Why The Statistic Matters: Part Three, Sex Offenders

This is part of a miniseries about why the statistics on this site, and the upcoming website, should matter to you, not only in your everyday life, but in preventing child sexual abuse... before it can happen.

Statistic 1: Most Who Commit Sex Crimes Are Not Sex Offender Registrants

You have heard me cite this time and again: 95% of new sex crimes are committed by those new to the criminal justice system, stemming from a study on 21 years of arrest data in New York. Another 2015 study out of California is also significant, finding that just .6% of the 56.1% three-year return-to-prison rate were new sex crime convictions. Unless other criminals are committing sex crimes (which is not supported by the rest of the report, or general trends among sex crimes in general), it is safe to conclude that, nationwide, upwards of 95% of sex crime is committed by those with no criminal background.

Why does that matter?

Well, if the bulk of our policies on "preventing" sexual crimes are aimed at sex offenders, who are not responsible for a very high percentage of sex crimes... and we spend lots of money on these policies... then our policies are simply ineffective, and costing lots of money we could spend on more effective methods. This does not just refer to sex offender registration: Notifications of sex offenders, residency restrictions, civil commitment, and of course, juvenile registration and notification. If it targets sex offenders, the policy does very little to protect communities because it is not registered sex offenders who commit sex crimes.

Statistic 2: Juveniles Commit Sex Crimes Too... 

Specifically, juveniles commit 35.6% of sexual offenses against minors. Researchers such as Elizabeth Letourneau and Jill Levenson have said that half of sex offenders were juveniles during the commission of their sex crime. Regardless of the specific figure, it is safe to say that a statistically significant portion of sexual crimes are committed by juveniles, not adults.

This matters almost as much as the first statistic, because it means that the bulk of our policies are aimed at people who committed their crimes as juveniles. While these crimes absolutely were harmful to the victims, one must wonder if punishing juvenile perpetrators for life is aiding prevention, particularly if most of them never commit another sexual crime (97%, to be precise).

Statistic 3: General Recidivism Is High, But Lower Than Other Criminals On Average

Recidivism is a much-discussed statistic, and before I touch on why a somewhat high recidivism rate for general crime (both sexual and non-sexual crimes) is high, we must first understand recidivism rates. Some studies look at rearrests, which are considered the most liberal picture of recidivism. Some studies look at returning to prison, which are considered the most conservative picture of recidivism. Still others look at reconvictions, which are a middle ground between the two. As with any crime, any recidivism statistic paints an incomplete picture of new crimes committed by offenders.

If you recall the 56.1% return-to-prison statistic from the study mentioned in the first section, it should be noted that most studies find, on average, a general recidivism rate around 30-40% for sex offenders. This means that California has a rate that is much higher than what would be considered "the norm" for sex offenders. While the very term "sex offender" encompasses a wide variety of crimes and offenders, this also means that specific types of offenders that commit specific crimes have varying rates of recidivism specific to that type or crime.

This matters, because it means there is room for much improvement in rehabilitating and successfully reintegrating sex offenders back into our communities. It means there are barriers for successful reintegration, and a need to change how we treat criminals in general. While recidivism statistics can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways depending on the study, offender, and offense, it is safe to say that in most cases, sex offenders do not reoffend, whether that is with a sexual crime or any other crime.

Statistic 4: Population Of Sex Offenders, Victims

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (whose figures are somewhat disputed among some advocates and state leaders), there are 861,837 registered sex offenders living in the United States. That is 264 sex offenders per 100,000 people. If you have followed the rest of the statistics to this point, then you can probably guess what I am about to say: Focusing our policies on nearly 1 million Americans to protect children, when most of those .862 million people are not responsible for further sex crimes means that we are creating much more damage than we are solving. How do I figure that? The math is simple.

Restated from part two, child sexual abuse, according to this source, there are 73.8 million children in the United States, and the known victim-reported prevalence is pegged at 8% for boys and 19% for girls, which translates to roughly 3,011,040 boys and 6,870,780 girls, or 9,881,820 children. The estimates that attempt to account for underreporting translate to 6,273,000 boys and 9,040,500 girls, or 15,313,500 children. In other words, our best data and estimates indicate that 13.39-20.75% of children are sexually abused (which is a big deal).

Running the estimates, 494,091-765,675 children are sexually abused by registered sex offenders, or repeat sex offenders, in other words. If somewhere between .6% and 5% of these 861,837 sex offenders are repeat offenders, that means that there are between 5,171 and 43,092 sex offenders that are repeat offenders.

This means that there are between 818,745 and 856,666 sex offenders who are being needlessly registered, and if we assume that each of them have 5 family members and 10 friends, that is 12,281,175-12,849,990 people that are affected by the sex offender registry without sufficient basis. Compared to the 494,091-765,675 children that are victimized by repeat sex offenders, that is a very disproportionate number, and while sexual abuse is not trivial, this means that we punish and indirectly affect about 12-14 times the number of people we need to. When you remember that somewhere between 35-50% of these people are juveniles at the time of the offense, you get an appalling number of children that are being harmed by the very laws that were formed to protect them.

Closing Thoughts

I have re-written the overview of sex offenders for the website three times now, and each time, I wonder if I am covering all of the bases or giving an overly simplistic view of sex offenders. Even writing this one post has taken me two weeks for similar reasons.

"Sex offender" is a term that encompasses a wide variety of crimes beyond rape and crimes against children, though together, these crimes make up the majority. However, the mere commission of these crimes, as discussed in the first and third statistics, does not mean the person committing them is an ongoing danger to children. Even the commission of a "child sex crime" would not appear to indicate such a danger because most such crimes are committed by first-time offenders. Covering each segment of restrictions against sex offenders is likewise complex.

Thus, any attempt to tackle the issue of sex offenders from any angle, research-based or journalist-based, will lead any reader to misleading conclusions about sex offenders.

Why The Statistic Matters: Part Two, Child Sexual Abuse

This is a miniseries about why the statistics on this site, and the upcoming website, should matter to you, not only in your everyday life, but in preventing child sexual abuse... before it can happen.

Statistic 1: Most Abusers Are Those Known And Trusted

To be specific, 90-93% of child sexual abuse is committed by those known and trusted by the victim. This one is probably the single most important statistic to the prevention of child sexual abuse: The common myth is that it is strangers you need to worry about, and teaching stranger danger is rampant. Well, I grew up in that era of stranger danger. It did not protect me from the three times I was sexually abused by those I knew and trusted.

This single statistic means also that mandatory reporting laws will always impede the prevention of abuse, because it means that those who may be in need of mental health help do not get that help. Why? Because most abusers are those known and trusted, you will not report your son to the police for fondling a younger sibling. You will not want to ruin the rest of his life. The same holds true for the husband, the uncle, the teacher, the babysitter, etc.

Statistic 2: Prevalence Of Sexual Abuse

The prevalence of child sexual abuse has been reported in a number of ways. Studies indicate that the victim-reported abuse on surveys is around 8% for boys, and 19% for girls. Estimates that attempt to account for underreporting put abuse at one in six boys, and one in four girls. This statistic is important for obvious reasons. It teaches us that underreporting is real, and that the true prevalence of child sexual abuse in any society will likely never be known. It teaches us that boys are victims of sexual abuse, and that they report less due to a myriad of complex sociological factors.

But let us practically apply that statistic, just to the United States:

According to this source, there are 73.8 million children in the United States, and the known victim-reported prevalence (8%, 19%) translates to roughly 3,011,040 boys and 6,870,780 girls, or 9,881,820 children. The estimate that attempts to account for underreporting (38-50% ARE reported, so we will assume for the moment that only 38% are reported) translates to 16,008,548 children.

In other words, our best data and estimates indicate that 13.39-21.69% of children are sexually abused (which is a big deal).

In other words, our best data and estimates indicate that 13.39-21.69% of children are sexually abused (which is a big deal).In other words, our best data and estimates indicate that 13.39-21.69% of children are sexually abused (which is a big deal).

In other words, our best data and estimates indicate that 13.39-21.69% of children are sexually abused (which is a big deal).

In other words, our best data and estimates indicate that 13.39-21.69% of children are sexually abused (which is a big deal).

Most of all, the prevalence of child sexual abuse shows us that too many children are affected by this epidemic already for us to be reacting to abuse after it happens. After abuse happens is clearly not good enough.

