Of course, a 15.3 per 1,000 annual rate tells us nothing about the overall percent of kids affected, since we do not know how many of the 15.3 would continue to show up in subsequent years.
And its for ‘substantiated cases’ which is a very different standard of evidence to self report. From a bit lower on that same site:
“In the adult retrosptective study, victimization was reported by 27 percent of the women and 16 percent of the men. The median age for the occurrence of reported abuse was 9.9 for boys and 9.6 for girls. Victimization occurred before age eight for 22 percent of boys and for 23 percent of girls. Most of the abuse of both boys and girls was by offenders 10 or more years older than their victims. Girls were more likely than boys to disclose the abuse. Forty-two percent of the women and thirty-three percent of the men reported never having disclosed the experience to anyone.”
Otara
Oh and that cite Tomndebb did is for substantiated child abuse in general, not just sexual abuse, ie cases that came to the attention of government services and were confirmed upon investigation.
Otara
Here’s a fun game you can try at home.
Go into any city/region-specific chat room some evening. Create a username that sounds like that of a pre-teen, post a happy face and ‘Hi, I’m a 12-year-old girl looking for new friends.’
Then read the Instant Messages that appear.
Of course, some of those people are just looking to talk dirty to a kid, not physically molest her. So chat for a while, play a long, and see if any ask you to call them or meet them.
Then go take a long, scalding-hot shower.
I guess there isn’t much that can be done police wise to avoid child abuse by family members. So I worry more about the commercialization of pedophilia. For someone to buy kiddie porn someone somewhere has to be raped and abused. That certainly raises the numbers that suffer… and eventually you get child “prostitutes” and other nastier aspects. So its not big yet… but I see things getting worse. Imagine if a country legalizes it ? You would have legalized pedophilia tourism. (Just imagining long term wierdo ideas)
I don’t know if the greater availability of kiddie porn might induce more pedophiles to go out and do it… or if its a means of satisfying their sick urges. Uncertain about that aspect.
-
-
- There was a magazine article I read (in Reason magazine I’m pretty sure) that analyzes the figures put out one year by Wal-Mart for their store-lobby “missing kids” campaign that went through all this. The figures that Wal-Mart gave were of something like 11,000 kids reported missing per year. The core of the whole inflation was that they were counting reports of anyone who was a minor reported missing–and they don’t deduct those that are found. Something like 75%+ of all “kids” missing are late-teenagers who run away on their own for less than five days, and then return on their own. Most of the rest are custody abductions that are eventually tracked down within a couple months. The end result was that (in a nation of 250 mil pop) only about 300 kids at the most could be said to have disappeared with no clues, and to have been gone longer than one year. The conclusion was that while there are kids abducted, the main reason Wal-Mart undertook the effort was because it was an easy “community outreach” project to do and claim some success with.
~
- There was a magazine article I read (in Reason magazine I’m pretty sure) that analyzes the figures put out one year by Wal-Mart for their store-lobby “missing kids” campaign that went through all this. The figures that Wal-Mart gave were of something like 11,000 kids reported missing per year. The core of the whole inflation was that they were counting reports of anyone who was a minor reported missing–and they don’t deduct those that are found. Something like 75%+ of all “kids” missing are late-teenagers who run away on their own for less than five days, and then return on their own. Most of the rest are custody abductions that are eventually tracked down within a couple months. The end result was that (in a nation of 250 mil pop) only about 300 kids at the most could be said to have disappeared with no clues, and to have been gone longer than one year. The conclusion was that while there are kids abducted, the main reason Wal-Mart undertook the effort was because it was an easy “community outreach” project to do and claim some success with.
-
I’ve been wondering about this ever since the NBC Dateline program from a few months ago. They set up a sting where someone posed as a 13 year old boy/girl on the internet, and they had something like 25-30 guys show up at the house. One guy even undressed and sat in the kitchen when the Dateline reporter came out. There was a surgeon, rabbi, and some other professionals in the mix (with the freakshows), so it really made me wonder.
