All the french people in the audience will remember the Outreau trial ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outreau_trial ) where several innocent people spent years in prison and one commited suicide, all that based on the lies of two persons and bogus psychiatric expertise of the children. The media also took a big part in this debacle. I think it really made people realize something here, I don't think this could happen again anytime soon. I hope you won't have to live something like that in the US to make things change.
People should be presumed innocent unless proven guilty, not the other way around. The modern western society would have us think otherwise (and not only for child molesting, see CCTV, airport screenings, ...).
Ah, but we did live through it in the '80s with the satanic abuse hoax, and we didn't learn anything. In fact, the people involved in pushing the hoax were rewarded with higher office. See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870428120457500... for a good writeup of the case.
In reading about these child abuse cases I was struck by how familiar they sound to the Witch Trials of the 17th Century.
We have prosecutors convinced they have discovered a hidden evil and that it is more widespread than people like to think. They sometimes have children as witnesses. They have false confessions from the accused. And we have bodily investigations of "secrete places" either to confirm that sexual abuse has taken place or the devil "knew" was familiar with the accused. And we have bizarre stories of strange practices, which are credulously believed.
It is like there is some universal process going on here. Communities require these expressions of hidden evils. And if you doubt the veracity of these claims then you are suspect too.
I don't think this paranoia is a new phenomenon to human society. What changes is the topic, but not the underlying need we have in human society for these expressions.
People should be presumed innocent unless proven guilty, not the other way around. The modern western society would have us think otherwise (and not only for child molesting, see CCTV, airport screenings, ...).