Statistic 3: Most Abuse Happens In A Residence, One-On-One

The circumstances of abuse can be shocking to some: 77% of child sexual abuse is done in a residence, and 81% of child sexual abuse occurs in a one-on-one situation. This is vitally important for prevention and for policymakers, because it means that the majority of abuse does not happen in parks, schools, playgrounds, libraries, movie theaters, or businesses. Restricting people from any of these places does nothing to stop sexual abuse, because not only does abuse not happen in these places, abuse is more often perpetrated not by strangers, but by someone the child knows.

Statistic 4: False Allegations Are Extremely Rare

How rare, you ask? Think 4-8%, and typically those false reports are allegations originating with an adult in the child's live, not the child themselves. What this clearly demonstrates is that children can be trusted to tell the truth about being sexually abused. If a child has told you they were abused, you must treat it as a fact and respond accordingly by going to a therapist with expertise in sexual abuse victims, a child advocacy center, Child Protective Services, or the police. While no doubt, given statistic number one, you know and trust the abuser, the fact of the matter is that they need treatment and help, and they will not get that without the police being at least notified. This statistic is obvious: Believe a child's allegation of sexual abuse.

Wrapping Up

While there are many more statistics in child sexual abuse that matter a great deal, these four statistics and why they matter form the core of what the average person absolutely must know about child sexual abuse. By being aware of not just the fact and figure, but why that figure is important, you can become involved in preventing child sexual abuse... before it can happen.

Why The Statistic Matters: Part One, Pedophilia

All the time, you hear statistics about a great number of things. You see them frequently here, on the blog. But you do not often see the practical application of them, and it is up to you to figure out the point of the statistic in question. Some are obvious, while others are not nearly as obvious.

Because of that, I will do a miniseries on why the statistics cited on this site should matter to you, not only in your everyday life, but why they matter to preventing child sexual abuse.

Statistic 1: Population Of Pedophiles

Current statistics (the DSM-V (the psychiatry Bible) and Michael Seto) put the population of those with pedophilic disorder as mainly being male: 3-5% of adolescent and adult males. This is, of course, an estimate. However, it is telling because pedophilic disorder is not the same thing as pedophilia: The DSM-V differentiates the two. This means that the high estimate of 3-5% of males means that even more have a sexual attraction to children. Why? Because pedophilic disorder is a very specific mental condition in which those with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescent children, have difficulties like depression, anxiety, and difficulty relating to others. It does not cover those with an attraction to teenagers, which means that the true population figure for those with attractions to children broadly is actually higher than 3-5% of males. That is about to matter even more because of statistic number two...

Statistic 2: Proportion Of Those Who Sexually Abused Children Who Have Pedophilia

The second statistic is well-known by researchers and therapists working with forensic and non-forensic populations of pedophiles: One-third of those who sexually abused children have pedophilia. Yes, one-third. This tells us a great deal of information about child sexual abuse: Mainly, that it is not about getting sexual pleasure from a child. You see, if the population of those with pedophilic disorder is an estimate and a low one, but the proportion of abusers with pedophilia is proportionately higher than that estimate (6-15 times higher). This means there is something associated with the attraction that drives the motivating factors that fuel the decision to abuse a child.

Statistic 3: Most Who Have Pedophilic Disorder Do Not Abuse Children

If you were to read through the section on pedophilic disorder in the DSM-V, you see a rather bleak picture of a person tortured by their attractions to children. When you get to the differential diagnosis section, you see that pedophilic disorder can correlate to alcohol and substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and even antisocial personality disorder. When you get to comorbidity, you see that pedophilic disorder is correlated to depression, bipolar, and anxiety disorders... while they also note that these observations are only among forensic populations of those with pedophilic disorder, meaning that more study is needed in this area.

You have heard me state on this blog before: Given our best estimates without trying to compensate for underreporting, 3-5.2% of pedophiles molest children, and after accounting for that, 4.8-9.36% molest children. In other words, our best guess is that 90.64-97% of pedophiles do not molest children. This is obviously significant, because it means that a sexual attraction to children does not appear to frequently correlate with sexual abuse. It also means that what I just outlined from the DSM-V about the bleak lives of someone with a sexual attraction to children... only comes from looking at 3-10% of those with such an attraction. In other words, a lot of our information is missing about pedophilia, sexual attraction to children in general, and most importantly, it is not reasonable to correlate pedophiles with child molestation. It means that a sexual attraction to children is more common than child sexual abuse. This is frankly huge, not only for those who study pedophiles and pedophilia, but also for child sexual abuse prevention.

Statistic 4: Those Viewing Sexual Abuse Images More Often Have Pedophilia...

To be precise, 61% of those convicted of possessing child sexual exploitation material have pedophilia. What this means is that pedophiles are trying to satisfy their sexual needs with sexual material of children. This begs the question, given recent discussion around art, virtual reality, and 3-D images involving children, of whether researchers are wrong to assume that such virtual imagery serves as a gateway for a hands-on offense involving a child. If more pedophiles view sexual imagery involving real children, could that number be reduced if virtual imagery involving children were more available, and legal? Could this virtual imagery be not only a better outlet than imagery involving real children, but reduce the number of sexual abuse cases? More study is clearly needed in this area to test correlation.

Enough Statistics: What Is The Point?

The point to overviewing just these three statistics and why they matter is not merely an academic exercise: It has real implications for preventing child sexual abuse. It suggests that stigmatizing a sexual attraction to children and viewing it as a risk factor for sexually harming children is not going to be helpful to preventing child sexual abuse, because a sexual attraction to children is less often a risk factor for a hands-on sexual abuse case and more often a risk factor for viewing sexual abuse images. While viewing images of children being sexually abused is indeed harmful to the children involved, the creation of virtual images is not because real children are not involved.

These statistics also very clearly indicate that we have barely scratched the surface of knowing pedophilia and sexual attraction to children: It means more study is sorely needed in a variety of ways to uncover that knowledge. It means we should look at what happens when you give those with a sexual attraction to children support instead of an automatic and clearly incorrect label of child molester, as Prevention Project Dunkelfeld is doing in Germany. It is obvious to anyone working in these areas... they need money to do this research, and the number of people willing to put money towards this research is limited.

Bottom Line

Conflating a sexual attraction to children, which we barely know much about, with the sexual abuse of a child spreads incorrect myths that hamper our ability to prevent sexual abuse and interfere with the ability of those with an attraction to children to seek support and seek peers who face the same attraction. Mixing up the sexual attraction to children, with the sexual abuse of a child, is unwarranted, inaccurate, and only serves to enable child sexual abuse by driving both issues further into darkness and secrecy, where sexual abuse thrives.

The Cherry-Picked Statistics Of Parents For Megan's Law

Yes, Another Fun Exercise

In case you forgot about the last time I fact-checked a list of statistics, see here. This time around, we will do Parents For Megan's Law, which has a short list of scary-looking facts. Yes, scary-looking. Almost all of them, off the top of my head, are garbage or come from garbage sources that do not even come close to a comprehensive look at the issue. Fortunately for us, PFML has decided to tell us where they are getting their bogus information from so we can have an easier time of nitpicking their erroneous statistics.

