This is a research paper I wrote in 2005 about child molesters. It discusses everything from their grooming methods, clinical treatments available and their effectiveness, the recidivism rates of these offenders, the different types of child molesters that are present, and the laws they are protected by.
With the disappearance and death of Jessica Lunsford along with numerous other heinous crimes being committed by persons previously convicted of sexually abusing children, the question asked by many Americans is why is the government not doing enough to protect our children? The answer to that question is not so simple. The government has implemented many laws concerning convicted child molesters and many have been repealed because they were found to be unconstitutional. Because of our constitution and human rights laws we are unable to extinguish these people from our society.
The purpose of this paper is to explain the process of the child molester in order to show how current legislation is only effective in theory and find out exactly how effective treatment is in preventing these offenders from molesting again. Convicted child molesters are mentally ill people, who should not have the option of pleading first-offender because they are likely to have had unreported sexual contact with more than one child prior to conviction, they are not able to be effectively rehabilitated, and are not able to realistically abide by the terms of their release. Our country is too worried about infringing on the rights of people who sexually abuse the innocence and vulnerability of our children because children are politically incompetent, and victims rights are excluded from the constitution.
There are two main types of child molesters, the pedophile, and the situational offender. These two types differ in their view of their child victim, but the process in which they use to manipulate the child is the same.
The first type of child molester is the pedophile. The American Psychiatric Association classifies a pedophile as having “Sexuality and Gender Identification Disorders” in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (we will refer to this as the DSM-IV). According to the DSM-IV, the criteria for diagnosis as a pedophile includes having “recurrent, intense, sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies of at least six months in duration involving sexual activity with pre-pubescent children” (Baker 26). These “fantasies, impulses, or behavior must cause clinically significant suffering or impaired function at work, socially or in other important respects”. The person must also be “at least sixteen years old and be at least five years older than the child or children” (Svedin 11). Basically, a pedophile is a person who is sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children.
These people for some unknown reason have sexual fantasies about young children. The use of child pornography can further stimulate their desires. The internet has made this form of pornography easily accessible, and easily viewed or read in the privacy of their home or place of business. The internet has also granted them access to potential child victims because they are able to make friends with children who may not even know that the perpetrator is an adult. All of these activities throughout time will inevitably increase their sexual curiosity towards children.
David Finkelhor, Ph.D., is a research professor of sociology and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire
Contrary to popular belief, not all child molesters are pedophiles. The situational molester differs from the pedophile in that they are not sexually attracted to children but may turn towards children as sexual objects because their vulnerability makes them “easy targets”. Situational offenders are often very angry men who use sex with children to alleviate boredom, stress, or anxiety, as a way to release their aggression on others (Baker 33). Alcohol and drug abuse may also be involved.
These people, unlike pedophiles, are motivated by anger rather than sexual desire, and therefore, cause the most physical and emotional damage to their victims. These situational molesters must be “motivated for sexually abusing children, overcome inner restraints to translate motive into action, overcome outward impediments, and must overcome any resistance a child might make when contact is attempted” (Svedin 14). This is where the differences between the pedophile and situational molester end.
The first thing a child molester will do after they have overcome their “inner restraints” is to find a suitable subject for his or her deviant acts. They will initially frequent places where children are and who may not be one hundred percent supervised at all times, including playgrounds, swimming pools, parks, shopping centers, malls, and even daycares. They will watch the children and decide who would be their easiest target. By interacting with the children, they are able to get acquainted with their prey, learn important details about the child, and how he or she can be manipulated. They will look for a child who has low self-esteem, problems at home, or children that are not particularly outspoken; any children they see themselves having the greatest opportunity of getting alone (Baker 40).
The child molester has several strategies for creating situations where the offender can be alone with their targeted child. They will develop an acquaintanceship with the child so that the person is no longer a “stranger”. They will become a good friend of the child’s parents to get closer to the child, and also to relinquish their “stranger” status to the child. They may exploit their professional role as a teacher, coach, camp counselor, doctor, priest, or boy/girl scout leader. They may even cohabitate or marry a single mother (Svedin 16).
