The Complex Nature of Child Sexual Abuse
Quotes & highlights from: This article, "The Child Molestation Dilemma," by Cheryl Wetzstein, The identification and prosecution of child molesters present a Although a number of experts believe that some child sex offenders Also, the author notes, the difficulty in preventing child sexual Wetzstein is a journalist who writes on family and social issues "I got away with molesting over 240 children before getting caught These words led to headlines in April 1996 when McQuay was ordered The chances a sex offender will commit another crime seem to depend Some medical experts hold that sex offenders can be successfully "I don't think the majority [of sex offenders] have a condition But others are not at all sure that pedophiles -- people whose sexual "Pedophiles are always model prisoners and want parole," said John Trueman and others, noting that even notorious offenders seem to get The diversity of sexual disorders has made both clinical diagnosis "Society's attitude about child sexual abuse and exploitation can be But the flip side of denial is public hysteria -- and professionals "Some professionals ... in their zeal to make American society more Efforts have been under way to collect reliable data on missing and Non-family abductors include persons who are known to the child (that It's not only strangers who molest children, however. Sexual abusers "Retrospective surveys reveal great variation [in the national Finally, it would be easier to toughen the laws against child Some of these cases have led to arrests, convictions, or "The reality," says David Beatty, a spokesman with the National If society becomes better educated about sexual abuse of children, [ < http://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/overview_memories.htm >] * Elizabeth Bartholet. Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, * John Briere, Lucy Berliner, and Josephine A. Bulkley, eds. The * Carol Lowery Delaney. Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of * Byrgen Finkelman. Child Abuse: A Multidisciplinary Survey: * Jennifer J. Freyd. Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting * Richard B. Gartner. Betrayed as Boys: Psychodynamic Treatment * Mary Edna Heifer, Ruth S. Kempe, and Richard D. Krugman, eds. * Sandra K. Hewitt. Assessing Allegations of Sexual Abuse in * Anna J. Michener. Becoming Anna: The Autobiography of a * Ronald T. Potter-Efron and Patricia S. Potter-Efron, eds. * Andren Schoen and Brian Prats. Beyond the Big Easy: One Man's * Sue William Silverman. Because I Remember Terror, Father, I * Jane Waldfogel. The Future of Child Protection: How to Break * Arthur Allen. "She Catches Child Abusers," Redbook, March 1999. * Douglas S. Barasch. "Would You Hurt This Baby?" Redbook, * Nina Bernstein. "Old Pattern Cited in Missed Signs of Child * Rosemary Chalk and Patricia King. "Facing Up to Family * Jennifer Couzin. "Missing the Signals: Doctors Misdiagnose * Thomas Fields-Meyer. "Bad Medicine," People Weekly, October * Skip Hollandsworth. "No One Knows What Could Be Happening to * Rael Jean Isaac. "Abusive Justice," National Review, June 30, * David Laskin. "Childproofing the Internet," Parents, January 1999. * Stephanie Mansfield. "The Avengers Online," Good Housekeeping, * Joyce Milton. "Suffer Little Children?" National Review, * William Nack and Don Yaeger. "Every Parent's Nightmare," * Marjorie Preston. "The Molester Next Door," Ladies' Home * Carla Rivera. "U.S. Child Abuse at Crisis Levels, Panel Says," * Rachel L. Swarns. "In a Policy Shift, More Parents Are * Anastasia Toufexis. "Why Jennifer Got Sick," Time, April 29, 1996. * Gayle White. "Pain Relief," Christianity Today, July 12, 1999.
http://digg.com/u1NmaD
The Complex Nature of Child Sexual Abuse. Cheryl Wetzstein.
Child Abuse. Ed. Bryan J. Grapes. Contemporary Issues Companion
Series. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001.
appeared in the November 1996 issue and is reprinted with permission
from The World & I.
serious dilemma to law enforcement agencies and psychiatrists,
writes Cheryl Wetzstein in the following article. Child molesters
suffer from a diversity of sexual disorders that are difficult to
diagnose, making it nearly impossible for psychiatrists and law
enforcement officials to develop uniform legal and therapeutic
responses, she writes.
can be successfully treated and returned to society, Wetzstein
explains, others maintain that the majority of child molesters are
repeat offenders who cannot be rehabilitated.
abuse is compounded by the absence of reliable statistics, as the
data suffer from both underreporting and exaggeration.
for the Washington Times.
for molesting just one little boy," convicted child molester Larry
Don McQuay has confessed.
"With all that I have coldheartedly learned while in prison, there
is no way that I will ever be caught again," he has said. "I am
doomed to eventually rape, then murder my poor little victims to
keep them from telling on me. ... Will your children be my next
victims?"
released from a Texas jail after serving six years of an eight-year
prison sentence for the 1989 rape of a six-year-old boy. He had
served his time, according to Texas's mandatory-release rules.
Before McQuay was taken to a halfway house to prepare for his
reentry into society, he pleaded to be castrated to lessen his
sexual drive. A victims' rights group in Houston, called Justice for
All, began a fund-raising campaign to meet McQuay's request but
could not find a doctor who would perform the unusual surgery to
remove the testicles. McQuay has since been returned to jail on
charges stemming from a previous molestation case.