The List... And Its Counters

For Adults

1. The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) reports the results of a 2004 Harris and Hanson study which indicates that rapists have a 24% rate of re-offense, child molesters targeting girls 16%, and child molesters targeting boys, 35%. Offenders with a previous sex offense conviction have a 37% re-offense rate. 
1. Source Cited (NOTE: DISABLE your javascript when following this link, as it is infected with a virus)
1. Why should I trust a link that tries to infect my computer with a virus? Just no. 
2. They cite a long list of information, so their "source" is just a garbage way of linking you to a second list of information. 
3. The actual study can be found here, and the sample size is rather small at 4,724. The study also uses estimates for some of their information, and multiple studies have been done since that have very different results. Also, we have the statement of R. Karl Hanson himself about recidivism rates. Women Against Registry has a nice list of recidivism rates for sex offenders and the studies that source them that range from .8-12%, most being around 3-4%.
4. Child molesters have generally lower rates of recidivism compared to rapists, and the 37% recidivism rate does not differentiate between any new crime committed and sexual recidivism (which a New York study puts at 8% with an 8-year follow-up period, and is generally much lower than general recidivism).
2. Rapists repeat their offenses at rates up to 35%; offenders who molest young boys, at rates up to 40%; and those rates do not decline appreciably over time.
1. Source Cited: Godfrey and Botelho v. John Doe. Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioners. 01-729.  Page 3. 
1. I will take your brief and raise you the statement of R. Karl Hanson: "Once convicted, most sexual offenders are never re-convicted of another sexual offence.  First-time sexual offenders are significantly less likely to sexually re-offend than are those with previous sexual convictions. Contrary to the popular notion that sexual offenders remain at risk of re-offending through their lifespan, the longer offenders remain offence-free in the community, the less likely they are to re-offend sexually. Eventually, they are less likely to re-offend than a non-sexual offender is to commit an “out of the blue” sexual offence."
2. See also: 95% of new sex crimes are not committed by registered sex offenders, but by first-time offenders, those new to the criminal justice system. Citing the recidivism rates of specific offender types do not make those types the norm. 
3. “Reported recidivism rates vary widely depending on the length of follow-up period employed, the methods used to calculate recidivism, and, perhaps, the sample size of the study.”
1. Source Cited.
1. This is common knowledge, and frankly speaking, not every study is done the same with the same results. Studies with larger sample sizes find higher recidivism rates, but the larger sample sizes also include a broader definition of what is considered a sexual offense. Some states include kidnapping and first-degree murder, where others call indecent exposure and public urination a sex offense. 
2. Recidivism can also measure three things: Rearrest rates, reconviction rates, and re-incarceration rates, and findings will be higher for rearrests and lower for re-incarceration. 
3. They just refuted their first two statistics by saying that they may be false representations of recidivism. 
4. “In his study of 561 sex offenders, Dr. Gene Abel found pedophiles who targeted young boys outside the home committed the greatest number of crimes with an average of 281.7 acts …molesters who targeted girls within the family committed an average of 81.3 acts…”
1. Source Cited: Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis for Law Enforcement Officers Investigating Cases of Child Exploitation (1992) Kenneth V. Lanning
1. Dr. Gene Abel is not a serious researcher by any stretch of the imagination, and his pseudo-science has been thoroughly debunked. I know of one study where the man defined pedophilia in part as the act of child molestation, and then he asked about 5,000 people if they had molested a child and if they had a sexual attraction to children.  He then concluded that 95% of child molesters "have a sexual attraction to children". Meanwhile, another study has shown around a third of child molesters have pedophilia, as measured by science, not flawed survey-taking. 
2. In short, no one can take Gene Abel seriously these days.
5. 46% of rapists who were released from prison were re-arrested within 3 years of their release for another crime: 18.6% for a violent offense, 14.8% for a property offense, 11.2% for a drug offense and 20.5% for a public disorder offense.
1. Source Cited: Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
1. In other words, well over half committed an offense that had nothing to do with rape? Okay, what is the point? Rapists do not make up the majority of sexual offenders.
2. I think we have thoroughly looked at recidivism. It varies by offense, but generally, most sex offenders do not commit future sex crimes.

Offender Characteristics:

1. The average age of a rapist is 31-years-old and 52.2% are white males.
1. Source Cited: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics. 1997 Sex Offenses and Offenders Study. 1997.
1. Okay, tip when citing a study: You only need to cite the year once. 
2. Another tip: The title of the study should be verbatim what the title of the study is.
3. That particular tidbit of information, along with most of this entire list, is refuted by the numerous organizations (Darkness to Light, Jacob Wetterling Resource Center, Stop It Now!, and many others) who say there is no profile for those that sexually abuse or rape others. You cannot profile them, yet PFML is trying to mislead people into suspecting white 31-year-old males. Half of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by juveniles, not adults, and 70% of sex offenders have offenses against children. If you run the math on that, I doubt you come up with most people being 31 years old and a white male to boot.
2. One-Fourth of Exhibitionists Commit Additional Sex Offenses.
1. Source Cited.
1. It is quite well-known that exhibitionists often have higher sexual recidivism rates (often, further exhibitionist displays) than the average sex offender. It is also well-known that exhibitionists make up a very small portion of sex offenders. 
2. Citing one single study to support the conclusion that all exhibitionists are a threat is like citing a single political poll to say that Donald Trump will lose the 2020 election. 
3. That 1/4th of exhibitionists commit new sex offenses means that 75% do not.
4. How is this a characteristic of a sex offender? 
3. On a given day in 1994 there were approximately 234,000 offenders convicted of rape or sexual assault under the care, custody, or control of corrections agencies; nearly 60% of these sex offenders are under conditional supervision in the community.
1. Source Cited: Sex Offenses and Offenders an Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault. (1997) U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
1. Citing the same source in a different manner, over 20 years after the fact is relevant, does not make the fact more relevant.
2. Most sex offenders are in the community, and most never reoffend or are even a risk to the community. The biggest risk to children does not come from sex offenders.
3. They obviously did not bother reading past the first page for this statistic, as it is copied almost verbatim from the title page. Lazy.
4. An estimated 24% of those serving time for rape and 19% of those serving time for sexual assault had been on probation or parole at the time of the offense for which they were in State prison in 1991.
1. Source Cited: Sex Offenses and Offenders an Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault. (1997) U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
1. This is completely irrelevant.
5. Of released sex offenders who allegedly committed another sex crime, 40% perpetrated the new offense within a year or less from their prison discharge.
1. Source Cited: Sex Offenses and Offenders an Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault. (1997) U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
1. This is also fairly irrelevant. 
2. A relevant statistic might be that, in a study of over 64,000 sex offenders, only 3.1% of males and 1.8% of females had zero adverse childhood experiences in their childhood. In other words, most sex offenders have trauma in their childhood, which means we could intervene long before they commit a sex crime.
6. Overall, an estimated 61% of violent sex offenders in State prisons have a prior conviction history that resulted in a sentence to probation or incarceration.
1. Source Cited: Sex Offenses and Offenders an Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault. (1997) U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
1. What is the definition for a violent sex offender? 
2. This statistic seems abnormally high in the face of more recent research, particularly the low sexual recidivism rates nationwide and the study of 21 years of arrest data out of New York finding that 95% of sex crimes were committed by first-time offenders (those with no prior record). Which brings us back to...
3. What do they define as a violent sex offense? Forcible rape, statutory rape, lewd acts with children, forcible sodomy, and "other sexual assaults", whatever that means.
7. Only 2% of the Catholic clergy sexual abusers were ever jailed. The number of victims reported were 10,667 with an estimate of 4,392 abusers.
1. Source Cited: Hamilton, Marci (2004) Shockingly, Only 2% of Catholic Clergy Sexual Abusers Were Ever Jailed. Find Law, March 11,2004.
1. The population of the United States is currently 321.4 million people. Of those, it is estimated that one in six boys and one in four girls faces child sexual abuse, alternatively phrased by many researchers as one in ten children. 10% of 321.4 million is 32.14 million people, which is many, many times 10,667. 
2. In other words, there are many more abuse victims that are not abused by Catholic clergy.
3. And frankly, it is estimated that 38% of sexual abuse cases are reported to police, which would be a much better statistic to cite.  

Juveniles:

1. The average adolescent sex offender will, without treatment, go on to commit 380 sex crimes during his lifetime.
1. Source Cited: Howard E. Barbaree, Stephen M. Hudson and Michael Seto (1993) Sexual Assault in Society: The Role of the Juvenile Offender. In The Juvenile Sex Offender. Guilford Press, NY. Page 11.
1. 97% of juvenile sex offenders will never commit another sex offense.
2. The cited source is a book, and it sounds like something Gene Abel would say.
3. I debunked this in the last fact-check as well.
2. 20% of all rapes and 30% to 50% of child molestations are perpetrated by adolescent males.
1. Source Cited: Howard E. Barbaree, Stephen M. Hudson and Michael Seto (1993) Sexual Assault in Society: The Role of the Juvenile Offender. In The Juvenile Sex Offender. Guilford Press, NY. Page 11
1. Which means we obviously need to be doing a better job of raising children and intervening in sexual crimes before they happen. Thank you for making my point, which is that...

Sexual crimes are preventable before they happen by reaching at-risk youth and those with Adverse Childhood Experiences before a victim is harmed. They are not preventable by only reacting after they happen with sex offender policies.

Filling In The Gaps Of "Untouchable"

Say What?

In case you have not yet heard, the documentary Untouchable is screening with the MSP International Film Festival. Last night's showing was sold out, and audience members asked a number of great questions of the panel composed of director David Feige, child advocate Patty Wetterling, and local legal powerhouse Eric Janus. However, the film does not cover the entire issue- only a few small facets of it, like sex offender registration, sex offender notification, and residency restrictions.

And just how do you cover a nationwide hodgepodge of laws that were originally designed to protect children, and have since become a quagmire of punitive nonsense? The laws that apply in one state are different in another, civil commitment is left untouched, and only the briefest mention of International Megan's Law is made. In the interest of brevity, and in sparking a conversation about this topic nationwide, the director chose to limit the scope of the documentary (and its length, since we have "shorter and shorter attention spans" these days).

