Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Teachers and Accusations of Abuse

By Mathew D. Olson and Gregory Lawler

Book Overview

Crimes against children are unspeakable. The natural instinct of our society is to protect our children at all cost. In the process, collateral damage has been done to teachers wrongly accused of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1581070624
• ISBN13: 9781581070620
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: New Forums Press
• Length: 228 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.5" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

lots of teachers in my family, not anymore!

All my grandmas, aunties, & Mom were teachers. (They were very good Working Mom's--incase you run into people that say working moms are bad. We did better in life than our peers who's mommas didn't work. ) Anyway, our teacher relatives discouraged us kids from going into it. The odds of having any sort of false accusation made against you is really high...nothing is too low for many of these folks seeking to make money. You are lower than the garbage man, people are more intimidated because the garbage man knows where these folks live. Bartenders & cashiers gets better treatment, because they could spit in your drink, plus all your peers are watching. Many of the kids won't mind, they aren't prepared for schooling, their parents didn't want to "break their spirit" by teaching appropriate behavior or discipline--unlike any other animal social pack on the planet. Alot of the kids households are highly unstable, abusing drugs & alcohol, lots of men & women come & going from the homes, so that highly increases the chances of the kids being sexualized, relating to the world through sexuality, desperate for attention, manipulative, YET very angry and punitive. These kids don't have much chance of learning study skills or even having a stable house to do homework or prepare for school, so not much future prospects. So they & their parents are going to "survive" at all costs even if it's taking advantage of a teacher or the school system. Or they'll take revenge over their failure in parenting, sue the teacher or school. Here's a sad story:... "Teacher who died in prison is cleared posthumously of rape A WEST Yorkshire, UK, teacher who died in prison after being convicted of raping one his pupils has been cleared posthumously. Timothy Gee was jailed for eight years when he was convicted at Leeds Crown Court in 2001. He fell ill and died from an undiagnosed blood cancer the following year. Always maintaining his innocence, Mr Gee launched two unsuccessful appeals before his death. He has now been cleared by the Court of Appeal. Campaigners have described the case as one of the worst miscarriages of justice they have seen. Gail Saunders, of the campaign group Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers, said: "It is an appalling example of the extraordinary difficulties faced by individuals who are accused of abuse many years after the alleged offence." Mr Gee's 88-year-old mother Molly has been awarded more than ?62,000 costs by the court after battling to clear her son's name. As part of that bid, she contacted the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which asked a leading psychiatrist to report on the girl - now aged 26 - who had accused Mr Gee of rape. While the study cast doubt on the girl's mental state, it emerged that she had also made similar accusations against another man, whose conviction was quashed earlier this year. Mrs Gee said: "It all boiled down to one girl's word against his, and the jury believed her. That'

People in Education -- Read This Book

This is an important book. Sure it is anecdotal. Yea, some of the prose is less than deathless. Ok, the discussion of law is limited to one state. However, administrators and teachers need to read this and then pass it on to a colleague. Your jaw will drop open in astonishment every other page

Examining the phenomenon of false accusations

The collaborative effort of journalist Matthew D. Olson and Colorado criminal defense lawyer Gregory Lawler, Guilty... Until Proven Innocent: Teachers And Accusations Of Abuse is a compelling and authoritative look at the human instinct as expressed through the legal system's inclination to protect children at all costs - even at the expense of a constitutionally required presumption of innocence. Examining the phenomenon of false accusations against teachers, (including thirteen of litigator and author Lawler's cases), Guilty... Until Proven Innocent is an exceptional and thought-provoking study, which is highly recommended reading for students and practitioners of the law -- as well as educators and members of the general public with a vested interest in protecting children from abuse and teachers from false accusations, while upholding the highest standards of the American judicial system.

Read this and protect yourself. Common sense isn't enough.

This book is so scary it should be in the horror section. I never considered the possibility of being falsely accused of abusing a child, but these brief case histories clearly show it happens all too often. The 13 incidents are well written and the point comes across very well. . . there needs to be some major reforms in our justice system to protect teachers (and coaches and child care workers) from having their lives ruined by blatently false accusations of abuse from angry or vindictive students, parents or co-workers.Although the authors offer some good suggestions on what you can do to protect yourself, I wanted more. But I guess that is the point of the book, something more needs to be done to protect the innocent when they are falsely accused. Read this book and pass it on.

An Absolute Must for Teachers

All teachers need to read this book. You may think "that's not my problem, it affects someone else;" but, accusations of abuse are happening to more teaches every day.The authors raise this important issue to the level of visibility it merits. The various true cases reported, along with the suggestions to help teachers stay out of trouble, are more than worth the time a teacher will invest in reading this new book.Parents of school children should read it too. I'm sure this book will in time be known as a classic for professional teacher development.