Title: In Plain View
Author: Malcolm Galdwell
Magazine: The New Yorker
In the CRITICS section of The New Yorker, I found an article about the Jerry Sandusky, the man who was guilty of multiple charges of child abuse from Penn State, and how he got involved with molesting little boys. The reason why I choose this article was because I am a huge sports fanatic and this incident was sweeping across the sports nation, and I found it to be disturbing. The article first starts off with a side story of a teacher who supposedly touched three little boys. However, this teacher was known to be a nice guy and nobody believed it was true because everybody liked him so much. No evidence was found to prove this teacher was ever guilty.
Jerry Sandusky grew up in Washington, Pennsylvania where his father was the head of the local community recreation center. All Jerry's life he was surrounded by little boys from the programs he ran such as Second Mile, which was to help troubled and disadvantage boys. Sandusky took boys from that program to the Penn State facility to "workout" and then after take "showers" with them. Sandusky was known for making "jokes, horse playing around and being a lovable goofball". What I found interesting was that child molesters use the tactic "grooming", task of locating vulnerable children. So Sandusky was testing the waters with boys in the facility and seeing how comfortable they were or weren't with Jerry touching the boys. One boy almost got Jerry into trouble since he admitted to his mother that he took a shower with Sandusky, but said nothing else leading to no evidence against him. Jerry was working for a brilliant football legend at the time, Joe Paterno, who was the head football coach for Penn State. In 2001, a former Penn State quarterback named Mike McQueary witnessed Sandusky and a boy showering together and said he heard "sexual sounds". This led up to the Jerry Sandusky case of multiple charges of child abuse and was guilty for 45 of them. This led to Joe Paterno's termination as the Penn State's head football coach and unfortunately to his death two months later.
This case of Jerry Sandusky's outcome was tragic to the school Penn State as they are penalized for Sandusky's wrong doing and the death of legend Joe Paterno. Jerry Sandusky has been grooming all his live with little boys to take advantage of them and do as he pleases with them when they were vulnerable. How can someone live with themselves knowing they have scared so many males lives when they were young and having to grow up dealing with what happened between them and Jerry Sandusky. It is unbelievable how someone can be doing this and getting away with it for so long. We all should keep a look out for groomers in the future to protect the youth and make sure this type of case never happens again.
Word Count: 488