Untouchable In A Nutshell

If you have not yet seen the film (and you should, whether you are already allied in the fight to protect children or not, because you might get to meet Patty Wetterling as I did last night), let me summarize it (spoiler alert!).  Bearing in mind that I am abbreviating a 104-minute movie into two paragraphs, the movie starts out discussing the victimization of Lauren Book, daughter of Ron Book, at the hands of their nanny Waldina. Following this revelation, Ron Book pursues and passes many different laws that have wide-ranging and unpredictable effects on sex offenders. While Lauren Book champions Lauren's Kids, sex offenders are getting more and more fed up with how the laws are impacting them and their families.

The movie is peppered with facts and studies, and you learn (as you have seen many times on this blog) that recidivism is very, very low. You also learn what the basis is for many of these laws in terms of facts: Nothing. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that sex offender registration and other laws are constitutional because the recidivism rate for sex offenders is "frightening and high", which as it turns out comes from a single unsupported line in a 1986 Psychology Today article from someone with no research background. While it may be difficult to feel bad for sex offenders, the movie reveals that many of the laws that were originally intended to keep children safe have instead become a quagmire of draconian and punitive nonsense that has little to no impact on new sex crime.

More Information About Civil Rights, Laws, And Civil Commitment

By far the best place to find more information about sex offender laws, civil commitment, and current court cases is the National Association for Rational Sex Offense Laws. If you want to lose yourself in finding out more information, or wish to advocate against the laws that are failing to protect our children, you can find a ton of great information at NARSOL.

There is also, as was mentioned in the film, Women Against Registry. They cover the issue of how these laws impact the relatives of sex offenders. They are very similar to NARSOL in many respects, but they focus on the damage that sex offender laws have caused to completely innocent people: The mothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, and families of sex offenders.

Questions Asked And Answered

The questions asked by the audience were appropriately varied on a range of topics:

• How many children are harmed by family vs friends vs strangers? What are the proportions?
• Patty Wetterling and Eric Janus pointed out that strangers account for less than 10% of cases, Patty mentioned that 2% of non-family child abductions are perpetrated by strangers. Both stated that stranger danger is not working.
• What is the realistic recidivism rate for sex offenders with underreporting in mind? 
• Eric Janus pointed out that recidivism is a very small part of violent crimes and most violent crimes are committed by first-time offenders, not those with prior records. Patty Wetterling pointed out that what we are doing in looking at recidivism is not working, and Eric Janus closed by saying that underreporting would likely inflate recidivism rates by 25-30%. Many of the recidivism rates mentioned in the movie were 2-4%.
• Are there any states on a remarkably different path from the national norm in punishing sex offenders?
• Short answer: No, most states are still focusing on punishment.
• David Feige pointed out that each state handles the issue differently, and that each state carries over whatever restrictions were more punitive so that someone could not move to a different state to ease the restrictions placed on them. Both Eric Janus and David Feige pointed out that there is a nationwide "hodgepodge of laws and restrictions," and that mandatory reporting does not help because people are afraid of being turned into the police. 
• David Feige mentioned Prevention Project Dunkelfeld in Germany, which promises confidential help without reporting to the police, and that the project is seeing great success. 
• How many offenders are victims of child sexual abuse? (asked by a psychologist)
• Eric Janus said not the majority and that the studies vary, and Patty Wetterling said that the thought of being considered an offender in the making keeps male victims of child sexual abuse from disclosing their abuse. They speculated on the problems that mandatory reporting causes, and that the fear of being considered a risk to children scares many victims, as was hinted at in the film.
• How did Patty Wetterling's advocacy evolve to be defensive of sex offenders?
• Over time, and by meeting sex offenders and seeing people in varying situations that were not the original intent of the laws she helped create. She used the word "hijacked" as she did in the movie to refer to how the registry has evolved to become punitive. She emphasized that the point was to create an investigative tool for law enforcement, not a public list. 
• How do you short circuit the focus of being tough and punitive on crime?
• David Feige suggested that laws be evidence and fact based, focusing on the fact that risk is a part of life. He admitted that nuanced arguments are harder to make than simple ones, because people buy the simple arguments more readily. 
• Eric Janus suggested storytelling and humanizing people to get people to empathize, while changing the question to "How can we prevent this from happening?"
• Patty Wetterling suggested early interventions like comprehensive sexual education and treatment over punishment, and by starting the focus on one demographic, like juvenile sex offenders, so that people can see the complexity of one single group of sex offenders. 
• Did the evolution of Lauren Book's views on the issue happen during the movie? Did Ron and Lauren Book see the film, and what did they think?
• To the first question, no. To the second, yes, they saw the movie and were very enthusiastic, save for the comedian at the beginning of the film. David Feige pointed out that they were less enthusiastic after seeing the reaction of the screenings since its release. 
• How did all sex offenders get thrown into one pot?
• David Feige very quickly said something to the effect of "bad politicians and badly written laws", and Patty Wetterling pointed to the media, which reports about "sex offenders" rather than differentiating the nuanced information that is valuable.
• Does Ron Book regret his threatening to kill Waldina?
• No, he does not, though David Feige speculated that he may rethink his threat to kill Waldina when she gets out of prison in 2025. 

Two Questions Left Partially Answered

One of the answers to the question about the proportion of abusers (first bullet point above) indicated that stranger sexual abuse is very, very rare. Patty cited the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in saying that only 2% of non-family abductions are perpetrated by strangers, but admitted she did not know that specific statistic. That answer is incomplete. The exact figure is that around 4-5% of child sex abuse cases are perpetrated by strangers, while around 5% remains unknown, and the remaining 90% breaks down into 30% family, 60% friends of the family. The overarching point that was made in the film, which you have heard me mention time and time again, is that abuse is not perpetrated by monsters, but by people we know, trust, and care about.

The answer to the question about how many offenders are victims was: It depends. We have no idea what proportion of victims go on to become abusers (certainly a very small minority at most), but we do know from these studies what percentage of abusers have been victims. Eric Janus said a variety of studies have mixed results. While that is true, there are two sets of studies that have been done: Studies that use polygraph, and studies that do not.  Studies that use polygraph generally find between 30-40% of abusers have been victimized, and studies that do not use polygraph generally find between 50-60% of abusers have been victimized.

How You Can Get Involved

One of the points David Feige made was that there is little information available from him and the film's website on how to get involved. His purpose in making the film was more to start the conversation around this hard and complex topic. He and the film make the case that sex offenders are not being treated fairly by these laws.

I take a different approach, and I can tell you why you need to get involved: The longer these laws are in effect, the more victims we have. We must form fact-based policies so that we can stop sexual violence before it happens. How do you get involved in making that happen?

I propose three areas you can get involved:

1. Contact legislators and city leaders: Email with a phone call to follow-up works well, mailing, emailing, and calling works very, very well. Be respectful.
2. Become an advocate: Learn the facts by heart, and speak up whenever you get the chance. Contact journalists and reporters, write editorials, comment online, etc. 
3. Donate money: No one wants to fund research into helping pedophiles (those with an attraction to children, not those who have already hurt them) or helping sex offenders, but that research is badly needed. 

WAR and NARSOL both have opportunities for you to get involved, and there are many victim advocacy groups that take a fact-based primary prevention approach. The biggest thing you can do is be a voice, and tell people what you think. 

Kare 11's Botched Investigation Into Sex Offenders

To anyone living in Minnesota, Kare 11 is a household name in news. They are largely a reputable company with many investigations and news articles under their belt. However, a recent investigation into sex offenders, and the follow-up to that investigation, should appall you. Why? Because their investigation not only was extremely incomplete, but touts a single example as the legal norm in Minnesota for sex offenders, and argues that all sex offenders are dangerous. In fact, their opening headline for the primary investigation reads:

KARE 11 Investigates: Minnesota's Secret Sex Offenders

A LITTLE-KNOWN LEGAL LOOPHOLE IS ALLOWING HUNDREDS OF CHILD SEXUAL PREDATORS IN MINNESOTA TO SLIDE UNDER THE RADAR, LEAVING PARENTS IN THE DARK ABOUT THE DANGER THEY MAY POSE.

Hundreds Of Predators?

If you read very far into their report, however, you see that "hundreds of child sexual predators" includes a fair amount of juveniles who received a stay of adjudication and 210 other adults 22 years old and older. A stay of adjudication means that an offender must complete a series of requirements, and their crime is not available in public databases unless they do not complete the requirements.

Some of the requirements, for example, are to complete a lengthy probation sentence and complete sex offender treatment (treatment which usually requires at least two years to complete). Standard probation requirements for sex offenders typically involves no contact with anyone under 18 years old, and no pornography. 

