User talk:Phoenix Caulfield

Jehovah's Witnesses' handling of child sex abuse

Your edits at Jehovah's Witnesses' handling of child sex abuse have been reverted. The Case Study you cited does not support the content or the tone of the comments you added, which do not represent a neutral point of view. Additionally, your claim that cases were 'converted' to "institutional abuse" is incorrect because the royal commission specifically considered institutional responses to child sexual abuse (not merely 'responses to institutional abuse'), which obviously would include cases about which the Watch Tower Society had records.--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:58, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Commission's conflating of familial and institutional abuse is problematic in how it represents/interprets the figure of 1,006. A clearer breakdown of what that figure truly represents would be helpful. An alaysis of how data was collected yields sessions that lack the stature of sworn testimony. Phoenix Caulfield (talk) 17:43, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Any such information would need to be properly sourced and not merely your own analysis. Additionally, I have had to revert your subsequent edit as you have misrepresented the cited source. Specifically, whereas you added a claim that 383 cases 'were reported to police', with the implication that they were reported by Jehovah's Witnesses or Watch Tower, the source states (on page 60):

A letter in evidence before the Royal Commission shows that Watchtower Australia’s own review of the 1,006 case files established that ‘383 alleged perpetrators had been dealt with by either police or secular authorities in the respective States or Territories in which they reside’. That letter did not describe or otherwise suggest that the Jehovah’s Witness organisation had an active role in bringing allegations against the 383 identified perpetrators to the attention of secular authorities. Furthermore, Mr Toole did not dispute that Watchtower Australia’s review of the case files may have yielded some false positive results. That is, it is possible that some of the 383 identified case files may have contained reference to but not had the involvement of the authorities.

If you would like to discuss further, you should start a section at the article's Talk page.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It may help to go through your original submission to give a better indication of exactly why your edits were reverted:

Of the 1,006 case files that the Jehovah's Witnesses provided to the Commission, 383 (in jurisdictions requiring mandatory reporting) had been reported to the police at the time they had happened.

Unsupported by the cited source, which indicates that the 383 records in question could include records that said do not report to authorities (see also transcript of day 152, pages 29-30), and the source makes no direct connection between the 383 cases and mandatory reporting laws.

The 1,006 case files represent a period of 65 years, during which time mandatory reporting laws may not have been in place.

The article already indicates that the records refer to cases since 1950, and unsourced assumptions about mandatory reporting laws.

There has been a significant shift in attitudes toward child sexual abuse over the decades.

Unsourced editorial commentary as an implied explanation.

902 of the 1,006 case files did not involve a congregant holding a leadership position. The alleged abuses did not occur at a place of worship or official premise, nor in a setting where Jehovah's Witnesses were officially responsible for children. The Royal Commission chose to convert cases of abuse which occurred within the family to "institutional abuse." This standard was not applied to other groups under investigation. The figure of 1,006 reflects the total of all disciplinary reports and referrals, whether proven or not, that were furnished to the Australian branch office of Jehovah's Witnesses over the course of 65 years.

Unsourced analysis misrepresenting the scope and purpose of the Royal Commission, which was for institutional responses to child sexual abuse. As soon as the Watch Tower Society maintained records of such abuse allegations, those cases came within the scope of the Royal Commission.

Since the time of the Royal Commission's report, there has yet to be a wave of arrests and prosecutions of Jehovah's Witnesses, as would be anticipated had a substantial number of hidden abuses been discovered.

Misleading argument from silence, also impacted by the Watch Tower Society's initial refusal and subsequent delays in signing up to the redress scheme.

I trust that this clarifies why your edits were removed.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:31, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]