Parents often try and figure out what a pedophile looks like, what they think like, what they sound like, and more. But the truth of the matter is that they don’t look any different from anyone else.
I recently talked with George Feder, a regular contributor to this blog, about his experiences with child molesters in prison. He gave me this bit of information:
The New York Times just ran a story about a young woman named Amy (name changed). When she was a little girl, her uncle sexually abused her and took explicit pictures of her. Although Amy’s uncle is now in jail for his crimes, those pictures have been circulating on the internet for 10 years and are regularly found in the collections of individuals charged with possession of child pornography.
Every time her pictures are found in a child pornography bust, she is notified. Over the past 5 years she has been notified over 800 times. To put it in perspective, that number amounts to a notification approximately every 2-3 days.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention just released their study, Children’s Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey. The study included over 4,500 juveniles age 17 and younger and covered topics from bullying, to child maltreatment, to sexual victimization. Here are some interesting findings:
Any violence against children is too much violence against children. Talk to your kids about what they can do to protect themselves from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Foster a relationship with your children that is open and honest, where they can feel safe talking to you about these issues. Overall, as adults and parents, we need to be the examples for our children. If we are physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive to them or others—or let abuse we see go unreported—they will learn from us.
Let’s all work together to stop violence against children. Here’s one organization that is trying to help: www.darkness2light.org. They have great resources for parents for raising awareness and combating child sexual abuse.
Read the entire results of the study here: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/227744.pdf
Search your neighborhood crime map at CrimeReports.com
The Future of Children, a collaboration between Princeton and the Brookings Institute, publishes a semi-annual journal focused on studies and issues regarding children and youth: challenges, concerns, trends, etc. This Fall’s issue dedicates its entire issue to preventing child abuse. The eight articles published this month cover issues like the effect of community efforts in preventing child abuse, preventing abuse through parent training, drug treatment, child protective services, and more.
To get a good understanding of current research regarding child abuse and prevention, you can download and read the entire journal for free here: http://www.futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/journal_details/index.xml?journalid=71
Search your neighborhood crime map at CrimeReports.com