What their investigation completely ignores is that Minnesota is home to 17,654 registered sex offenders as of December 6th, 2016. The ability to find out just how many of those 17,654 offenders are considered "high-risk" by the state is challenging at best. To the best of my recall, the amount of level 3 sex offenders in the state does not exceed 2,000 people. 210 people, compared with these numbers, is miniscule. The worst thing about risk level in Minnesota is that it is not determined by an actual risk-assessment administered by a trained psychologist: It is determined based entirely on Minnesota's own criteria, which was developed by studying sex offenders released from prison.

To the average person, that may sound like a good thing... until you realize that many low-level sex offenders, including those convicted of child sexual abuse and sexual abuse material crimes, are frequently given probation if they are a first-time offender. The screening tool that Minnesota uses to determine the risk level of its sex offenders does not have as much reliability as other screening tools, like the Static-99R. More work is needed.

What About Recidivism And Megan's Law?

To make these matters worse, Minnesota's Department of Corrections has done two "recent" studies on sex offenders that would matter to the average person: The 2007 report on recidivism, and the report on Megan's Law in 2008. Both of these reports are as flawed as the system they use to assign risk level: The 2007 report on recidivism looks at 3,166 sex offenders released from a correctional facility (read: prison) between 1990 and 2002, which means their report does not look at the vast majority of sex offenders, only those released from prison. 

The report discussing Megan's Law is also extremely narrow in its scope, and contains methodological errors that would shame any statistician: They conclude, based on their study of recidivism rates of 155 level three offenders subject to notification and 125 who were not, that notification has a strong deterrent effect and reduces recidivism. They essentially claim that correlation proves causation, with no control methods used to distinguish  between the results of these groups. 

Overall Sex Offender Statistics

The statistics discussed in the aforementioned reports are shockingly incomplete, and give the public just enough data to shut up. However, a plethora of other studies have also been done on sex offenders. You have heard me mention them here numerous times: A study done in New York on 21 years of arrest data found that 95% of new sexual crimes were committed not by registered sex offenders, but first-time offenders new to the criminal justice system. Other studies have yielded similar results, usually finding that at least 90% of sex crimes are committed by first-time offenders. This means that the numerous processes we have to address sex offenders attempts to answer approximately 5-10% of new sex crime. 

That study, combined with the numerous meta-analyses done on sex offender recidivism, point to the idea that sex offenders are not nearly as dangerous as people believe: Around 12% of sex offenders will re-offend with a sexual crime, and around 30-40% will reoffend with any crime. That contrasts to the national average for criminal recidivism being around 60-75%. It has been said in media articles on the subject that the only crime with a lower recidivism rate is murder. 

Cost

I know from previous experience with the Minnesota legislature that Minnesota spends a few hundred thousand on preventing sexual assault, and I learned recently that we spend $93 million on managing and tracking sexual offenders. I believe this is very imbalanced, and makes it clear that our focus is not on preventing sexual crimes, but on reacting where they do occur.

The Take-Away

Kare 11 focuses on a miniscule fraction of 5% of new sex criminals in the making. Already, some of Minnesota's legislators, including Gov. Mark Dayton and Rep. Tony Cornish are promising to fix how stays of adjudication are used. But nothing is being promised to address and prevent 95% of new sex crime, which is not committed by sex offenders, but by those new to the criminal justice system. Minnesota, like so many other states, is focusing its efforts on endlessly punishing those who pose the smallest amount of risk in terms of future sex crimes, and focusing next to nothing on preventing sexual crimes before they can happen. Indeed, Minnesota spends $93 million a year on SORN policies, and only $300,000 on sexual assault prevention. Our priorities are not on keeping the public safe.

As an advocate pushing the end of child sexual abuse before it can happen, I am outraged that not only Minnesota's leaders, but also its major media outlets, are doing nothing about the majority of sexual crimes in Minnesota. We are weak: The only statement worth supporting in Kare 11's investigation is that Minnesota has created an atmosphere of legal tolerance of sexual violence. While that statement was intended to address how sex offenders are treated in the legal system, I think that statement is used far too narrowly. 

I am ashamed to call myself a Minnesotan.

Alternative Solutions

There are several solutions that many of my readers may already be familiar with, like knowing the facts and the warning behaviors in potential abusers, and many of my other suggestions center around reforming sexual offender laws to be more effective at protecting the public. Some of them concern educating families, and educating children.

Sex offender registration needs reform, primarily because it lumps low-risk and no-risk offenders in with high-risk and recidivist sex offenders, which means law enforcement has a harder job investigating sex crimes. Instead, it would be best to use the money currently allocated to the sex offender registry in each state to perform psychological risk assessments on each offender. These risk assessments would divide only into low and high risk. These assessments would be done by an independent board of expert psychologists in each state, and only those who score as high-risk will be registered with law enforcement. The specific statute being charged and convicted should have no bearing on risk level, and the circumstances of the offense and risk assessments should be used as the determining factor for risk. As risk level and offender registration are not punitive measures, they could only be used as a factor when determining a criminal sentence. 

The trend in research identifies several issues with publicly identifying sex offenders in the community, commonly known as sex offender notifications. Many of these issues can be solved by only notifying the community in certain special circumstances: Multiple sex crimes, a high-risk score on risk assessment, release from prison, and two or more psychological disorders could be some of the criteria. The compliance patrols that are currently aimed at low-risk and no-risk offenders could instead be aimed at those who meet enough criteria to warrant public notification. Not all high-risk offenders would warrant public notification, only those who meet enough criteria would qualify. Anyone subject to sex offender notifications would be incarcerated for life if they commit another offense of any kind.

The research surrounding residency restrictions is nearly unanimous in saying that they do not keep the public safer, and in some cases, can lead to increased homelessness. This increased homelessness has been shown to increase risk factors for further offending, as well as making it more difficult for offenders to reestablish themselves as productive members of society. Therefore, residency restrictions should be completely abolished except for those warranting community notification, as covered in the heading "sex offender notifications". As such, any such offender committing another offense of any kind would be subject to a life sentence.

In many states, sex offenders are restricted from random things that do not have any effect on public safety. For example, sex offenders in some states cannot use the internet, or cannot use certain aspects of the internet, such as for gaming, social media, or even commenting on the news. In other places, sex offenders cannot participate in Halloween or attend the state fair. As 95% of new sex crime is perpetrated by those without criminal convictions, these restrictions do nothing to keep the public safer and put onerous enforcement requirements on supervising corrections officers and law enforcement that could be better spent detecting new sex crimes or educating the community regarding safety and prevention. 

Some funding originally directed at sex offender registration in the past must be directed to educating families about appropriate safety plans, facts around child sexual abuse and sexual assault, warning behaviors in potential abusers, resources for individualized help on a variety of topics, and normative vs. atypical sexual behavior in children and teenagers. This education plan would be created using accurate terminology, research-based factoids, and produced by experts in these areas. 

In line with the aforementioned education of families, schools and families should have access to age-appropriate sexual education covering a wide variety of topics to prepare each child for life in the adult world. Such education should be covered both at school and at home, and the standards for this education should be a principled skeleton of topics. It would then be decided on the local level how to cover each principle, so that each community has a say in practicing this education. These principles should include:

• Legal and ethical specifics on the subject of consent
• Anatomical health practices including STD's, safe sex, and physical boundaries
• How to form and keep social and emotional boundaries
• Resources that a child can use for a variety of situations including but not limited to, sexual abuse, mental health disorders, physical health concerns, and relationship health.

The Annual Halloween Sex Offender Witch Hunt

It is that time of year again! The time of year when media outlets across the United States (and beyond) publish lists and maps of where sex offenders are in your community, ostensibly to keep children safe from sex offenders. The part they conveniently leave out is that Halloween puts children at a much higher risk of being injured or killed in traffic than they are for being kidnapped or molested by a registered sex offender.

Take a look at four facts and the studies they come from:

A study looking at 67,307 sexual offenses committed against 67,045 victims and found no significance between Halloween and the rest of the year in regards to sexual offenses.

One meta-analysis looking at 45,398 offenders across 16 countries found that the average sexual offender repeats their sexual crimes at a rate around 11.5%  45,398 offenders across 16 countries. A similar meta-analysis found a lower sexual recidivism rate for child molesters (12.7%) compared to rapists (18.9%), as well as lower nonsexual violent recidivism (9.9% for child molesters and 22.1% for rapists) and lower general recidivism (36.9% among child molesters, and 46.2% for rapists).

