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Fan Male: A Steward For Children
We are the stewards of our children, and we not only have to protect them, but we have to make sure that the system works for them. The fate of a child is in your hands.
by Mary Welch
October 23, 2007
Harold Dawson Jr.
President Harold A. Dawson Co.
When J. Tom Morgan was the assistant district attorney and then later the district attorney
for DeKalb County, he pledged to protect the “most vulnerable members of our society, the children”
from sexual predators and to help them deal with the aftermath of sexual abuse. He became so
passionate about the cause that even after leaving office in 2003, he has continued his advocacy
through his involvement with the Georgia Center for Children, which is assuming a new form and new
name, the Georgia Center for Children.
“When a child is hurt, it is just gut-wrenching,” he says. “We are the stewards of our
children, and we not only have to protect them, but we have to make sure that the system works for
them. The fate of a child is in your hands.”
In 1983 Morgan became the assistant district attorney under Bob Wilson and a year later was
the first prosecutor in Georgia to specialize in the prosecution of crimes against children. During
his tenure he prosecuted more than 500 cases in which children had been sexually abused, physically
abused or killed. He heard about a child abuse center in California where children can go and deal
with the family and children services department, police, lawyers and doctors in one place. “It was
essentially a one-stop shop where the kids could go and not get lost in the process. They could be
interviewed by specially trained interviewers and videotaped and not have to go through multiple
interviews. It was a place that was conducive to a child talking.”
Morgan and others found a small house in Decatur and opened the Georgia Center for Children,
a private nonprofit agency that provides free counseling to sexually abused children in Fulton and
DeKalb counties. He has served as board chair for the past two years and is currently serving as
vice-chair. Since 1987, the center has helped more than 8,500 sexually abused children and their
families, and in the process, become one of the country’s largest children advocacy centers. In
addition, he is a founding board member of the National Network of Child Advocacy Centers, which is
now the National Alliance for Children. To help serve the families better and more
efficiently, the Georgia Center for Children is merging with the Fulton County Child Advocacy
Center to become the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy.
“There just has to be a safe haven for children and their families during and after the
investigation of their cases,” he says. “I know how the system should work, and I’m dedicated to
helping make it work. By merging the two programs we will combine resources instead of running two
parallel programs.”
From January to June of this year, 373 cases of child abuse have been reported in Fulton and
DeKalb counties, he says. “I don’t think that there is more child abuse than years ago,” he says. “
I think it’s better reported and better recognized. We’re not keeping it under a rock.”
Still, those numbers are high – by about 373 cases, he says. Child abuse cases are much more
complicated that other crimes, he says. For instance, he feels that releasing a list of convicted
child molesters to neighborhoods gives people a false sense of security. “I’ve never prosecuted
anyone who lived close to a church,” he says. “I’ve prosecuted people who worked in a church. I
think most prosecutors would agree that posting that list doesn’t do anything to protect
children. Eighty percent of abused kids are abused by someone the kid knows, usually in a family
structure."
Unlike a lot of crimes in which socioeconomic status may play a factor, this is not the case
in child abuse, he says. "The only factor is gender. Ninety-eight percent of the child abusers are
men with a younger female, sometimes consensual – an older man with a girl 15, 16, 17. One in every
four girls will be abused; one in every six boys. But often times the vast number of men in these
cases can be deterred by striking again with punishment-he can be rehabilitated. They learn that
it's not worth the time in jail to sexually abuse an under-age girl."
That is not the case with men who prey on boys. "The overwhelming number of child abusers are
men with younger girls, but they usually have one, maybe two victims," he says. "With men abusing
boys, the man can have 200 victims. And studies have shown that it is very unlikely they will be
rehabilitated."
Morgan puts more stock in helping prevent abuse in the first place. Through the center, he
has helped train more than a million Georgians in how to recognize, respond to and prevent sexual
abuse. "It helps people recognize signs of sexual abuse and the signs of a potential perpetrator.
The training is free, and it takes two-and-a-half hours. It's been very successful."
Morgan, who joined the firm of Balch & Bingham in 2003, wants young people to understand
the law – and its repercussions. He recently wrote a book, Ignorance is No Defense: A Teenager's
Guide to the Georgia Law. It took him a year to write but it covers everything from the legal
repercussions of toilet-papering a neighbor's tree to murder. "It's not a ‘scared straight' type of
book," he says. "But I'd see kids get in trouble, and I couldn't talk to them because I had to
prosecute them. I prosecuted the first kid as an adult in Georgia. Some of it is just tragic. But
kids don't know the law, and they don't know the consequences of their actions."
The book will be out in the next few weeks and will be available in bookstores and through
his website. He has offered to go speak at any school that will buy the book.
Morgan became enamored with the law after watching To Kill a Mockingbird, and bases his life
on the book's main character, the lawyer Atticus Finch. "One of the ironies in that book is that
most people focus on the racial injustice in that book, but there was also child abuse when that
young woman was raped by her father."
Morgan is also convinced that society must treat its children better. "It must be very hard
for a parent to sit in a courtroom and look at the person who raped his or her child. And they put
their faith in the justice system. But I'm not sure that we, as a social system, are going to exact
the strictest punishment. We need more legal and moral leadership."
Putting children first is a start, he says. "We have vast amounts of resources and talents,
and we cannot as adults say our children are our highest priority. In other cultures they can say
that; we cannot. Kids today come home at 2:30 to a vacant house. I don't know why we're not funding
a full day of school or after-school programs. It's a lot cheaper than what's happening now where
they get in trouble because no one's looking after them." Adding, "There's so much that we're not
doing."
