[Publib] Boy raped in Boston library...NY Times

[Jennie J. Stoltz]

I think it was clear that she was NOT saying that the last time something bad happened to kids in libraries was in the 1800s, she was saying that when she did a search on the Internet that's what she found.  If anything perhaps it shows that the documentation of such incidents is inadequate, at least on the Internet.  But regardless, getting back to the fundamental issue being discussed, I think that anyone working in a library should feel justified and even impelled to question someone in a children's area or in any area of the library who seems suspitious or appears to not be using the resources.  (Our Police Department has told us that we should not hesitate to call them if we feel uncomfortable approaching a suspicious patron, which I've made very clear to my staff.)  If I observed an adult sitting alone in a children's area who was not looking at the books (or was pretending to look at a book) but was watching the kids I would ask a lot of questions.  If they didn't have
 believable reasons for being there (and this is where one's inner voice might need to kick in) I might suggest they move to another area of the library.  I don't think it's necessary to have a written policy banning unacommpanied adults in the children's area in order to do this. 

Also, we have plenty of middle-schoolers and teens who are without parents in the adult area of our library.  A policy banning unaccompanied adults from the Children's area wouldn't protect them.  At my previous library we had to call in the police after a man had been watching one of our teenage pages and moved around the adult area of the Library so he could keep on watching her while she was shelving books.

Having been a Children's librarian for years I have always enjoyed visiting libraries' children's departments.  I still like to keep up on Children's literature.  I suppose I therefore have a "reason" for being in a Children's library but what if I was in a non-book or non-educational related career?  Does that mean I wouldn't have a reason?  Would it be enough to be an adult with no kids but who has an interest in children's books to be allowed to stay?  And frankly, what would prevent a sexual predator or any potentially dangerous person from saying they have an interest in children's books?

We can write policy after policy and we can try to take all the preventative measures possible but ultimately things happen that though extremely tragic are unanticipated and possibly unavoidable.  It is our responsibility to do what we can to make our library's environment safe and to be observant but it is also our responsibility to make it clear to everyone that no public area is completely safe.  Parents and caregivers do have a false sense of security when entering a children's library.  I've had a parent leave their one-year old playing in the play area while they went to the adult area to look for books.  Certainly "stranger danger" exists but also other dangers exist that don't even involve another human being.  The child crawls up on a piece of furniture and falls off, or the child pinches their finger (we had to call an ambulance when one child got his finger caught in a door), or the child wanders out of the library (we had a patron bring in a child who they found
 wandering outside in the parking lot - the child was too small to push open doors but not too small to hit the handicap door buttons).  

I've just gotten approved by my BOT a policy on Children in the Library which states (among other things) that children under the age of 9 should not be left unattended at any time anywhere in the library.  Because the policy is lengthy (3 pages) and frankly quite dry I am planning on creating supplemental materials (flyers and signage) that will hopefully help parents and caregivers learn about this new policy and that will also allow staff to have something in hand that they can use when they get resistance or even resentment from a patron.


Jennie J. Stoltz
Director
Pewaukee Public Library
(262) 691-5670, ext. 20
(262) 691-5673 fax

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----- Original Message -----
From: subs itoors <subs at itoors.com>
Date: Saturday, February 2, 2008 6:44 am
Subject: [Publib] Boy raped in Boston library...NY Times
To: publib at webjunction.org


> This is dedicated to the person who said that the last time something  
> 
>  bad happened to kids in libraries was in 1874 or something like that  
> 
>  and sees no issues with adults in the kids section of the library.
>  
>  This is from today's New York Times:
>  
>  Sex Offender Accused of Raping Boy, 6, in Public Library
>  
>  By KATIE ZEZIMA
>  Published: February 2, 2008
>  
>  BOSTON — A convicted sex offender was arrested this week and charged  
> 
>  with raping a 6-year-old boy in the New Bedford public library, feet  
> 
>  away from his mother, who was working on a computer.
>  
>  The suspect, Corey Saunders, 26, had pleaded guilty to attempted rape 
>  
>  of a child in 2001, but was released from prison in 2006 over the  
>  strong objections of prosecutors and psychiatrists.
>  
>  The police said Mr. Saunders lured the boy into the library’s book  
>  shelves on Wednesday. “He sees the little boy and asks him if he can  
> 
>  show him something,” said Lt. Jeffrey Silva of the New Bedford Police 
>  
>  Department. “The little boy thought he was going to show him a book 
> in  
>  there.”
>  
>  Lieutenant Silva said a librarian noticed Mr. Saunders speaking to 
> the  
>  boy after the alleged rape. The librarian remembered Mr. Saunders’s  
> 
>  name from a previous encounter, he said, and looked him up on the  
>  state’s sexual offender registry. When Mr. Saunders’s name came up,  
> 
>  the librarian approached the boy’s mother and called the police.
>  
>  Mr. Saunders fled the library and was later arrested smoking a  
>  cigarette outside a homeless shelter, Lieutenant Silva said.
>  
>  Mr. Saunders’s lawyer, Lee Fortier, could not be reached for comment.
>  
>  Judge Richard Moses of Superior Court had ruled in December 2006 that 
>  
>  prosecutors did not prove in a civil commitment hearing that Mr.  
>  Saunders was a sexually dangerous person and that he should be held 
> in  
>  a treatment program after his sentence was completed. Instead, Mr.  
>  Saunders received probation and was required to register as a Class 
> 3,  
>  or high risk, sex offender.
>  
>  Paul F. Walsh, the former Bristol County district attorney who 
> handled  
>  Mr. Saunders’s case, strongly objected to his release, as did  
>  psychiatrists who testified at the hearing. In an interview, Mr. 
> Walsh  
>  said he and others had feared that Mr. Saunders would commit another  
> 
>  crime.
>  
>  “I was D.A. for 16 years,” Mr. Walsh said, “and I put him in the top  
> 
>  10 most dangerous offenders. Everybody knew this guy was just another 
>  
>  incident waiting to happen.”
>  
>  In his ruling, Judge Moses wrote that Mr. Saunders was “far from  
>  emotionally mature” at the time of his offense, and that his 
> difficult  
>  childhood and low I.Q. were mitigating factors in the decision.
>  
>  Court records show that Mr. Saunders’s mother left him when he was 9. 
>  
>  At 14 he was found wandering the streets clutching a teddy bear and  
> 
>  was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for a month.
>  
>  A court spokeswoman said Judge Moses could not comment because the  
>  case was on appeal.
>  More Articles in National »
>  
>  Oh and as to my identity, I am a law enforcement officer for children 
>  
>  in Manhattan._______________________________________________
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