A New York study done in 2008 found that over 95% of sexual offense arrests were of first-time offenders with no criminal history on no registry. Studies done in other states have found a similar 95-99% rate of the same.

A study looking at crimes against juveniles found that 90% of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by those known to the victim, not strangers.

In light of these four facts, there is no evidence to support the idea that sexual crimes against children are a higher or lower risk around Halloween compared to any other time of the year. In fact, these facts indicate that the biggest risk to children does not come from sex offenders, but from those trusted in the community with no criminal record. That holds true on any day of the year. That begs the question: What can you look for? Behavioral signs are the best bet.

Because of these facts, I believe it is time to stop using "sex offender" so commonly and openly, and use the more accurate "sexual abuser" instead, or some other term that does not imply that the majority of those who commit sexual crimes are registered sex offenders. That implication is a myth that flies in the face of the above facts, and puts communities in more danger by focusing their attention on a population that commits less than 5% of sexual crimes against children, and indeed, sexual crimes in general.

In short, because of the facts about sex offenders, child sexual abuse, and the rates of crime around Halloween, it is time for our fear over sex offenders nabbing children off the street to end. Strangers present minimal danger in terms of sexual crimes, and Halloween is a time for some to celebrate all that is spooky and scary... but sex offenders are not the scary part of sex crimes. The scary part is how we focus on the people who are not threats at the cost of detecting those who do present risks.

Ten Things People Do Not Know About Child Sexual Abuse

If you know some of these, I congratulate you on being knowledgeable about sexual abuse. However, for most people, this is a fairly accurate list of what ten things people simply are not aware of on the issue of child sexual abuse.

One: Sexual Abusers Are People We Trust

One of the most common statistics cited by prevention programs, advocates, and survivor groups is that over 90% of sexual abuse is perpetrated by those known and trusted by the victim. But that can sometimes mislead us. After all, these are people trusted by the victim. The child. Children trust everyone, right? According to Wikipedia, about a third of sexual abuse is perpetrated by immediate family members, and two-thirds is perpetrated by a friend of the family: Babysitter, teacher, coach, nanny, etc. So it is not just the child doing the trusting, it is everyone around the child.

Two: Sexual Abusers Are Not Registered Sex Offenders

This fact is going to be particularly shocking to most people, but sex offender registration happens after someone has been sentenced (not accused, not convicted, sentenced) for a sex crime that mandates registration. That is easy enough to understand. But we know from studies on the subject that most accused of sex crimes, to the tune of 95%, are first-time offenders, in other words, people completely new to the criminal justice system (they have a clean criminal record). While background checks are certainly useful for recidivist sex offenders, they will fail to catch nine out of ten potential sexual abusers.

Three: Victims Do Not Disclose Abuse

A statistic commonly cited by survivor organizations is that it takes the average victim of child sexual abuse 22 years to disclose that they were abused. Another common statistic is that for every child who discloses their abuse, another 8 do not. We like to think that our children will talk about it if someone is mistreating them, but most of the time that person is someone they know and trust. There are a variety of systemic issues that prevent children from speaking up that can be corrected by properly educating children about good/bad touch, boundaries, and good mental health in general, but these systemic corrections cannot completely compensate for the fact that sexual abuse is a horrid violation of a child’s trust, respect, and boundaries, and for the child, talking about that is humiliating.

Four: Sexual Abusers Are (Mostly) Not Attracted To Children

This is probably another shocking statistic for most people: Two-thirds of sexual abusers are not sexually attracted to children. Most abusers are not motivated by positive factors like the sexual pleasure from their actions, but by negative factors like significant life events, daily stress and frustration, resentment towards others, and many other factors. Entire books and studies examine the numerous motivations of sexual abusers and sexual offenders, but the point is that sexual pleasure is typically not a motivating factor. In other words, the stereotypical sexual predators are not really the biggest threat we need to worry about.

Five: Most Sex Abusers Do Not Re-Offend

How many times have we heard (or expressed) the idea that sexual abusers, child molesters, or sex offenders should be locked up, castrated, or killed on the basis that if they are, they can then never harm another person sexually? If we were somehow able to search every news story on the subject, I suspect this would be the overwhelming comment. Yet, according to research, the opposite is true: Most of the time sex offenders re-offend, it is with a non-violent offense, and child molesters re-offend at a lower rate. To be more exact, 11.5% of sex offenders will go on to commit another sexual crime. We know from studies too numerous to name that the things that help lower recidivism are not sex offender registries and harsher punishments, but softer approaches like reentry projects like housing and job assistance and therapy specifically tailored for sex offenders.

Six: A Significant Number Of Sexual Abusers Are Juveniles

35.6%, to be more exact, and researchers at the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse have more recently been saying half, not 36%. While adults do make up the majority of sexual abusers, a statistically significant portion of them are juveniles, not adults. Motivations for juvenile offending are just as vast and complex as adult sexual offending, but with one major difference: While it is true that most adults do not re-offend sexually, it is even more true for juveniles. Sexual recidivism for juveniles is generally around 3%. Punishing juveniles and placing them on sex offender registries is not only barbaric, it is not supported by research. Just ask Elizabeth Letourneau, I am sure she would welcome questions on the subject.

Seven: Most Abuse Happens 1-on-1 In A Residence

To save you the trouble of grabbing your dictionary, a residence is a house or apartment where someone lives, as opposed to an institution like a school, sports program, or office. To be exact, 80% of sexual abuse happens in a residence, and 85% is in a private situation between the child and the abuser (both statistics courtesy of Darkness to Light). In other words, keeping sex offenders (who already do not re-offend much) away from schools or parks (which probably fall somewhere in the remaining 20%) is not based on fact, but wishful thinking and yes, probably some vengeance.

Eight: Boys Are Sexually Abused Also, And Some Of Them By Women

For some reason, many criminal courts go easy on women who sexually abuse boys. It comes up from time to time in my Twitter feed. And inevitably, someone makes the comment that the boy is lucky, or that the commenter would not have minded the attention. The fact of the matter is, this is still sexual abuse, and the effects of it on the victim are well-documented. As the name might indicate, 1in6 is an organization of male survivors who were sexually abused as children, and they have numerous statistics on this subject. What is the rate of boys who are sexually abused? Every one in six boys. That is almost as much as girls (one in four).

Nine: Most Pedophiles Do Not Sexually Abuse Children

I have covered this before, but according to what we know about child molesters and pedophilia, the vast majority of pedophiles, or those sexually attracted to children, do not hurt children. For a more detailed analysis of why pedophilia is not a risk to children, see here.

Ten: The Majority Of Sexual Abuse Victims Do Not Abuse Others

It is common knowledge to researchers that roughly 40% of sexual abusers are known to have been abused as children, but most people still believe the myth that if a child is sexually abused, they will go on to sexually abuse other children. And, while prior abuse may be a factor in juveniles who sexually abuse, it is hardly a factor for adults who sexually abuse. I am not entirely sure what the exact statistic is for the ratio of victims who have never abused to victims who have, but it is very safe to say that most victims of sexual abuse are perfectly safe to other people. Typically, the challenges they face as victims and survivors are directed inwards, not outwards.

Primary Prevention Basics

Stop A Moment...

The information that I am about to present will shock you. You will have feelings about it, and I very much doubt that you will like what you are about to read. I doubt you will want to believe it. So please take a moment to relax, and set aside how you feel about the subject of child sexual abuse. Take a moment, and give me the space to present some challenging facts.

The Cold, Hard Truth

Child sexual abuse is an epidemic that we must take steps to reduce. That one-fourth of girls and one-sixth of boys are abused by the time they come of age is pathetic, disturbing, and disgusting. Society has taken many approaches to attempt to curb this epidemic, very similar to the American war on drugs in the 1990's: The main approach is to exact a harsh penalty and hope that the penalty deters people from committing these horrific crimes. The reality that someone can touch the genitals of a child for sexual pleasure is a disgusting, appalling concept just by itself. Then you add to that reality that there are people who are sexually attracted to children the way most adults are attracted to other adults... and you get people getting their pitchforks and nooses ready. People are ready and willing to accept that the people who commit these horrific acts are evil monsters, and that the victims are poor, defenseless children who always tell adults when it happens.

The truth is not nearly as simple as that one paragraph might lead you to believe. Most children do not disclose that they were touched in a private place by anyone, because of the fear, shame, and humiliation that accompanies such a basic boundary violation. And when they do tell an adult, the reaction is typically something like, "But we know and trust that person. Only monsters molest children, and they're not a monster." Most adults who sexually abuse children are not actually attracted to them, but are heterosexual. And most juveniles (a third of sexual abusers are juveniles at the time of the crime) who sexually abuse children are doing so because of abuse they have suffered, which is a stark contrast to the majority of abusers who were never sexually abused as children. The truth is that child sexual abuse is not a simple problem to solve, and even handling a disclosure of abuse can be very, very difficult.

