No Crueler Tyrannies Dorothy Rabinowitz Analysis

In the book No Crueler Tyrannies, Dorothy Rabinowitz builds the nature of her criticism upon false confessions extracted by leading questions and groundless ideas implanted into the minds of children to get a testimony by psychologists who are acting prejudiced under the influence of social hysteria, which was raised majorly by media in response to the Child Abuse Reporting Act that terrorized United States starting in mid 70’s.

With Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, which was enacted in 1974, people started to wake up to possible abuses happening around them and began to report any kind of suspicious demeanor. Every report regardless of its reliability was drummed up by the media and contributed to a moral panic situation in 80’s.

Dorothy Rabinowitz is correct in asserting that Amirault family was targeted and was a victim of public madness and obsessive psychologists. Additionally, my belief is that they were only one of the many victims including McMartins, Kelly Michaels and Bob & Betsy Kelly.

Due to the massive augmentation in the abuse cases, people began to develop bias and they ended up losing their objective sense of judgment while making conclusions about the suspects and the ultimate goal of every psychologist or social worker including Susan Kelley, the school nurse in Amirault case, became to get a confession or proof of molestation from children to indicate their success in their job. Thus, leader examiner Nurse Kelley used several controversial interrogation techniques on children for long-term repeated sessions to prove that children in Fells Acre Day Care had been raped with sharp objects such as pens, magic wands, forks or knives somehow without leaving any trace of physical evidence; had been assaulted by a bad clown that is thought to be Gerald in a secret room; had been obligated to drink their own bodily fluids; had been involved in pornographic

As a matter of fact, the psychologists in parole board insisted that they still pose a risk to community since they zealously deny the offenses. According to Rabinowitz, their parole was continuously denied although they spent no time thinking what have happened better in their lives if they confessed to the crimes they never committed. I agree with Rabinowitz that psychologists and social workers had confirmation bias trying to expose Amirault family since the beginning of the first accusation because of the society’s over-cautiousness to the situation. However, in my opinion psychologists and especially families had right to fear more than a little since their children were involved in the matter. To avoid unwanted consequences, questioning techniques should have been highly studied by experts and early history of patients should have been investigated instead before accusing and convicting innocent