Last week, Maureen Dowd wrote about the Sandusky scandal. Maureen Dowd, in the Times, sees it as a sign of our era’s declines, asking whether “with formerly hallowed institutions and icons sinking into a moral dystopia all around us, has our sense of right and wrong grown more malleable?”
Inundated by instantaneous information and gossip, do we simply know more about the seamy side? Do greater opportunities and higher stakes cause more instances of unethical behavior? Have our materialism, narcissism and cynicism about the institutions knitting society—schools, sports, religion, politics, banking—dulled our sense of right and wrong?
Amy Davidson wonders whether social media could have stopped Sandusky. An iPhone photo? She writes, "Knowing that any number of people in a crowd have a camera and a broadcast tool is a powerful corrective."
I wish that I agreed with Amy.
Apt. 11d 
The problem in the Sandusky case was not lack of knowledge about his proclivities. The problem was the unwillingess of many adults to act on that knowledge. Sure the widespread use of cameras can inhibit some bad behavior. Police brutality seems to be an example where the chances of getting caught have gone up significantly. Or groping people on the subway. But child sexual abuse is almost ALWAYS done in secret. The shower incident in this case places Sandusky at the extreme for what normally happens. So my worry is that the same way in which the CSI effect has probably affected juries for the worse, the “Sandusky effect” might cause people to expect that there should be numerous cross-corroborating victims and even an adult witnesses in child sexual abuse cases.
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