Extremely Controversial

Primary prevention is an extremely controversial area of sexual abuse prevention. Primary prevention involves facts people do not want to believe, and there are many extremely difficult truths to accept, if one is to look at all into what it means to prevent child sexual abuse before it occurs. Some of them are:

1. Pedophilia, the attraction to children, is separate from the act of sexually abusing a child.
2. Those who sexually abuse children cannot be profiled, and there is no one common factor that motivates the abuse.
3. Those who sexually abuse children do not typically repeat their crimes.
4. Sex offender registration and community notification laws do not prevent children from being abused, and researchers have found extremely limited, if not counterintuitive results from the enaction of such laws.
5. Victims of child sexual abuse do not disclose the abuse for months or years, if at all.
6. Mandatory reporting also prevents people who are concerned about their thoughts from seeking out a psychologist for fear of being reported to the police and having their lives ruined.

These truths are controversial in part because the media has butchered the language in stories describing those who sexually abuse. They typically refer to those who abuse as pedophiles, or paedophiles, and their crimes as pedophilia. Pedophiles and sex abusers; pedophilia and child sexual abuse: These terms are used interchangeably, even though they mean very different things to researchers and those who work with these subjects. That difference is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome, because it seems to make sense that the sexual abuse of a child would be motivated by a sexual attraction to them. If you can accept just the first fact as truth, it will become easier to believe the rest. 

Popular Myths, Stigma, And Hype... And Reality

The reality of child sexual abuse is not at all a simple subject. I have seen myths perpetrated by people who are very much against sexual abuse. This weekend, in fact, I was told that, "The subject is as simple as no matter what urges you get you DO NOT HARM AN INNOCENT!!! End of [story]..." when I told someone that the subject of child sexual abuse prevention is not simple at all, due to a myriad of controversial laws that do more harm than good, due to the complexities of what motivate someone to sexually abuse a child, and due to the oversimplifying of the issue by the media and by politicians.

Most people think that not abusing a child is as simple as knowing the difference between right and wrong, or that abusing a child is always perpetrated by adults who are sexual predators and monsters. But the reality is that those who abuse a child... are us. They are human. One-third of them are juveniles, not adults. Over 90% of sexual abusers are known and trusted by the victim and the victim's family. Most sexual abusers do not have a psychological drive to molest children, the child was just an available outlet for a powerful emotion that distorted the person's thinking and decisions, similar to the way someone desperate enough can commit murder under the influence of powerful emotions like rage, jealousy, or fear. As such, the motivations that lead to an abuser's decision to sexually abuse a child are complex to foresee, treat, or prevent, let alone be believed by the general public.

Accusations Against Researchers, Therapists, And Advocates

If I had a dime for every time I have been accused of being a sex offender just for pointing out facts and statistics about sex offenders, I would have plenty of money. This is a very common accusation against anyone who delves very deeply into the realm of preventing child sexual abuse: That we are coddling sexual offenders, sexual abusers, and child molesters. Or worse, that we are child molesters who just want to make the act acceptable. I have even been called creepy. The amount of this same pathetic logic leveled at researchers, advocates, and therapists is astounding to me. Here we are, attempting to educate people about the subject, but we are constantly being accused of coddling abusers or worse. Who are some of these experts?

I would like to showcase two researchers: James Cantor, and Elizabeth Letourneau:

Dr. Letourneau is the current director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, and the former president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. Her work is primarily in researching ways that sexual abuse can be prevented, studying and working with those who have committed sexual crimes, and helping form public policy so that these crimes can be prevented. She posts frequently on Twitter, but is rarely liked or retweeted, except by a handful of colleagues and advocates like myself.

Dr. Cantor is a Canadian sex researcher that studies sexual disorders, known as paraphilias, for a living. He gets paid to figure out why people are sexually attracted to what they are sexually attracted to. He has authored many research studies, spoken and written for many news organizations, and done a lot to prevent child sexual abuse. He simply wants people to know and understand his subject matter. Yet, I have seen him accused of attacking abuse victims, being arrogant, and other petty insults.

The public response to these experts is frightening, and by reading many of these responses you would think that the public are the experts, and these people are just hacks who make stuff up for their own amusement. But as you can see by their profiles and their work, they have dedicated their entire lives to contributing to a solution to the epidemic of child sexual abuse.

Tying It All Together

You may not realize it, but your opinion matters. What you know and what you think you know about the subject of child sexual abuse has a very real impact to the epidemic of child sexual abuse. If what you think you know are actually myths, stereotypes, and misinformation about the subject, then you can actually contribute to the epidemic rather than its solutions. The truths of child sexual abuse, and the facts in the realm of primary prevention are indeed counterintuitive. However, believing the myths and misinformation over the facts on the issue means that we can blind ourselves to the reality that our neighbor, our friend, our family member, or our own children could be struggling with an issue that could, or already has, led to a child being abused. Believing the myths and misinformation mean that we deny the truth, and even attempt to cover it up.

The biggest reason that children do not disclose their own sexual abuse is to protect their abuser, and to protect their loved ones from the knowledge that they are being sexually abused. Adults do not disclose abuse for very similar reasons: They do not want the atrocious decision to haunt the abuser for the rest of their lives, and they know that will happen with the laws we have formed and the public opinion on these issues. That is one of the reasons why navigating a disclosure of abuse is so complex. Our knee-jerk reactions may be to just tell the police, but the reality when it happens is not nearly that simple for most people.

When this topic comes up, please take a deep breath, in, and out. Please take a moment to center yourself, and think rationally. Take a moment to realize that your reactions are not only normal, they are expected. But also take a moment to realize that it is emotional reactions that can contribute to the epidemic of child sexual abuse rather than contributing to a solution to that epidemic. We have already formed policies and laws based on the passionate reactions to this issue, and research has shown many times that these policies are not doing what they intended to do, and they can even increase crime. It may sound like it makes sense to try to keep sex offenders away from schools and parks, or to put them on a list, or do any number of other endless punishments.

However, these methods are only effective once a sex crime has already happened.

Criminology Myths Debunked

Today, I ran across a rather unfortunate article discussing the prevention of child sexual abuse. While a very small amount of the information in the article is accurate, the majority of it is not. This will serve as a review of the information presented in the article, as well as a rally cry to protect our children. Not with myths, not with misinformation, but with facts.

Part One: What Is Pedophilia? Who Are Pedophiles?

This article is wrong from the very first sentence, which has to be some kind of achievement somewhere. Obviously, anyone with internet access (and the ability to read English) can look on the side of this blog and click the "Wiki: Pedophilia" link on the side, and read that pedophilia refers to an attraction to children that meets very specific criteria. You can also see my recent post on pedophilia. Why does this matter? Well, the title of the article is not "Pedophilia From The Perspective Of Criminology", but "Do more to prevent child sexual abuse". Sexual abuse is a choice. Our best information from the DSM-V is that pedophilia is not a choice. It is described as a sexual orientation:

Page 698 of the DSM-V, first paragraph

Obviously, pedophilia cannot be both a condition and a crime. It cannot be a noun and a verb at the same time. That is a logical fallacy of ambiguity called equivocation: Using the same word to mean multiple things so as to make a fallacious argument sound solid. A student of critical thinking could easily see where I am going with this. The article is supposedly written by a criminologist who studied at the University of Detroit in 1989 for a masters in criminal justice. If someone who is smart enough to get a masters and direct a university in Malaysia, but cannot do a simple Wikipedia search to use words properly, I question his credentials and his ability to lead properly in preventing child sexual abuse.

So far, that covers just the first sentence. The second paragraph is equally poor. Pedophiles are not people whom prefer to have sex with children, they are people who find children who have not yet hit puberty attractive. Many pedophiles would prefer not to have such a sexual attraction at all. Where this man gets the idea that he somehow knows how all people with the condition of pedophilia think, I have no clue, but I very much doubt that they teach mind-reading in the criminal justice master's programs in Detroit. And as far as I know, pedophiles do not prefer to taste children, nor do they achieve sexual pleasure from children. That would imply that all pedophiles sexually abuse children, and given that around a third of those who abuse children are pedophiles, well, that implication would not hold true under any expert's analysis.

