Justice Denied by Marci A. Hamilton
May 19th, 2008Title: Justice Denied
Author: Marci A. Hamilton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (2008)
This is the first book I have reviewed that wasn’t entertaining…nor was it intended to be. Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children by Marci A. Hamilton is a legal book about what it is going to take to reduce the number of children that are being sexually assaulted. Not exactly a Grisham-like legal thriller…but the idea is still interesting.
Hamilton is an expert on Church/State legal issues and therefore has a lot of interesting things to say about the Catholic Church. She doesn’t blame only the Cathloic Church for the problems…so it doesn’t read like a hatefest…she also blames insurance companies, undereducated citizens, and lawmakers.
The thesis of this book is that the Statute of Limitations (SOL) for sexual assault on children should be totally removed, like murder cases. In a lot of states the SOL is surprisingly young. Hamilton states the case that most molestation victims (she uses the word “survivors”, which I like better) are rarely able to come forward to accuse their attacker until much later in life. This makes a lot of sense because kids aren’t going to have the courage to do that with their parents, teachers, or whatever adult attacked them.
I’m no law expert, but eliminating the SOL for child molestation cases certainly makes sense to me. Hamilton does mention the fact that a lot of states are moving in that direction by extending the SOL or not starting the clock until “discovery”, or when the survivor realizes the impact the assault had on them. These are good steps toward correcting this problem.
This is an interesting, and kind of depressing, book. If you are interested in law or protecting children, this would be a good book to read.
Rating: 3 out of 5
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