Juvenile Sexual Abusers

With the emergence of new laws such as Megan's Laws and Jessica's Law the nation has become fixated on the phenomenon of sexual crimes. People want to be as far away as possible from "sexual predators" and are demanding harsher punishment. Theses responses to sexual offenses and offenders are not necessarily unreasonable. However, many citizens hastily put juvenile sexual abusers into the same category as violent adult sexual predators. While sexual abuse at the hands of juveniles is currently a serious problem in the United States it is not the same problem as adult sexual offenders but rather a product premature erotica, abuse reactive children and distorted views of sexuality.

Prevalence and Incidence Statistics

In the United States in the year 2000 8,402 of 74,368 arrests made for sex offenses were of juveniles; reports show that juveniles account for as much as 30% of rapes and 56% of child molestations (Vandiver, 2006).

According to the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM) (2000) juvenile sex offenders are typically males between the ages of 13 and 17. Thirty to sixty percent show signs of having learning disabilities and struggle in school while as many as 80% "have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. Many have difficulties with impulse control and judgment" (p.7). Twenty to fifty percent were victims of physical abuse and 40-80% victims of sexual abuse.

A study by Vandiver (2006) revealed that 75% of victims of juvenile sex offenders are female with an average age of 8 year old. When the victims are male they are usually under the age of 5 years old. The average age difference between the victim and the offender was on average 6 years with the victim being younger than the offender the majority of the time.

In regard to recidivism rates it is not clear how many juvenile sex offenders reoffend mainly due to a lack of in depth research. One study claimed that the recidivism rate was around 15% (Witt, Bosley and Hiscox, 2002), while another reported it to be 37% (Vandiver 2006). While there is a considerable discrepancy between these two estimates you can conclude for either that most juvenile sex offenders do not reoffend.

Current Status

The most common form of treatment for Juvenile sex offenders is community bases treatment programs, which can be either outpatient or residential (Rich 2003). Many treat both male and female offenders, with the average program length 18 months. The largest component of these treatment programs is various types of therapy including individual therapy, family therapy, group therapy and psychotherapy. Pharmacological therapy is also used to treat disorders in juvenile sex offenders (Rich 2003). One large residential treatment program reported that 73% of it clients were using medicine to treat one or more psychiatric disorder while other treatment programs use medication to reduce or eliminate sex drive (Rich 2003). It is not clear how effective juvenile sex offender treatment is, however, professionals in the field are optimistic. While treatment is not successful on all offenders it is important to remember that, "...juvenile sexual offenders are still children who remain open to corrective emotional and cognitive experience that will help reframe their ideas and world view, address their emotional and behavioral difficulties, and help to engage prosocially...we see rehabilitation of most juvenile sexual offenders as an obvious choice over either incarcerating them, simply accepting the idea that we cannot treat them, or believing that they will just grow out of it and hoping for the best" (Rich 2003, p. 239).

While many professionals feel that the proper way to deal with juvenile sex offenders is through integrated treatment many in the community call for them to be incarcerated and are pushes for harsher penalties for juvenile and adult sex offenders alike.

Theoretical Discussion

With the constant progression of technology in our present society people have access to all types of things to which they did not have access in recent history. Adults can get online and do a keyword search and find all types of "adult" content ranging from dating sites to erotica to hard-core pornography or even child pornography. However, adults are not the only ones gaining access to these explicit materials. Children are become more and more technologically savvy and if they are not very carefully monitored can easily gain access to sexual substance that even may adults would find appalling and offensive. In one study of juvenile sex offenders in a residential treatment program 97% of all the clients and 100% of clients age 10-12, "...reported being exposed to at least one form of pornography..." (Rich 2003, p. 39). Fifty-eight percent reported using pornography more and than 10 times and 51% claimed that pornography contributed to their offense.

