The last couple of years, I’ve been keeping a kind of informal mental tally of all the sex crimes reported in our broadcasts and in the region’s newspapers.<\/p>\n
An sickening number of these allegations — and convictions — involve men who are entertaining themselves with pornographic images of children.<\/p>\n
A terrifying number of these cases involve men who actually tried to predate on young people. <\/p>\n
There are, of course, the high-profile cases, including the conviction of former Assemblyman Chris Ortloff from Plattsburgh for trying to arrange a tryst with two little girls. <\/p>\n
His case offered a particularly horrific insight into the mental state of one such predator.<\/p>\n
In Saranac Lake, the director of the local youth center has been fired and faces criminal charges that he raped a 13-year-old girl. <\/p>\n
Then there’s Plattsburgh celebrity Raymond “Foxy” Gagnon who faces trial soon on kiddy-porn charges.<\/p>\n
And then there’s the state police academy trainer in Rutland, Vermont, who committed suicide recently, a day after his home computer was seized. <\/p>\n
Investigators had accused him of using his academy computer to look at child porn.<\/p>\n
It’s important to say that people are innocent until proven guilty; and we’ve had some cases in the North Country where the facts didn’t bear out the accusations.<\/p>\n
Surrounding these prominently-reported allegations are the weekly — sometimes, it seems, daily — reports of other arrests for child-sex or child-porn charges.<\/p>\n
We’re just beginning our investigation into this bleak phenomenon. Is there truly an uptick in sexual crimes against children? If so, why?<\/p>\n
Or is it only better reporting, better investigation by the media? Is this, in fact, a scourge we’ve lived with for a long time?<\/p>\n
Are schools and other child-care organizations doing everything possible to screen predators?<\/p>\n
We like to think of ourselves as a tight-knit, small-town culture. And there’s a lot of truth to that self-image. <\/p>\n
But my sense is that we have to do much much better with this fundamental challenge: protecting children and identifying the predators who live among us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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