The case of Larry Don McQuay seems to epitomize society's continuing
inability to deal with those who have incorrigible and unspeakable
appetites for children.
One obvious permanent solution -- capital punishment -- is strictly
reserved for murder and is likely to remain so. The public remains
divided over the merits of the death penalty, child sexual abuse
cases are difficult to prove beyond all question of doubt, and most
sex offenders are members of or known to the victim's family, making
the latter unlikely to call for a death sentence.
As a result, there is a push to sentence child molesters to life in
prison without parole or place them in secure mental institutions
until they are judged not to be a danger to society.
In the meantime, however, many offenders receive probation or short
prison sentences, and thousands are released from jail and back into
society each year. Recidivism Rates
on the nature of his sexual appetite.
In January 1996, Congressional Quarterly reported that, according to
international research findings, including a 1994 paper issued by
the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, recidivism rates
for untreated sex offenders ranged as follows: 
41 to 71 percent for exhibitionists; 13 to 40 percent for child molesters preferring boy victims; 10 to 29 percent for child molesters preferring girl victims; 7 to 35 percent for rapists; 4 to 10 percent for incest offenders.
treated.
that's curable, but I do think that many of them have a psychiatric
disorder and can, like alcoholics, learn to control themselves and
live safely in the community," Fred Berlin, director of the National
Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma
in Baltimore, Maryland, told Congressional Quarterly.
preference is for children -- can ever live "safely" in society.
Walsh, whose young son was abducted and found murdered many years
ago. The show he hosted for years -- Fox-TV's America's Most
Wanted -- once helped catch 37 pedophiles accused of crimes in one
six-month period, he said. Ninety percent of them were repeat offenders.
"When you find out how they've conducted their lives, you realize
it's their whole life to molest," said Patrick Trueman, former chief
of the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity
Section and now director of governmental affairs for the American
Family Association.
only eight-year prison sentences, strongly believe in very long
prison terms, if not life in prison. Diversity of Disorders
and uniform legal responses difficult.
For example, virtually all pedophiles collect child pornography,
fantasize about children, and engage in infantile or abnormal
behavior around them. But not all pedophiles actually assault
children. They may instead employ means of self-gratification that
are not illegal.
Adults who assault children are child molesters, but not all child
molesters are pedophiles. Some child molesters are sexual predators
who prefer adult victims but attack a child because an opportunity
appears. Such "situational child molesters" are believed to be the
most common kind of offender but the least likely to abuse large
numbers of children.
Instead, the most worrisome sort of offender is the pedophile who
molests, known to law enforcement officials as a "preferential child
molester." Such a man is likely to be involved in child pornography,
sex rings, and child prostitution. He may molest hundreds or even a
thousand children in a lifetime, wrote FBI Supervisory Special Agent
Kenneth Lanning in a 1992 booklet issued by the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Referring to a landmark, long-term study of 561 sex offenders by Dr.
Gene Abel, an Atlanta sexual disorder expert, Lanning said that
pedophiles who targeted boys outside the home committed the greatest
number of crimes, with an average of 281.7 acts with an average of
150.2 partners.
Molesters who targeted girls within the family committed an average
of 81.3 acts with an average of 1.8 partners. The Abel study also
found that nearly a quarter of the 561 subjects committed crimes
against both family and non-family members, Lanning wrote in Child
Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis.
A number of punishments have been suggested for child sex offenders,
but all have drawbacks.
Meanwhile, nearly every state has enacted laws requiring sex
offenders to register in their new homes. Such laws have faced court
challenges by civil liberties advocates who argue that sex offenders
who have paid their debt to society deserve to rejoin it without
undue constraints.
Registration laws have withstood many of these challenges, however,
and in May 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the so-called Megan's
Law, which requires states to tell local law enforcement officials
and communities when a convicted sex offender has moved in.
The law was named for Megan Kanka, a New Jersey seven-year-old who
in 1994 was raped and murdered, allegedly by a twice-convicted sex
offender who lived across the street and whose background was
unknown to the Kankas or their neighbors. The Quest for Data
summed up in one word: denial," Lanning wrote in a 1992 analysis on
child sex rings.
"Most people do not want to hear about it and would prefer to
pretend that child sexual victimization just does not occur," he
wrote, urging professionals who deal with child sexual abuse to
recognize and deal with this denial.
must also be aware that there can be a lot of misinformation about
the subject, Lanning said in his report.
aware of this victimization, tend to exaggerate the problem,"
Lanning wrote. "Presentations and literature with poorly documented
or misleading claims about one in three children being sexually
molested, the $5 billion child pornography industry, child slavery
rings, and 50,000 stranger-abducted children are not uncommon.
"The problem is bad enough; it is not necessary to exaggerate it,"
Lanning concluded.
exploited children since 1984, when Congress passed the Juvenile
Justice, Runaway Youth, and Missing Children's Act Amendments,
creating NCMEC in Arlington, Virginia, and instituting the National
Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Thrownaway
Children (NISMART).