After the predator narrows his choices to the one child he knows he can manipulate, the abuse process will commence. The abuse process is implemented in phases. These phases are used in order to replace a child when they get too old, or if the risk of discovery is increased by any variable (Svedin). These phases include the involvement phase, the phase of sexual relations, and the secrecy phase.
The first and most important phase to the child molester is the involvement phase. This phase is a very long process in which the predator creates a trusting relationship with the child who will gradually become emotionally tied to the offender (Svedin). This long process is used to ensure the fortification of the bonds that will “keep the victims trapped” (Baker 52). This phase is also known as the grooming phase. “The predator must render the victim helpless, isolated, and defenseless by forming an exclusive and unique relationship. The predator will separate the child from his or her parents, friends, and teachers” (Baker 47).
The next phase involves sexual relations. During this phase the predator will incorporate sex into their relationship by showing the child pornography, exposing themselves around the child, talking about sex, and eventually conditioning the child to believe that the sexual interaction with adults is normal. Through the previously established emotional ties, “the child wants to oblige” (Svedin 17). “Because children are dependent on adults for their survival, their relationships are often based on the implicit trust that adults will know what is best for them” (Baker 39).
The last phase actually starts during the involvement phase. The predator will “prepare the child for secrecy by setting up several situations that require the child to maintain silence” (Baker 49). “Don’t tell your mom I gave you candy, she’ll be mad”, or “Don’t say anything to your friends or family, it’s our secret and they will be jealous”. “These are the preliminary trappings that set the stage for the secrecy phase” (Baker). The next part of the secrecy phase is called “retention”. By this time the child has a feeling that what is happening is wrong and the predator now has to retain the child’s secrecy by threats and capitalizing on the child’s shame and guilt. Children usually blame themselves for the predator’s behavior. The predator will then make comments such as “If you tell anyone, they will think you are bad, and you will be in big trouble” (Baker 53). The predator may even threaten to tell the parents themselves to get them in trouble. Or they might threaten to hurt a pet or relative if they told. “Because children are so dependent upon adults they assume that adults are capable of carrying through with their threats” (Baker 52). Some even have gained such an emotional tie with the child that they will tell them that they (the predator) will go to jail for a long time if they tell, and the child does not want that to happen to their “special friend”. Also during this phase, any video or photographs can be used the blackmail the child into keeping quiet.
This phase continues until the child is too old or until the risk of discovery is too great. Shortly after the abuse starts, the child will tend to withdraw themselves from their usual activities and may regress to wetting themselves and sucking their thumb. This behavior usually triggers concern from the parents, who try to talk to their child to find out the cause. It is then that the child will either deny anything or divulge everything.
Usually, before the situation escalates to this point, the predator has moved on to another child. “According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the average molester of girls will abuse fifty females before being caught and convicted. The average molester of boys will victimize one hundred and fifty males before being convicted” (Baker 26). “A pedophile will molest an average of one hundred seventeen girls during their lifetime while pedophiles who only abuse boys will abuse an average of two hundred eighty male victims” (27).
The vast majority of child molesters will eventually be released back into the community. If we know all of this information about child molesters who prey on the innocence of children, why are they released back into society to reintegrate? Why should known child molesters be allowed to go on with their lives when they have so many victims who cannot? Unfortunately, our country, as a “civilized” country, relies on the guidelines of the U.S. Constitution and Human Rights to protect the rights of people who commit heinous crimes. We cannot, constitutionally, hold a person in prison for something they might do in the future. “It is an unfortunate irony that constitutional rights created to protect the innocent now shield the guilty” (Unknown). The U.S. Constitution guarantees more than a dozen rights to those accused of committing crimes, but not one word is written in the U.S. Constitution on behalf of crime victims. Apparently, our children have no value because they are politically incompetent; they do not vote, and they have no money. Therefore, it is our job, as adults, to fight for the right of our children to live without fear of child predators.
