetrator to be the partner of the mother of a child victim. The mother faces abuse and pressure themselves to comply. These are the circumstances that regularly facilitate a child entering foster care. Following being abandoned by family, the victims will be subjected to a sudden change of heart by the perpetrator. Realizing that “playing nice” to the child will benefit their criminal case or missing the control they had over the victim results in the perpetrator enlisting their family in a campaign to have the victim returned. This often works and foster children are frequently placed back into a family member’s home with the perpetrator having full access and the children experiencing abuse again. [See 14]
Foster care, under the strain of a cycle of abusive workers, care providers and directors committing funding fraud, is understaffed and ill-prepared. Good foster parents and case workers are weeded out by systemic corruption and moral fatigue. Children in custody of the government frequently end up in the home of an abuser. Any reporters of an abusive foster parent find themselves under the target of a well-oiled machine of propaganda and cover-ups. Or the system traumatizes the children with removal and then places them right back after a short time with no changes in safety. [See 9 & 10]
Institutions like religious groups, kids clubs, non-profits, the military, politics, schools and sports clubs attract abusers and individuals who crave the cycle of control over others. The abuse is allowed to fester under the guise of safety, while policies and procedures haven’t changed for decades. When the abuse is exposed, these institutions choose to bury the truth instead of changing.
Christian churches in the United States have been documented as consistent in their attempts to bury truth. When abuse is exposed, many church bodies are recruited into supporting the perpetrator. The messaging is all about forgiveness, unity, repentance and redemption while twisting the biblical view of grace. Truth, justice and accountability are not present. Sides are created and loyalty is demanded. Whether they are aware or not, attendees are dragged into perpetuating unrelenting pressure on the victims. Truth identifying words like rapist, pedophile, cheater, predator or abuser are never spoken, while untrue terms are quickly applied to victims. Victims find themselves in the maddening situation of people praying for their repentance; often for simply fleeing their abuser. They are compared villainously to names found in scripture, most commonly Jezebel or Gomer. Their silence is construed as guilt. The victims are admonished for “not being forgiving” when there hasn’t even been enough time for genuine repentance from the perpetrator. If the victims do display forgiveness, church leadership can use it against them for further minimization of their pain and as evidence any procedures, leadership or family relationships do not need to be changed for safety. Instead of law enforcement being contacted, abusers are foisted upon an unqualified church member with unfair expectations of their “mentorship” being able to reform the perpetrator. Professional therapy is thought of as “unbiblical” and rarely considered. The abuser resurfaces “renewed” without having taken any steps towards repentance and now has better tools to get away with offending again. Other members witness the cycle of zero consequences; planting the idea that abuse is a simple mistake that you can easily get away with by sprinkling some contrition on it. Sins like pornography addiction or lack of self-control with anger are hidden, only spoken of in vague platitudes. Asking for help for these before they form into cyclical entitlement or abuse is seen as a moral failing. Instead of placing effort in confession and healing, all energy is directed into methods of deceit and whittling away anyone who would “sharpen iron”. Petri dishes of purity culture influences and destructive unbiblical world views about women and the discipline of children, churches can become environments where abusers thrive. Biblical knowledge, years of ministry and nepotistical faith are all used as examples of why leadership should remain unaccountable. Calls for responsibility get rebranded as “attacks of the devil” or “satan’s desire to destroy His people”. Scripture is misconstrued into trivial phrases like “we shouldn’t gossip” and “only God gets revenge” or “don’t cast the first stone”. Anyone discussing biblical instruction to guard against worldly behavioral patterns, look for fruit produced, use discernment, take thoughts captive, learn from past consequences and habitual tendencies are seen as offering opinions. Those not falling in line with “worship as usual” sometimes find their sins, confessed in confidence, suddenly broadcasted. Good ministries and the services they provide to the community get held hostage to the idea that they will be threatened if accountability happens. That somehow God is not in control enough to allow the Church to do the right thing. The perpetrator succeeds in becoming the victim, praised for overcoming all their “hardships” (mostly the consequences of their own actions). Believer’s desire for safety, denying betrayal, division of family, inexperience with this pattern, weariness from facing this pattern before, having been a victim of abuse, worry over inconvenience, pressure to conform, deep hurt at the loss of shared faith experiences and great love/affection for their fellow church members all churn out differing timelines of realization and desires on outcome. This pattern has been displayed over and over again in all denominations across the United States. These churches, under the unrelenting light of biblical truth, slowly self-destruct. They become shells of what they once were with only the few members left who refuse to facilitate change that includes accountability; a loyal fan club to a dead, ungodly cause shaking their heads at the people who wanted no part of idolizing its leader.