NISMART estimates that, each year: 450,000 children, most of whom are teenagers, run away from
home and stay away at least one night. 354,000 children are abducted by a family member, typically a
non-custodial parent. 127,100 children are "thrown away," that is, abandoned or
ejected from their homes. 114,600 cases of attempted abduction by a non-family member are
reported. 3,200 to 4,600 children are reported abducted by non-family
members.
is, a neighbor or family friend), or unknown, namely, strangers. But
the most common scenario, according to NISMART data, involves
someone using a weapon to force a child from the street into a vehicle.
Most of these non-family abductions last less than 24 hours, but
two-thirds of cases involve a sexual assault. Half of the abducted
children are teenagers, and 75 percent are girls. The highest
percentage of victims appears to be girls aged 11-14 and boys aged 6-9.
Each year, between 200 and 300 children taken by strangers are gone
for long periods. About half of the children are recovered alive,
usually within two months. But each year, between 43 and 147
children abducted by non-family members are found dead, according to
NISMART's review of data from 1976 to 1987. Familiar Offenders
include parents, grandparents, siblings, other family members,
stepparents, family friends, and other responsible adults in close
contact with children such as teachers, Scout leaders, clergymen,
and coaches.
With abuse coming from so many directions, it's easy to assume that
child sexual abuse is epidemic. Certainly, the endless parade of
abuse survivors on daytime talk shows provides anecdotal evidence
that the problem is "everywhere." And when the amount of unreported
abuse is added in -- an FBI document says that "only 1 to 10 percent
of child molestation cases are ever reported to police" -- it indeed
appears that there must be a child molester on every block.
But it is frankly impossible to determine how extensive child sexual
abuse is. The National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse
said:
rate of abuse], with 6 percent to 62 percent of females and 3
percent to 31 percent of males reporting to have experienced some
form of sexual abuse." The Burden of Proof
molesting if more people were diagnosed as incorrigible child
molesters. But those who try to prosecute child sexual abuse cases
run into a vast array of hurdles.
In most instances of sexual abuse -- three out of four documented
cases, according to one reputable study published in 1994 -- there are
no physical marks or signs of abuse.
This places the burden of proof on other signs of distress -- for
example, bed-wetting, sexual precociousness, and withdrawal. But
these can be attributed to other causes.
Then there is the victim's testimony. But testimony from children is
notoriously unreliable. They may be too young to talk or confused
about what happened to them. They may be reluctant to betray the
"special secret" they share with their abuser or may blame
themselves, having been told "you wanted it" by the abuser. They
also may be unduly influenced by their parents, therapists, law
enforcement officials, or others and make allegations that are
eventually recanted or discounted.
While most victims of abuse do not forget their molestation, some
may repress such memories and not recall it until years later,
either through some spontaneous event or through therapy.
Cases of such "recovered memories" have made sensational stories in
recent years. Adult children have recalled being abused by their
parents, and men have remembered being abused by their clergymen.
multimillion-dollar lawsuits for damages. At least 21 states have
extended the statute of limitations for sexual abuse so those who
belatedly wish to take legal action against their abuser can do so.
But some cases have sparked a fierce outcry from those accused. In
March 1992, a group called the False Memory Syndrome Foundation,
located in Philadelphia, arose to help rebut what it said were
distorted or confabulated memories contrived through incompetent
therapy.
As a result of this and other controversies, convictions in sexual
abuse cases are not only difficult to get but may be difficult to
uphold.
For several years now, scandal has rocked the small town of
Wenatchee, Washington, after dozens of adults were accused of
participating in two child-sex rings. Nineteen people eventually
pleaded guilty or were convicted of charges related to child
molestation and rape. In February 1996, however, several of the
adults who were acquitted sued state and local agencies for civil
rights violations. In June 1996, seven adults and three children
filed a lawsuit against law authorities charging them with coercing
the children into making false statements against others.
Victim Center in Arlington, Virginia, "is that people victimize
children because they feel like they can get away with it."
he said, it will at least increase the likelihood that predators
will be caught and punished. FURTHER READINGS
Books
Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative. Boston: Beacon, 2000.
APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 2000.
Biblical Myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Physical and Emotional Abuse and Neglect. New York: Garland, 1995.
Child Abuse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
of Sexually Abused Men. New York: Guilford, 1999.
The Battered Child. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Preschool Children: Understanding Small Voices. Newbury Park, CA:
Sage, 2000.
Sixteen-Year-Old. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Aggression, Family Violence, and Chemical Dependency. Binghamton,
NY: Haworth, 1996.
Triumph over Abuse. Tempe, AZ: New Falcon, 2000.
Remember You. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999.
the Cycle of Abuse and Neglect. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1998. Periodicals
December 1998.
Abuse," New York Times, July 22, 1999.
Violence," Issues in Science and Technology Winter 1998/1999.
Child-Abuse Injuries," U.S. News & World Report, March 1, 1999.
25, 1999.
Those Kids," Texas Monthly, April 1999.
1997.
June 1999.
February 26, 1996.
Sports Illustrated, September 13, 1999.
Journal, July 1998.
Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1995.
Arrested for Child Neglect," New York Times, October 25, 1997.
