Pennsylvania's Stories of the Decade: Child protection failings dominated

By John Finnerty
CNHI News Service
December 29, 2019

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The state’s struggle to confront and combat abuse and neglect of children struck at the heart of three of the biggest stories of the past decade in Pennsylvania.

That includes revelations of child sexual abuse by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, as well as abuse by Catholic priests across the state. Advocates for children have noted that the opioid epidemic that has claimed thousands of lives through overdoses has also wrought havoc on families and contributed to neglect and abuse of children.

While the state has responded to the scandals in a variety of ways, it’s clear that a solution that makes a far-reaching impact on efforts to help children remains elusive, said Cathleen Palm, founder of the Center for Children’s Justice, a Berks County-based advocacy group focusing on efforts to better protect children.

Palm said public outrage over the crimes of Sandusky and the hundreds of predator priests identified in grand jury investigations has translated into improved awareness about the harm caused by sexual abuse of children.

But that hasn’t necessarily translated into attention and action to help children harmed in other ways, including other forms of physical abuse and neglect.

State data show there were more children killed or seriously injured by abuse last year than there were in 2010.

Thirty-three children were killed by abuse in 2010 and 54 children were injured so severely their cases were described as “near-fatalities,” according to state data.

In 2018, 47 children were killed by abuse and 89 abuse cases were considered “near-fatalities” by investigators.

The state hasn’t released 2019 data.

Advocacy groups have noted that prior to 2013, the state was likely undercounting abuse deaths because a child’s death wouldn’t be classified as a case of abuse unless it was clear who the killer had been.

Still, there’s little reason to feel like the state’s making progress.

“Something is still out of kilter with our system,” Palm said.

The following are the Top Pennsylvania Stories of the Decade (2010-19):

1. Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse revelations

A month after legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno set the record for most victories by a college coach, it all came crashing down on Nov. 5, 2011, when Acting Attorney General Linda Kelly announced that former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky had been charged with sexually assaulting boys.

Events played out dizzyingly. Days after Sandusky’s arrest, two administrators — Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President of Finance and Administration Gary Schultz — were charged with lying to the grand jury that investigated the Sandusky allegations.

Paterno was fired on Nov. 9 and died less than three months later at the age of 85. Penn State President Graham Spanier resigned days after the scandal broke, and he was later charged with endangering the welfare of children.

A report commissioned by the university, completed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, concluded that Paterno had been told about allegations that Sandusky was molesting children years before Sandusky’s arrest.

The NCAA handed down sanctions that fell just short of being a death sentence to the Penn State football program and vacated the university’s wins from 1998 to 2011. By 2015, the NCAA reached a settlement with the university to restore Paterno’s vacated wins.

Sandusky was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison for his crimes. Curley was sentenced to 7-23 months in jail for his role in the cover-up, while Schultz was sentenced to 6-23 months in jail for his role.

Spanier was sentenced to 4-23 months in jail. A federal judge in April threw out Spanier’s conviction and ordered that he be retried.

“With all the elements involved, the Sandusky case was the biggest story in Pennsylvania” of the last decade, said G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin and Marshall College.

2. Donald Trump wins Pennsylvania and the White House

In 2016, Donald Trump did what no Republican had achieved since 1988 — he won in Pennsylvania, picking up the state’s 20 electoral votes and winning the election. Trump won by 44,000 votes, despite the fact there were about 900,000 more registered Democrats in Pennsylvania in 2016. Trump’s win defied polls that had consistently suggested that the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was ahead.

Madonna said the polls didn’t foresee Trump’s victory because so many voters made their minds up in the last days before the election, after the last rounds of polling had been completed.

3. Priest abuse revelations

Revelations about abuse by priests and the actions of church leaders in covering up for predator priests have erupted periodically across the country since 2002 when the Boston Globe published a series of stories documenting the cover-up of predator priests there. A grand jury revealed similar problems in the Philadelphia Archdiocese in 2005.

The priest abuse scandal didn’t really draw statewide attention until 2016 when an investigative grand jury revealed the church had covered up for 50 predator priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese. That investigation prompted a broader review of actions by church officials in six other dioceses — Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton — that revealed 300 predator priests had molested at least 1,000 victims.

The investigations also revealed almost none of the priests named in the report could be charged criminally and few victims could sue the church for its role in covering up for the crimes. In response, the state passed a law eliminating the statute of limitations for future serious sex crimes against crime children and providing survivors more time to file lawsuits. A move to offer retroactive relief by amending the state Constitution could be on the ballot in 2021 if lawmakers give a second round of approval to a resolution approved by the House in the spring and in the Senate in November.

4. Fracking creates an energy industry boom

The discovery that fracking technology could be used to extract natural gas from the Marcellus shale formations across much of rural Pennsylvania spurred controversy over environmental concerns but also a spike in economic activity. Last year, only Texas produced more natural gas than Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In 2012, the state passed Act 13, which created an impact fee on drilling, which has provided funding for the state and the communities where drilling is taking place. Last year, that fee generated $252 million.

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, won election in 2014 on a campaign that leaned heavily on the promise that he’d use a new tax on drilling activity to get additional funding for public schools. Despite the governor’s pressure, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled General Assembly have repeatedly refused to approve the severance tax on fracking.

5. Opioid epidemic

Opioid and heroin abuse proved to be a devastating scourge across the state, taking thousands of lives, destroying families and prompting the governor in early 2018 to take the unprecedented step of declaring a public health emergency to try to get a grip on the crisis.

The opioid epidemic claimed 5,456 lives in Pennsylvania in 2017, according to the DEA. The state moved to make it more difficult for doctors to over-prescribe opioids and harder for drug users to doctor-shop to get opioids they don’t medically need. The state also moved to make naloxone, a drug that stops the effects of an overdose, more widely available.

Those efforts seemed to make an impact as the number of overdose deaths dropped in 2018, though opioids still claimed almost 4,500 lives in Pennsylvania that year.