Oprah is not a good source on this subject. She was quoted as saying something to the effect that "there are only two answers to the question ‘Have you ever been sexually abused?’ " The answers according to Oprah are either 1)yes, or 2) I don’t know. That’s a bit frightening, and I’m not sure it’s accurate. I can say unequivocally that I have never been sexually abused. But according to Oprah and her experts, I just don’t know for sure. Maybe I have a repressed memory. Uh… no. (But how can I be sure? :dubious: )
One thing that bothered me about the first Dateline. They didn’t arrest anyone. Apparently, they have another episode coming in March and the cops are involved this time. The show was truly disturbing, and it made me wonder how widespread this problem is.
I’m also baffled as to how pedophiles get “kiddie porn”, etc. without raising huge flags. I know the internet is a great tool for these folks, but I would be afraid to even type “kiddie porn” into a google. I half expect my ISP to turn me over to the police, who would knock on my door.
I guess I’ve been lucky. This is a world that I know very little about. And what I do know, from things like Dateline, frightens me indeed. Kids should be permitted to grow up without this crap. It’s sad that it exists at all. I feel badly for any child that has this tragic event in their past.
…
"A rabbi and a surgeon walk into an underground pedophile club . . . " Doesn’t work. There’s GOTTA be a way we can get a trite joke out of this! Think, Dopers! THINK!
Curious, but, what exactly would they arrest these people for? I have not seen the episode myself, but from your description, no one did anything illegal. You might be able to get the naked dude for something, but thats probebly it.
Some more figures from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics. Old but likely not too far off from today.
So child sexual predators, the thing we parents fear await our children at the parks and walking home from school, the perv aiming to rape our prepubescent child, is uncommon, somewhat less than 700 cases across the country per year. Roughly the same frequency as the number of people struck by lightning in the US each year. (source - http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic299.htm). Family sexual abuse less uncommon. Guess which gets the attention? Amber alerts.
I can’t tell if you’re joking. If not… ever been to Thailand? Illegal but overlooked. And the number of everyday Joes there to sample the wares before heading home to their families is frightening.
there isn’t enough hot water in the world for that
Actually, the group that helped Dateline with that show has helped police gather evidence for quite a few arrests and convictions using the same method. The law is written, and the courts have upheld, that the clear and immediate intent to molest a child is the crime, and that it isn’t necessary for there to be an actual child.
There have been two Dateline programs (and I think a third is coming in February), and if I remember correctly, there were arrests following the second one.
Or go to perverted-justice.com. It’s an organization that lures chatroom predators in and busts them. After you read the transcripts and see the sickos they catch on there, you will never want your child to use the computer again.
But not everybody approves of what they’re doing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverted-Justice.com#Criticism
Well, I’ve read some of the transcripts there, and from what I’ve seen they’re catching some pretty f’d up people. The decoys don’t initiate chats; they’re approached by other users. I read one transcript where a guy started a conversation with “a/s/l?” When the decoy responded “13/f/(wherever)”, the guy instantly said “13 huh? Have you ever had sex?” Boom - just like that. I’ve never seen any ambiguity or idle chats where the person could have totally innocent attentions. No, these were people who were getting very explicit with who they believed to be 12-13 year old girls.
Check out the “top 5 most slimy” at the top of the page, and you’ll see what I mean.
Peer to Peer file sharing programs. You can look up “child modeling” which is all over the internet. I won’t link to the websites, but I know pedophiles who enjoy looking at those websites and trade pics/videos from them.
Don’t ISP’s track this kind of stuff? Or is the nature of Peer to Peer such that any request, whether it be music or whatever, is invisible to the ISP?
If the answer is it’s invisible, then how do they track down people downloading songs, movies, etc?
I don’t know. I’m sure this touches on personal privacy. But some things shouldn’t be private, IMHO. I guess that’s where the argument lies. But if it’s illegal, doesn’t privacy get a pass?
I’ve read them, but I also read the site of people who are protesting their methods (there has been another thread on this very topic a couple month ago, and you could probably find the link there. I don’t remember it), and they had some nasty stuff to say about them. Including accusations of having used a couple of actual minors to entice the pervs (and apart from that : actually initiating the nasty talks, threats, harassing the perv’s grandmothers, making the job of real law enforcement officers harder, etc, etc, etc… and lying all the time about everything, basically).
Personnally, I don’t like much vigilantes, and besides I’m not sure I’m fully convinced of the innocent mind of men pretending to be 12 yo girls talking dirty to pervs…