# The single age with the greatest number of sex offenders is 14 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2009, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302 "2009-10-19T07:43:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/1 "2009-10-19T07:43:06Z")
[From the US DoJ report in PDF form](http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/saycrle.pdf), PDF page 11 (report page 8): > [@](#): > > In general, the detailed age profile of offenders in sexual assault crimes shows that the single age with the greatest number of offenders from the perspective of law enforcement was age 14. On the next page, a series of charts shows that sex offenders tend to keep to victims within a few years of their own age. When you apply that thinking to 12-to-17-year-olds, you end up with a whole lot of youthful offenders whose lives, in accordance with Meagan’s Law and similar, are effectively over. From the PDF: > [@](#): > > Younger juvenile victims tended to have a greater proportion of of juvenile offenders than did older juvenile victims. Thirteen percent of the of offenders of victims under age six were ages 7 through 11, and 27% of the offenders of these very young victims were ages 12 through 17. That is, 40% of the offenders of victims under age 6 were themselves juveniles. (Side note: **‘Stranger Danger’ is bullshit when applied to sexual assault, especially of juveniles.** Assault by a stranger accounts for 7.3% of assaults on all male victims and 14.7% of assaults on all female victims. When you look at assaults on males and females aged 0-17, the numbers drop way the hell into the toilet. See page 13 of the PDF.) I posted this here because I want a debate on whether all this is, in and of itself, a bad thing: Is there really a sizable amount of real sexual assault going on among teens and pre-teens, or are our laws so hypersensitive that the number of false positives has swamped everything else? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/2 "2009-10-19T10:47:21Z")
The spike of rape occurances around 14-15 and the precipitous drop off at the age of consent makes me think a decent chunk of the assaults they counted were statutory rapes between kids of similar ages, which is sort of interesting since while people often bring up the scenario of a 16 year-old boyfriend and his 15 year-old gf in rape discussions, I always assumed that that wasn’t a large source of reported sexual violence (not that I doubt it happens a lot, but I assumed it didn’t get reported to the police very often). The study seems determined to make it hard to tell for certain if thats actually the case. So far as I can see (and I only skimmed it), they never address what types of sexual offense account for what percentage of total offenses, or mention the statutory rape issue except sort of obliquely at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/3 "2009-10-19T10:56:58Z")
How does the study define “sexual assault?” I ask because some studies include anyone up to 19 years of age as a “child” and I just want to know if their definition of sexual assault is overly broad or somewhat narrow. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/4 "2009-10-19T12:14:35Z")
Except that the study (which is, by the way, from 2000, analyzing 1991-1996 crime figures) also says: > [@](#): > > Nearly all forcible rapes (99%) involved a female victim > (table 2).2 Females were the large majority of victims in > incidents of sexual assault with an object (87%) and forcible > fondling (82%). In contrast, the majority of victims of forcible > sodomy (54%) were males. In general, across all specific > offense categories, the proportion of female victims > increased with the age of the victim. A greater percentage > of juvenile sexual assault victims were male (18%) than > were adult sexual assault victims (4%). Males were 15% of > the juvenile victims of sexual assault with an object, 20% of > the juvenile victims of forcible fondling, and 59% of the > juvenile victims of forcible sodomy. For victims under age > 12, the male proportions were even greater: sexual assault > with an object (19%), forcible fondling (26%), and forcible > sodomy (64%). The study’s continued use of the word “forcible” does not suggest a focus on statutory but otherwise consensual crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/5 "2009-10-19T15:36:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The study’s continued use of the word “forcible” does not suggest a focus on statutory but otherwise consensual crimes. Actually, at the end, they make explicit that forcible doesn’t include statutory. They use five categories, four variations of ‘forcible’ and one ‘sexual assault’. I was thinking the latter included statutory, but looking at it again, I think it might just be the sum of the other categories. So it raises the question, what happens when people hit sixteen that they’re suddenly raped much less frequently? The sharpness of the peak is what made me think it was an “artificial” artifact, that is, the age of consent in most states so that the same sexual activity would no longer count as rape. Hard to think of an explanation if that isn’t the case. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/6 "2009-10-19T15:59:13Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > So it raises the question, what happens when people hit sixteen that they’re suddenly raped much less frequently? You mean that they suddenly stop raping as frequently? My guess – judges are more willing to try them as adults. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/7 "2009-10-19T17:13:52Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > You mean that they suddenly stop raping as frequently? My guess – judges are more willing to try them as adults. Nope, its the victims that have a spike. Figure 1 in the study, the spike starts at 11-12 (which makes sense, people are more likely to get raped once they reach the age of sexual maturity), but then at 15 the rate plummets down to what it was in pre-pubesent children. After that, it once again does more or less what you’d expect, smoothly decreasing with increasing age (since older folks are probably both less tempting rape victims and less likely to be in situations where rapes occur (dating, clubs, college, etc)). Statutory rape seemed a pretty obvious explanation, but apparently they’re not counting those, so I dunno. Anyways, the other interesting part of the study was what the OP pointed out, the most likely people to sexually assault kids are other kids. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/8 "2009-10-19T22:41:02Z")
