First things first never refer to them as a victim, we should use the term survivor. Victim makes it sound like their helpless and always will be whereas survivor gives them strength. I have even forgot to do this in the past but it will not happen again. Second, when thinking about sex offenders we need to remember that the majority of them were sexually abused at one point in their lives. The statistics are varied on this some claim the numbers to be high and some to low but several studies show that as many as 50% of those how were sexually abused in early life go on to become sexually abusive later in life. We don't really know why that is, but the other 50 or so percent tend to become strong advocates against sexual abuse. I've done a lot of research on this in pursuit of my Crim degree and I've worked in a Sex Offender Treatment Program and I've come to the belief that the majority of sex offenders either were sexually abused as children or were witness to abuse, or where raised in an environment that portrayed very disturbing beliefs and ideologies about sex.
So everyone wants to know, "What can we do about them? What can we do to keep our kids safe?" Well first off we need to let the public know that its not so much the stanger that you have to worry about, the chances of a stranger hurting your kid is very slim. Children are much more likely to be abused by a parent/guardian, someone in their family or an adult in close contact with the family and child. Often on the News we only hear stories about the strangers that abduct kids and hurt them, this is rare compared to the number of kids being hurt by their own family members and adults they know.
What do we need to do to eventually lower the number of sex abuse and child molestation in the U.S?
Well in my opinion from everything I've seen and learned sex offenders need intense treatment and rehabilitation. We need more money set aside for rehabilitation programs, the programs in most states are majorly underfunded and staffed. The case loads are too high for these counselors to be able to adequately see that their making progress. Offenders not only need conseling about their offense they need to come to terms with the abuse that they've endured in the past. Without fully coming to terms with what happened to them they can never live a normal life. Many sex offenders need to be taught simple basic sex education, you wouldn't believe how many I dealt with that didn't understand what puberty was!!!! Imagine that living a life so closed and being cheated by the school system to the point that they never learned what puberty was, they didn't even understand the physical processes their bodies went through!
Third and this is the most important: We need a lot more money and resources to provide survivors of sexual abuse long term intensive counseling. Most survivors of sexual abuse only recieve small amounts of conseling. Many live in areas where nonprofit agencies or groups don't exist, it is our duty to provide the funding needed to make sure these survivors understand that what happened to them was wrong, that it wasn't their fault, that their was nothing they could have done about it. Children especially need to be re-taught sex education, they need to recieve special classes in how to be caring and nurturing. My reasoning for this is simple, I believe that when children are abused they often misinterpret the abuse, especially when the abuse is coming from someone they love and respect. This is why intensive longterm counseling is so important.
I believe that this will lower the eventual number of sex offenders, and it could have an affect on recidivisim rates.
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I don't know how accurate your stats are, but even if 50% of sex offenders had been sexually abused, the other 50% hadn't, and your solution doesn't seem to cover them.
Yes I think it does, thats what the intense counseling and treatment of sex offenders is for. There is no "Solution" for any type of crime. Crime happens, all we can do is try to lower it the best we can. This is an approach that I feel would work much better then our previous attempts.
I totally agree with you on the fact that there are few resources set aside for the survivors (50% of which then grow up to become perps of CSA). Often it is assumed that enough has been done by putting the offender behind bars. The survivor is then left to deal with the psychosocial effects of the abuse AND the trial whilst the offender slinks into obscurity( most times) behind the bars of a cell and gets "help" in the process. I do research on CSA in West Africa and it seems like this "phenomenon" for lack of a better way to put it, is similar in its nature across "cultures" and continents.
Ahmeda Mansaray.
In order to truly reform, these abusers need to feel empathy for the survivor. They need to understand why their actions are wrong, what it must have been like for the survivor, and feel genuinely sorry for what they did.
Abusers are people who think their victims are responsible for their actions. They think the survivor provoked it or is somehow responsible. Only when they understand they acted of their own free will and they're the problem, can they reform.
I thank you for your post, I do think CSA survivors need more resources. We're so afraid our children will be abused in that way, yet we don't contribute anything to helping people who deal with it. I know people who deal with horrors unbeknownst to the rest of the world. They're the most courageous people I know. They DO misinterpret the abuse. It's so confusing when someone who loves and cares for them one minute takes them into seclusion and abuses them, and then does everything in their power to conceal the abuse. You have no idea how horribly confusing that is! Children learn that for there to be love, they have to be hurt somehow, that the reason the abuse happens is because they're "bad", and that they're "dirty" because of the abuse and everyone else wants to look the other way.
To curtail the abuse, I think we need to teach adults that denial is the worst reaction to an abuse report. We need to teach them how to react to a report from their own child and how to report it to the proper people. If a child tells and the person they tell does nothing or calls the child a liar, what does the child learn?