Over the years, several legislations have been enacted to protect the public from sexually dangerous criminals. On May 17, 1996, President Clinton signed a law requiring all fifty states to have a Sex Offender Registry and a community notification plan (Baker 207). This law is comprised of three acts, including Megan’s Law, The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration, and The Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act. The Jacob Wetterling Act (1994) requires states to register individuals convicted of sex crimes against children. Megan’s Law (1996) requires the states to release the sex offender registration information that is “necessary to protect the public” (Baker 208). The Pam Lychner Act “mandates the creation of a national sex offender database to be available to the FBI” (209).
Federal law requires every state to make their Sex Offender Registry available to everyone. This is great news if every person who was arrested for these sexual offenses was actually convicted of the crime. In many cases, offenders are allowed to plead first-offender, make plea bargains or just good, old-fashioned “not enough evidence” to convict them of the crime.
Every state has different laws and requirements for registration as a sex offender. Since the scope of this matter is too wide we will focus on Georgia
According to the G.B.I.'s website, sex offenders who have been released from prison, placed on probation, parole, or supervised release after July 1, 1996, must register with Georgia July 1, 1996, are not required to register. Also, offenders who were sentenced under the first offender act are not required to register, as well as juveniles who were not tried as an adult.
Offenders required to register with the state must report within ten days of release or placement on probation, parole, or supervised release to the Sheriff of the county they plan to live, work, and/or attend school. They are required to re-register every year on the anniversary of their initial registration date. These sex offenders will then remain on the registry for a period of ten years.
Persons identified as sexual predators are defined as “offenders who suffer from a mental abnormality or a personality disorder that would make a person likely to engage in a predatory sexually violent offense”. These offenders are required to update their information every ninety days and will remain on the registry for life. Also, as of July 1, 1999 , offenders who have more than one prior conviction, or have been convicted of an aggravated offense will remain on the registry for life.
If a sex offender fails to register, or provides false information, they will be convicted of a felony and sentenced to one to three years in prison and/or fined up to $100,000. If a sex offender moves to another county in Georgia
Although the registry is well maintained, it is easy to see that problems do not occur due to the lack of laws or registration policies, but the actual enforcement of these laws and registration requirements. First of all, the National Institute of Justice states in their report in 1997 that “Offenders have been known to re-offend as late as twenty years following release” (Prentky 14). Therefore, all offenders released from prison, placed on parole, or supervised release prior to July 1, 1996, are unaccounted for to the public. Also, after only ten years, a sex offender will be removed from the registry and are no longer required to register until their next conviction.
Another problem occurs because these offenders are basically granted by these laws, an “honor system” to inform the Sheriff of relocations and are only required to update their information once a year. In order to resolve this problem, the Sheriff of the current registration address should inform the Sheriff of the county in which the offender is relocating, especially in another state, to ensure that the offender follows through with their duty to register. Then, if a child becomes missing or is victimized by a known sex offender, the Sheriff would be held accountable, and therefore have a vested interest in informing other counties of potential danger. Without this vested interest, the Sheriff may be glad to get the offender out of their county, and would not necessarily care about where they moved.
The Georgia General Assembly adjourned on April 7, 2004, to present two Bills for the floor concerning child molestation and abductions. These bills include the Levi alert (SB 400) which asks the media to broadcast information when a child is abducted as well as a bill that would include as a requirement of probation, convicted child molesters to wear global positioning satellite devices (SB 469) which would allow probation officers to be notified if the child molester enters school property, parks or other areas where children congregate. Out of these two bills, the Levi Alert is the only one that was passed.
Along with the federal mandate for convicted sex offenders to register in their county of residence, community-based maintenance and control are essential to ensure public safety. In order to ensure the effectiveness of community-based maintenance and control, there must be highly trained and supervised parole and probation officers, mandatory treatment programs along with an evaluation for medication, and notification of the community.