[see examples 1-6]
This pattern can be found in different forms in other religions as well with equal amounts of twisting text and methods of cover-up. Cult leaders add additional elements to this pattern in an attempt to bolster their influence and control.
In clubs and the military, the perpetrators find their buddies rally around them without effort. They join right in on the character assassination of the victims and anyone that stood up for them. Their buddy, in their mind, didn’t do it. Or if he did, everyone is exaggerating, drumming up drama that isn’t anyone’s business. They superimpose military power dynamics or club rules onto the situation using their years of service/membership, mutual trauma or team participation in abuse as a justification for any behavior of their pal. They demand respect from everyone on the basis of military service or club status. Nothing said is going to change their mind. [See 7 & 8]
Teachers get “Teacher of the Year” while parents and other teachers have been actively bringing up concerns to administrators for years. Colleges put the onerous on women to protect themselves and “handle” incidents of rape internally. Resources are directed towards minimizing reports instead of prosecuting rapists, pursuing rape drug suppliers and funding safe practices. [See 12 & 13]
Politics is likely the strongest magnet to individuals who enjoy manipulation and crave power and control over others. Closely tied to the corporate world, influence and money are used to mass abuse. It would take a whole book just to summarize the horrific treatment of victims in these institutions.
In sports, irrelevant things like a coach’s winning percentage or years experience are put up as defense for not believing victims. Playing time, college potential and a child’s future in the sport are leveraged against families. [See 15]
When individuals leave these organizations in protest after seeing the coercion by an abuser and their enablers, they are included in the character assassination. Rules around the protection of children and the definition of consent become conveniently confusing and murky. Onlookers to an abuse case can feel unqualified to speak up for victims, confusing their own poor behavior, imperfections or reactions to a partner or as a parent as comparable. They do not understand that abuse is regular purposeful actions, often well hidden, and requires clear intent to harm, control, threaten, degrade, have power over or to use someone. Leadership, lack of accountability and the systems that allow abuse, remain unchanged and the rest of the members or employees continue on none-the-wiser or willfully ignorant. Victims are put through intense scrutiny, often unjustly questioned of their timing or motives in reporting their abuser when for years they had been unbelieved, punished for reporting and threatened into silence. The danger the abuser is to the victim is not taken seriously by those who were never physically harmed or threatened. In addition to the abuse they endured, a large majority of victims experience having to flee their homes, leaving their possessions behind, being shunned by family, facing financial insecurity and being eschewed by their communities.
Believing victims means so much more than just agreeing what they endured was abuse.
It is doing the actual uncomfortable change that needs to happen to protect the vulnerable. Elements of this pattern of treatment of victims are evident in almost every case of abuse in an institution. Utilizing professionally approved practices and leadership structure for safe and secure reporting is a must. Keep looking for the truth and encouraging those around you to as well.
*Please feel free to disagree, discuss and dissect in the comments. Corrections to grammar also welcome. Comments that disparage, dox or accidentally reveal victims will be deleted.
I’ve included with associated numbers after each discussed institution, articles demonstrating real examples of hurt added onto victims and sites explaining concepts or patterns within each institution.
Reporting:
1.
2.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/22/1100616952/southern-baptists-sex-abuse
3.
https://roysreport.com/investigations/jon-courson-applegate/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
4.
https://ministrywatch.com/popular-christian-authors-arrested-for-alleged-abuse/
5.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/2023/02/grace-community-church-elder-biblical-counseling-abuse/
6.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/2007/11/21/former-pastor-talked-openly-with-police-about-sex-charges/
7.
https://projects.oregonlive.com/boyscouts/
8.
9.
10.
https://powertosoar.org/abuse-in-foster-care-statistics/
11.
12.
13.
https://www.ed.gov/research/educator-sexual-misconduct-a-synthesis-of-existing-literature
14.
https://stopabusecampaign.org/2019/03/23/reasons-family-members-side-with-sexual-abusers/
15.
https://en.humanium.org/exploitation-of-children-in-sport-a-widespread-and-unchecked-problem/
Resources:
I’ve included some further reading on this topic for those who want to dig through.
*If any of this post made you question your relationships or security, please find a safe place and time to review these resources. Make sure to use a private or discrete option on your search engine and delete from your history.*
https://calledtopeace.org/warning-signs-quiz/
The book:
“Why Does He Do That?” By Lundy Bancroft
Further information:
For the definition of abuse:
https://www.thehotline.org/resources/types-of-abuse/