Also, the DSM-V discusses pedophiles as exclusive (only attracted to children) or non-exclusive (attracted to children, but also to other age groups). So the last sentence, that they desire sexual relations only with children, is demonstrably false.

Part Two: Grooming, Profiling, And Abuse Facts

Some of the information here is okay, like the last sentence: A well-known abuse statistic is that 90% of sexual abuse victims know and trust their abuser, though I am not sure how exactly the victims' mothers factor into that well-known statistic. The point is that people generally trust those who abuse children. Pedophiles do in fact come from all backgrounds, and pedophiles only share one thing in common: An attraction to prepubescent children. There is no way to identify a pedophile. Nor, by the way, is there any way to identify someone who sexually abuses children, short of catching them in the act or the child disclosing the abuse, which was probably his point: There is no profile of someone who sexually abuses a child.

However, we do know why people abuse children. They abuse children because they are available, because of unmanaged mental health needs, out of mishandling difficult emotions, and yes, sometimes being sexually attracted is a factor. However, the sexual attraction is not the reason they abused, but the fact that they did not properly manage or get support for the attraction that they have. They abused a child because they made the decision to do so. The main point here is that sexual abuse is a choice, and pedophilia is not.

Huckle made decisions to seek out children, and to write a manual on how people can sexually abuse children and get away with it. You have likely seen news articles referring to Huckle as a pedophile who wrote a pedophilia manual. He is a sexual abuser who wrote a sexual abuse manual. Pedophilia had little to do with his choices. I also very much doubt that Western privelege factored much into his decision to abuse children, as there are many people with Western privelege that use it to help people rather than exploit children. You might as well mention that he had a beard, therefore all people who have beards might sexually abuse children.

He alludes to grooming in the first sentence by saying that abuse "can be a small act in everyday life". I say he alluded to it, because he does not actually name it as grooming, or go into detail about what grooming is. Grooming is the intentional or unintentional progression of earning the victim and the trust of those close to the victim so that the perpetrator can spend time with the victim alone without arousing suspicion. Grooming is a real thing, though grooming is not, of itself, abuse. Nor, I might add, is abuse a "small act in everyday life". This man is a professional at minimizing child sexual abuse, as abuse is neither a small act, nor should it ever be part of everyday life for a child.

Part Three: Criminal Behavior, Pedophilia, And Victims

The theory mentioned in the first sentence may have been a popular notion in 1989, but I very much doubt that you will find many criminologists (no, that is not my field) that believe that all criminal behavior is learned from other criminals who hold criminal attitudes and values. You might as well say that all crime is the result of mafias, we just have to identify who taught whom. I have no idea what most criminologists actually believe in regards to theories and what causes behavior, but I am very familiar with psychology and psychologists. Most experts in sex crime that I have either spoken with or read a peer-reviewed study from would say that child sexual abuse is a choice. That choice may be influenced by environmental factors, or by biological factors, but it does not negate the fact that behavior is the end result of a decision. It is controllable. This is yet another example of the man minimizing child sexual abuse.

And again, he uses the term "pedophiles" to refer to those who have abused children. The number of abusers who were abused themselves is around 30-40%, last I checked that statistic. You can look it up if you do not believe me, but 30-40% hardly qualifies as "most pedophiles", or rather, most abusers. And while pedophilia is certainly the result of some complex biological and environmental process, the condition of being sexually attracted to young children does not automatically lead to criminal behavior any more than depression automatically leads to suicide. This man is clearly speaking outside his area of expertise, and is attempting to blame mental illnesses and psychological conditions as the cause of criminal behavior. Can I get a show of hands for those who think that such blame casting towards mentally ill people is completely inappropriate?

Part Four: What Makes Someone A Pedophile, Cure For Pedophilia

While I did not look up the 2014 Korean report on twins with pedophilia (I hesitate to believe it even exists, after what I have read so far), I am quite familiar with James Cantor's work on pedophilia and what he says about the subject: That pedophilia acts as a sexual orientation and is developed very, very early and is likely the result of biological processes far more than it is the result of an environmental factor such as child sexual abuse. None of that, of course, is at all relevant to child sexual abuse and how it could be prevented, unless he were asserting that pedophiles do not choose their condition and should receive help and not stigma (this is obviously not his argument).

He claims there is no agreement about what makes an individual a pedophile. This is almost laughable. Pedophilia is a word that describes the condition of having an ongoing sexual attraction to prepubescent children, so obviously people who have such an ongoing sexual attraction would be a pedophile. While there is certainly disagreement over the nuances of pedophilia and how pedophiles should be treated, there is no academic disagreement about what makes someone a pedophile to my knowledge. It is a narrow term with a narrow definition, and the term itself does not have disagreement, the concepts surrounding it do. Should it be called a disorder? Should it be called an orientation? What about mandatory reporting? These concepts rage ongoing debates.

And it is absolutely correct that there is no cure for having the sexual orientation of pedophilia, it is absolutely incorrect that most pedophiles are sociopaths. I believe I discussed this recently. He is referring, of course, to sexual predators who are the very extreme minority of sexual abusers, which again, is completely irrelevant to pedophilia or pedophiles. While there is some comorbidity (like correlation, but for psychologists) between pedophilia and antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy, or sociopathy, if you prefer the stigmatized language), there is also comorbidity between pedophilia and substance use disorders, depressive, bipolar, and anxiety disorders, as well as other paraphilic disorders. Yes, I copied that almost word-for-word from page 700 of the DSM-5.

Conveniently ignoring the reality of pedophilic disorder to make his point that pedophiles are terrible people that have an innate drive to rape children is academically dishonest. Yet, this man is the director of a university as well as holding several affiliations and titles. He should stick to his areas of expertise and not butcher the field of psychology and pass it off as fact.

The last sentence is almost laughable. Do I even need to cite sources when I say that sexual recidivism of sexual offenders is around 10-20%? Do I need to link the two studies on the side of this page, which will tell you that sexual abusers have lower recidivism than the average sexual offender? Anyone can search "recidivism for child sexual abusers" and see the top result. The last sentence is a lie that is clearly exposed to be a lie by a simple Google search. If he had a masters degree in criminal justice, he should be able to find that information far easier than I can.

Part Five: How Abuse Happens, How Sexual Abuse Can End

Here, he begins wading into realms far outside my area of experience. What I can tell you is that law enforcement must have specific training in how to question victims of child sexual abuse so that the trauma involved is not made worse by making the victim relive the experience before they are ready. I can also tell you that law enforcement must spread far and wide the message that there is no profile for sexual abusers. I can even tell you that enforcement is a must. I also wholeheartedly agree that effective laws are a must in combating child sexual abuse. However, speaking from the perspective of an American, with all of our sex offender registration and notification laws, and all of the subsequent studies that have shown how useless they are except in maybe 5% of sexual offenders, I must say that these laws must be done with expert analysis and recommendations. Which brings me to the final part of Mr. Satar's article...

Part Six: Sexual Abuse Prevention, Responsibility, And Child Protection

I completely agree with the first two paragraphs: Preventing child sexual abuse is everyone's responsibility. The police must investigate and enforce, but parents, teachers, and others must be able to spot abuse when it is occurring, and spot the warning signs in those who may be at-risk to sexually abuse a child. The third paragraph is also brilliant: Parents must ensure the safety of their children. The fourth paragraph is golden: Parents must know the warning signs and not take someone's title for granted (oh, the irony). We must not assume that someone is reliable because they are trusted in the community, or because of a title. We must watch for the warning signs.

But that is where I stop agreeing, because the last two paragraphs scream the same precursor warning signs that America should have been hearing in the 1990's when parents began demanding laws that we now know are completely ineffective at protecting children: Put registries in place, register pedophiles and child abusers (conflating pedophilia with abuse again, I see), and do all this to protect our children! That has not worked well in the United States, and that rhetoric was formed on the assumption that recidivism is high, but that is just an erroneous assumption.

Mr. Satar, our children do need to be protected from child sexual abuse. But they do not need to be protected from pedophiles or pedophilia. They need to be protected from the bad decisions of older children and adults, and those are just that: Decisions. Our children, not just here in America, not just in Malaysia, but all of the children in the world, must be protected by facts, laws and policies that are based on those facts. America and Europe has already made the mistake of forming these policies and laws based on the emotive rally cry: Protect our children! It is time that this rally cry becomes based in fact, not just hype, so that it can be effective at actually keeping our children safe.

The first part of that, if you noticed, is fact. Verifiable, trustworthy, peer-reviewed, honest, fact. Not myths based on a misunderstanding of psychology, sexual abusers, and the dehumanization of those that abuse children. Fact.