It is very important that the parole and probation officers assigned to the supervision of the child molester to be highly trained and carry a small caseload to ensure “intensive surveillance and supervision” (Prentky 9). Unfortunately, many of these officers have so many cases that they probably do not know that the parolee was convicted of a sexual offense, therefore, the officer would be unaware that the person is in violation of their parole or probation by living near a school or in a community of children.
A combination of different treatment programs, along with the evaluation for certain medications are important for the “adjustment and maintenance” of the offender (Prentky). The treatments available include evocative therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, psycho-education groups or classes, and pharmacological treatment.
Evocative therapy focuses on offenders understanding the causes and motivations leading to sexually deviant and coercive behavior, as well as victim empathy. This helps the offender understand what triggers their unwanted behavior and as well as understand the damage done to their victims. Another name for this therapy is psychotherapy. “Psychotherapy is the original treatment used for sex offenders” (Barnes 10). This form of therapy includes several treatment models such as individual and group counseling, family therapy, victim empathy, accountability, sexual education, reality therapy, victim confrontation, value clarification and cognitive therapy (Barnes). The main problem with this type of therapy is that it is not conducive to the prison environment. Baker quotes Groth:
It requires the offender to be fairly intelligent, to have a capacity for abstract thinking and self-observation, a sense of distress and motivation for change and an ability to form a working relationship with a therapist that may extend a long period of time and that may involve considerable emotional discomfort and frustration. (Barnes 10)
Cognitive behavior therapy focuses on the cycle of sexual assault and introduces techniques to interrupt those cycles. Cognitive behavior therapy attempts to replace undesirable behaviors with socially acceptable responses through conditioning. Ironically conditioning the offender the same way he or she conditioned the child to believe that certain behaviors are okay. The cognitive-behavioral treatment models hold the most promise of treatment and are popularly used in the U.S. Canada
Psycho-education groups and classes are an approach to “remedy deficits in social and interpersonal skills by teaching anger management techniques, and the principals of relapse prevention” (Prentky 8). Discussion topics range from human sexuality, dating and communication skills, to the myths about sexuality and relationships. This is especially helpful to persons who feel impeded from having a profound, lasting relationship with other adults, which initially drove them towards children as sexual objects.
Pharmacological treatment focuses on reducing sexual arouse-ability. The medications used in this type of therapy include “Cyproterone Acetate (CPA), which suppresses the physiological sexual response and libido, usually within two to four weeks after beginning treatment”. The other medication is “Medroxyprogesterone Acetate (MPA), better known as Depo-Provera which is used to reduce the sex drive in less than two weeks from the beginning of treatment” (13). Also, various forms of antidepressants are used to lower sex drive as well as the frequency of deviant sexual fantasies. Although medication therapy decreases the individual’s sex drive, it does nothing to cure the underlying situation and therefore should be used with cognitive behavior therapy or other forms of therapies. It is also possible for the offender to “circumvent the effects of the drugs by buying testosterone (steroids) on the street” (Prentky 15).
It is an unrealistic stipulation for a convicted child molester to stay one hundred fifty feet from a child. That is why notification of the community is the most important step to protect our children. The term “good enough for government work” is used for a reason. We cannot rely on the government to do their part in protecting our children. Their only obligation is to make the registry available and provide information when inquired. We have to find out if there is a sex offender in our neighborhoods and inform the rest of the neighborhood. If the offender is really trying to “recover” they would not mind the community knowing as long as the community does not start an angry lynch mob. It is a good thing to talk to the offender to let them know that they will be well watched. There are no child-free neighborhoods and if there are, they will not be for long. People have babies, older people have grandkids that visit them, and families with children move into nice quiet neighborhoods. Without extensive community involvement, our children will be at great risk.
The best way to determine the effectiveness of treatment on individual offenders is through phallometry. Phallometry is a laboratory method used to assess sexual arousal by measuring the penile responses to sexual stimuli. This method can be used to categorize types of child molesters by determining the extent of their deviance through various images of children. This testing can help distinguish between non-incest molesters, homosexual molesters, bi-sexual molesters, situational molesters as well as the extent of their sadism. Jake Goldenflame, a recovering child molester quoted on John Kasich's HARTLAND on April 16, 2005, on Fox News that he underwent the phallometric evaluation and it was “shockingly accurate...shockingly”.
