MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)
We are glad that a child sex reform bill is moving forward but Michigan lawmakers can and should do much more that extend the state’s archaic, arbitrary and predator-friendly statute of limitations.
We’re relieved that Senator Steve Bieda’s measure won a unanimous vote in committee. But six states have gone further. They’ve opened one or two or three years “civil window” which immediately makes kids safer by exposing hundreds of child sex offenders and their “enablers” in civil courts. These essentially suspend the statute of limitations for anyone abused at any time as a child.)
Windows also do more to discourage employers from ignoring or enabling child sex crimes in the future.
Any longer statute of limitations for child sex crimes is progress. But this particular reform, if enacted, just nibbles at the edges of a crisis. Immediate statute of limitations reform – especially a civil window – is much more effective and just. It will expose those who commit and conceal child sex crimes right away, not decades in the future.
We urge Michigan citizens, especially parents, to actively back this bill and vigorously push for even more effective legislative reform so that tens of thousands will be spared the crippling devastation child sex crimes cause.
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