When children have access to pornography they become eroticized at too young of an age and they do not have the skills to cope with these feeling which they do not understand. According to Ryan and Lane (1997), "Many prematurely awakened children are uncommonly erotic, easily aroused, highly sexually motivated, and readily orgasmic. They are easily aroused by a variety of circumstance and may not be able to discriminate erotic from nonerotic relationships" (p. 54). When children are not being monitored and come across inappropriate sexual content whether it is via the internet, television or other means and their in no adult available to tell the child that what they have just seen is indeed inappropriate they are ,therefore, left to decipher what they have just seen themselves. As a result many children develop distorted views of sexuality.

Often when parents begin to notice sexually inappropriate behavior in their children they are not sure how to handle it. This can be because they are not sure what normal and abnormal sexuality in children is or because it is inherently awkward. However, if parents do not correct their children the child tells them self that "it must be okay or else they would stop me." Therefore, "it must be remembered that children look to the adults in their lives for verification and validation of what they are learning. They expect that adult will correct negative behavior. Failure to response to sexually exploitative behavior may covertly support it. When no response occurs, the child's perception may be that the adult condones such behavior" (Rich 2003, p. 443)

For these reason many children who come into contact with pornography may be more likely to engage in sexually deviant behavior or commit sex crimes such as forcible rape or child molest, especially when the pornography is violent or forceful in nature, as much of it is. When children learn what they know about sex and sexuality from adult pornographic material it is inevitable that they will have seriously distorted views on the subject.

Similar effects can result from families with weak personal boundaries. Children learn by example what suitable personal boundaries are, but in households where the limits are not clear children can become confused about what is acceptable and what in unacceptable in this area. According to Rich (2003) "...one interpretation of clear boundaries is a family in which the privacy of each family member is respected. In such families, there is likely to be a clear differentiation of what the sex roles are between adults and children. In families with poor personal boundaries, family members intrude on one another, and child sexuality is not clearly distinguished from adult sexuality" (p. 54).

This may contribute to early eroticism when children are exposed to adult sexuality among their own family members. Learning weak personal boundaries within the family can also be carried over to outside the family and the juveniles can then invade the personal boundaries of others and confusion about those boundaries can contribute to their commission of sexual offenses.

Obviously similar problems can occur as a result of the juvenile being a victim of sexual abuse himself. Sexual abuse, especially by a adult leads to a distorted view of sexuality and what is appropriate sexual contact between children and adults. It the abuse occurs at a young age it can also lead premature eroticism as discussed before. As a result many juvenile sex offenders are continuing a cycle of abuse. Some want to see what it felt like for the person who sexually abused them in order to make some type of sense about what happened to them.

Juveniles do not have the same cognitive reasoning skills as adults. The human mind continues its development into a person's early 20's and, "...adolescents have significant neurological deficiencies that result in stark limitations of judgment. Research suggests that when compounded with risk factors (neglect, abuse, poverty, etc.), these limitations can set the psychological stage for violence" (American Bar Association 2004, p. 3). In the light of such evidence it would be wrong to hold juvenile sex offenders to the same moral and legal standards as adult sexual offenders.

I am not suggesting that these conclusions apply to all juvenile sex offenders. I believe that there is still a portion who are violent and disturbed and for whom community based treatment is not acceptable and who should be incarcerated in order to protect the community. However, I am convinced that the majority of juvenile offenders deserve a chance at treatment and should not be treated in the same manor as adult offenders are.

Conclusion

The problem of juvenile sexual abusers and that of adult sexual offenders is not the same. Juvenile sexual offenders are often victims of our over sexualized culture.
Bibliography

American Bar Association (January 2004) Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Juvenile Death Penalty, Adolescence, Brain Development and Legal Culpability

Freeman-Longo- Center For Sex Offender Management (2000) Myths and Facts About Sex Offenders

Rich (2003) Understanding, Assessing, and Rehabilitating Juvenile Sexual Offenders. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Ryan and Lane (1997) Juvenile Sexual Offending: Causes, Consequence, and Correction. San Francisco, CA: Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Vamdiver (2006) A Prospective Analysis of Juvenile Male Sex Offenders: Characteristics and Recidivism Rates as Adults, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21, 673-688

Witt, Bosley, Hiscoxs (2002) Evaluation of Juvenile Sex Offenders, The Journal of Psychiatry & Law, 30/Winter, 569-592