The answer to whether or not the available treatments are effective lies in the individual undergoing the treatment. If the subject is in denial about their crime; either they feel like they did not do anything wrong or refuse to admit to their crime, the likelihood of this subject benefiting from treatment is slim. This type of person will probably fall under the category of the situational offender. Because they are not sexually attracted to children they do not believe that they have a problem when in actuality their problems lie in anger management and dealing with control issues. Those who know they have a problem and can admit fully to the extent of their actions are usually the best candidates for treatment. It is in this respect that treating child molesters are much like treating drug and alcohol abusers.
Pedophiles would receive greater benefit from treatment before following through with their fantasies. They know that their feelings are not acceptable and will keep their fantasies to themselves. As time passes their fantasies get stronger and more persistent until all four factors of Finkelhor’s model are met and the opportunity to turn fantasy to reality arises.
When the pedophile finally experiences his fantasies, in reality, the gratification is so intense that there is no turning back. The pedophile wants to experience the sensation over and over again. By this time the pedophile does not want to receive help because they are only focused on the satisfaction, they receive from being with a child. After this point, the treatment process will likely have to continue for the rest of the pedophile's life.
If the pedophile was able to receive the necessary treatment they would likely have learned how to control their behavior, and what actions to take to prevent the situation from escalating to the sexual abuse of a child. The pedophiles who know they need help are deterred from receiving such help for fear of what will happen to them, and the inexistence of client/doctor confidentiality due to the laws requiring to disclose such information to proper authorities. If a person feels they pose a possible danger to a child they should do what is necessary to protect the child from the harm they may inflict. If they did nothing wrong so far they should have nothing to fear. Confidentiality should not be a factor in the safety of our children.
Studies show that “the overall recidivism rate for untreated sex offenders was twenty-seven percent while for treated offenders it was nineteen percent” (Prentky 8). The apparent treatment effect was eight percent. This eight percent is sadly enough “proof” that therapy is effective. These studies are also only conducted for a period of three to five years.
The National Institute of Justice did their own studies in 1997 which were based on exposure time or the opportunity to re-offend, criminal activity during the exposure time and whether they were charged, convicted, or incarcerated for their criminal activity. The chart provided in Exhibit 3 shows that thirty-two percent of child molesters who were charged for another sexual, victim-involved offense had an average exposure time of just over three and a half years. It shows their failure rate at twenty-five years to be fifty-two percent. Child molesters who were convicted of sexual, victim-involved offenses were shown to be twenty-five percent after almost four years of exposure time. It shows their failure rate at twenty-five years to be forty-one percent. Child molesters who were actually imprisoned for sexual, victim-involved offenses were shown to be twenty-three percent after just over four years. It shows their failure rate at twenty-five years to be thirty-seven percent. In all, the report shows that the more exposure time the child molester has, the more likely the child molester will commit another sexual, victim-involved offense.
It is shocking that in the world we live in today, with as many horrible things that we have to watch out for, and all of the unknown sex offenders running amok we also have to be on guard against known sex offenders. Murderers get life in prison while a sexual predator, which by definition is highly apt to commit other sexually devious acts, are on a registry for life. As Thomas Jefferson said:
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered, and manner and opinions change; with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.
New discoveries have been made about the mind of the child molester and new truths have been discovered, but the manner and opinions have not changed. When children are recognized as precious seeds of our future instead of being regarded as people with no political rights, we will have all that is necessary to amend the constitution to provide a safer place for our children to play, learn, develop, and evolve into productive members of our society.
Baker, Leigh. Protecting Your Children from Sexual Predators.
Kincaid, James. Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting. Durham
Levesque, Roger. Sexual Abuse of Children: A Human Rights Perspective. Bloomington Indiana University
O’Brien, Shirley. Why They Did It: Stories of Eight Convicted Child Molesters. Springfield
