Frontline

The Child Terror (1998x18)

Air date: Oct 27, 1998

In the midst of a sudden willingness to believe that children were being ritually abused in day-care centers during the 1980s, parents, police, prosecutors, and the press turned Miami, Florida, into ground zero for a new way of convicting alleged child molesters. Led by Florida's then-prosecuting attorney, Janet Reno, alleged abusers were relentlessly pursued and convicted with a zeal unmatched in the nation. Today, as some of Reno's celebrated cases seem to be unraveling, FRONTLINE correspondent Peter J. Boyer examines the convictions that were a stunning triumph for the crusading prosecuting attorney and created an emerging political model that would be emulated by prosecutors across the country.