[_The Economist_ has a good article relevant to this discussion](http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14164614): > [@](#): > > ONE day in 1996 the lights went off in a classroom in Georgia so that the students could watch a video. Wendy Whitaker, a 17-year-old pupil at the time, was sitting near the back. The boy next to her suggested that, since it was dark, she could perform oral sex on him without anyone noticing. She obliged. And that single teenage fumble wrecked her life. > > Her classmate was three weeks shy of his 16th birthday. That made Ms Whitaker a criminal. She was arrested and charged with sodomy, which in Georgia can refer to oral sex. > > [snip] > > Georgia puts sex offenders on a public registry. Ms Whitaker’s name, photograph and address are easily accessible online, along with the information that she was convicted of “sodomy”. The website does not explain what she actually did. Reading the rest, the law was subsequently changed so what Ms. Whitaker did is no longer a crime. However, she remains on the sex offender registry. She is banned from being within 1,000 ft of any place children may congregate and may not work within 1,000 ft of any school or child-care center. And, of course, she’s officially known as a Filthy Goddamned Kiddy-Fucker to the State of Georgia and all of the newsrooms it contains. But she must be in a very unusual class, right? Well, we’ll let the Great State of Georgia tell the story: > [@](#): > > The Georgia Sex Offender Registration Review Board, an official body, assessed a sample of offenders on the registry last year and concluded that 65% [out of 17,000 total] posed little threat. So, is Georgia completely off the charts here or can we project this result to national data? I think the DoJ report I linked to in the OP suggests Georgia is in line with most states. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/9 "2009-10-20T01:23:43Z")
Couldn’t some of it be that fourteen year olds are around the age where they start get sexual feelings, but they’re young enough that they still haven’t developed self control? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/10 "2009-10-20T03:53:28Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Couldn’t some of it be that fourteen year olds are around the age where they start get sexual feelings, but they’re young enough that they still haven’t developed self control? And that makes them somehow get forcibly raped? I don’t follow. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/11 "2009-10-20T04:36:44Z")
> [@](#): > > The boy next to her suggested that, since it was dark, she could perform oral sex on him without anyone noticing. Why the FUCK do we have this “hee hee hee? Let’s have SEX!!! at every single inappropereate second?” mentality among teenagers? The article portrays Wendy as a victim…but come on…She freaking CONSENTED. I think she shouldn’t still be on the sex offender registry…but she should have been expelled (along with the dude who pressured her for a blow-job) Actually…I wonder if a lot of this may have to do with the fact that little teens may get into the Yah Dude/douchebag mentality about sex. In wealthy suburbs or prep schools the “prestige” placed on sex (meaning just being VERY …Spur Posse…that is " oh you get “points” for having sex with a girl style of thinking) is beyond disguisting and rediclous. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/12 "2009-10-20T04:59:55Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > Why the FUCK do we have this “hee hee hee? Let’s have SEX!!! at every single inappropereate second?” mentality among teenagers? A very high sex drive, inexperience, low self control due to age. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/13 "2009-10-20T05:03:23Z")
I don’t know about juvenile offenders as a whole, but a friend of mine was a guard at DJJ for a while, where they had a dorm for the “little” sex offenders and one for the “big” sex offenders - grouped by size/age. He was in charge of the “little” sex offenders dorm for a while and said that was the worst duty he had the whole time he was there - they were more violent, more sociopathic, etc. than even the very violent offenders. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/14 "2009-10-20T05:26:00Z")
I was going to say that **Dereleths** example of the girl from Georgia wouldn’t be counted in the study because it was voluntary and the study you cited only counted ‘forcible sodomy’. But reading the definitions in the study again, while they appear not to count statutory rape as ‘forcible rape’, they do count as ‘forcible sodomy’ cases where a person gives/receives oral sex without being forced, but if they’re below the age of consent. It’s a pretty bizarre way to count things, having sex with a willing minor doesn’t necessarily get counted, but giving one a blow-job does. That said, I’m going back to my original hypothesis, the spike of assaults in the post pubesent, under 16 ages are due to minors having sex under the age of consent, and that this is a major contribution to people who end up on sex-offenders list (indeed the Economist article supports this). Indeed, this spike would presumably be a lot higher if they counted statutory rape. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/15 "2009-10-20T05:54:01Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > And that makes them somehow get forcibly raped? I don’t follow. No, the report said that 14 year olds were the age most likely to forcibly rape others, and I’m saying that’s what makes them do it. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/16 "2009-10-20T16:20:20Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I don’t know about juvenile offenders as a whole, but a friend of mine was a guard at DJJ for a while, where they had a dorm for the “little” sex offenders and one for the “big” sex offenders - grouped by size/age. He was in charge of the “little” sex offenders dorm for a while and said that was the worst duty he had the whole time he was there - they were more violent, more sociopathic, etc. than even the very violent offenders. Did he mention how many of them had a history of being molested or raped themselves? I wouldn’t be surprised to find out if it was 100% of them. Perhaps the early teens spike is a marker, where being abused has turned to abuse (when, at least in the boys’ cases, they have the means to do so, at least with someone physically weaker). ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-single-age-with-the-greatest-number-of-sex-offenders-is-14/514302/17 "2009-10-20T18:16:52Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Nope, its the victims that have a spike. Figure 1 in the study, the spike starts at 11-12 (which makes sense, people are more likely to get raped once they reach the age of sexual maturity), but then at 15 the rate plummets down to what it was in pre-pubesent children. After that, it once again does more or less what you’d expect, smoothly decreasing with increasing age (since older folks are probably both less tempting rape victims and less likely to be in situations where rapes occur (dating, clubs, college, etc)). A few hypotheses: - By the time they reach 16, there are more consensual sexual partners available. Some 14-year-olds rape because they can’t find a consensual sexual partner, but fewer 16-year-olds have that motivation. - 14-year-olds have significantly worse impulse control than 16-year-olds. - The parents of a 14-year-old victim of statutory rape are more likely to pursue the issue than the parents of a 16-year-old, and some of those victims will decide that it’s better to be a “victim” of a forcible rape than to get in trouble for consensual sex, and will falsify testimony. Don’t know how much any of those might contribute to the spike (I have no data), but they’re all plausible.