Justice Denied - What America Must Do To Protect Its Children
- Release Date: 08/05/2008
- Country of Issue: United States of America
- Category: Academic and professional books
“In understandable, eloquent prose, Marci Hamilton makes the case for abolishing a statutory scheme that protects sexual predators and which closes our courtrooms to maltreated children. Although it is too late to claim the honor of having acted quickly to address this injustice, this book shows us how to avoid the disgrace of having never acted at all.”
- Victor Vieth, Director, National Child Protection Training Center
Marci A. Hamilton, author of God Vs. the Gavel (2005) and one of America’s foremost authorities on church and state issues, now addresses another concern of urgent importance in the United States: the failures of the legal system’s handling of childhood sexual abuse.
In Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge; May 8, 2008), Hamilton examines the statute of limitations on legal action that states impose on victims of sexual abuse – in many cases, a mere two years. Short statutes of limitation in the vast majority of states have kept courthouses padlocked against survivors—to the benefit of predators.
Hamilton proposes a comprehensive yet simple solution: eliminate the statutes of limitation for childhood abuse so that survivors past and present can go to court when they have come to terms with what has happened to them. Standing in the way, however, are formidable opponents such as the insurance industry and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.
Hamilton predicts a coming civil rights movement for children, and explains why it is in the interest of all Americans to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse this chance to seek justice.
Justice Denied confronts head-on the powerful lobbyists opposed to reform, demonstrating why it is in the interest of all of us to support elimination of the statutes of limitation for childhood sexual abuse. It will be required reading for anyone concerned about the ways in which U.S. laws fail to adequately protect its most blameless victims.
ENDS
Notes for Editors:
Marci A. Hamilton is an internationally recognized constitutional expert specializing in church/state relations. She holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University and is a Visiting Professor and the Kathleen and Martin Crane Fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton.
Marci Hamilton is available for interviews.
Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children By Marci A. Hamilton was published by Cambridge University Press on May 8, 2008 180 Pages │ $22.00 ($23.95 CAD) │ ISBN: 978-0-521-88621-5
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