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July 31, 2005

Sexual deviance

Scott Hampton, a psychologist who works with sex offenders, contends there’s little difference between sex crimes today and when he started working 16 years ago.
His conclusion may seem hard to believe because of the Internet, the creation of sex-offender registries, and recent headlines such as "Grandfather indicted on porn charges"; "Teens at water park: Man fondled them"; or "Flasher suspect gets away."

Despite what seems to be a preponderance of sex crimes recently, experts in the field agree incidents of sexual abuse haven’t changed - society has.

"It’s been there, but we never really paid attention to it before," said Hampton, director of Ending the Violence in Dover.

David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center, said the change has come from the de-stigmatization of sex abuse, crediting the change with the rise of the feminist movement in the 1970s.

"It was a consciousness raising," Finkelhor said. "Women were realizing they were assaulted, but never had reported it."

At the same time, child welfare agencies began looking at sexual offenses as a form of child abuse, Finkelhor said, noting this was when people started to recognize a majority of sex crimes happen within the family.

People also started categorizing noncontact sexual offenses, such as flashing or voyeurism, as crimes.

Whether it’s a child sex offender or a Peeping Tom, both experts agree that society, as well as law enforcement, have become much more vigilant in punishing those who cross sexual boundaries.

Internet’s window of opportunity

With this heightened awareness, one would expect the rate of sex crimes to be on the rise, but experts say that’s not necessarily the case.

Surprisingly, the most high-profile sexual-abuse cases, those involving children, are on the decline, according to state and national data.

Finkelhor co-authored a national study that revealed a 40 percent drop in substantiated child sex-abuse cases between 1992 and 2000.

The study compiled data from child-protective agencies about confirmed reports of child sex abuse. Those in the field say it’s impossible to know the true number of sex-abuse cases because they are not always reported.

In New Hampshire, the decline in substantiated cases is even more dramatic. According to data collected by Finkelhor, there was a 55 percent decline in child sex-abuse cases between 1990 and 2003.

With heightened awareness of the 1970s and 1980s, there was a surge in child sex-abuse reports, Finkelhor said, explaining sex-abuse cases have declined in comparison to the influx of reports 20 years ago.

But while child sex-abuse cases in general are down, Finkelhor said sexual crimes involving the Internet have gone up in recent years.

"Technology has certainly created new sexual offending opportunities," Finkelhor said.

He said it’s possible the anonymity and expansiveness of the Internet have caused people who wouldn’t have been sex offenders 20 years ago to commit sexual crimes.

But Finkelhor said it is more likely that the Internet has become a new resource for sexual offenders or those looking to commit sexual crimes.

"Before the Internet, no child molesters would know each other," he explained. "Now, the Internet has child-molester groups. People like that may have a support in a way that they didn’t."

Finkelhor, however, noted the Internet has also empowered law enforcement to catch sex offenders, with police departments now monitoring the Internet for criminals. In fact, the Portsmouth Police Department recently received a $450,000 federal grant to oversee the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force for northern New England.

‘Sex offenders could be anybody’

Kathy Beebe, director of Sexual Assault Support Services in Portsmouth, cautioned downward trends in child sex-abuse cases don’t tell the whole story.

Beebe said she does not believe sexual assaults in general have declined, saying there’s no way to accurately determine the number of sexual-abuse victims.

"It’s still estimated that only 16 percent of people report (abuse) to the police," Beebe said.

The New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence reported the number of adult sexual-assault victims visiting crisis centers such as SASS have generally remained the same over the past seven years. Between 2002 and 2004, there was even an increase from 617 to 746 adult victims.

"For us, it’s not a positive thing if there (are fewer) calls coming in," Beebe said. "It means we may not be doing a good enough job getting out to people."

Beebe said she also worries some of the heightened awareness of sex offenders may give people a false sense of security.

She specifically cited the sex-offender registries, in which child sex abusers must register with local police departments and can have their names and addresses posted on an Internet database.

"It’s great to have that awareness of these few individuals who have been prosecuted," she said. "But what’s really important to know is sex offenders could be anybody."

Hampton agrees, saying most victims of sexual abuse were assaulted by someone they knew, not a stranger whose name might be posted on a registry.

"The registry makes it sound as though people who are most likely to hurt my child is someone I don’t know and that’s just not true," he said.

Therapy and rehabilitation

While the sex-offender registry is not the end-all answer, it’s one of the many ways the community is trying to stop the cycle of sexual assault.

Brian Hester, who oversees the New Hampshire sex-offender registry, said there are currently 3,176 sex offenders registered with law enforcement in the state. Out of those, 1,170 offenders are on the public registry posted on the Internet.

According to Hester, those on the public Web site are generally offenders whose victims were under the age of 13 or offenders who are at least three years older than a victim between the age of 13 and 16.

Hester said each state has different criteria for which offenders’ names and addresses are released publicly, noting in Florida every person convicted of a sexual offense is posted on the state’s Web site.

Hester said sex offenders getting out of jail even "shop around" for states with the most lenient registration laws. Hester said each year about 100 sex offenders move to the New Hampshire.

While no studies have been done on whether registries prevent criminals from re-offending, the Center for Sex Offender Management reports that child abusers have a 13 percent reconviction rate for sexual offenses. For nonsexual offenses, child abusers have a 37 percent reconviction rate.

The center, which falls under the U.S. Department of Justice, notes on its Web site, www.csom.org, that recidivism rates for sex offenders are lower than for the general criminal population. The center, however, also notes that since sexual abuse is not always reported, recidivism rates may be higher.

In New Hampshire, efforts to stop sex criminals from reoffending are carried out in state and county prisons.

The state’s prison system, like the rest of the nation, saw a dramatic increase in incarcerated sex offenders in the early 1980s and 1990s. Finkelhor said people incarcerated for sex crimes against children increased 180 percent between 1979 and 1996.

Janet Micklos, director of human services at the Rockingham County House of Corrections, said the jail has run a sex-offender accountability program since 1991.

Micklos said the jail has a therapist who regularly meets with every prisoner with a history of sex offenses. Even if the person is not serving time for a sex crime, anyone who has been convicted of a sex offense meets with the therapist.

While Micklos said the program is not as in-depth as the sex-offender program in state-run jails, it attempts to develop a relationship between therapist and offender.

Once offenders are invested in therapy, they are more willing to continue counseling once they are released from jail, she said.

Micklos admitted there are some criminals "who you would never stop" from reoffending, but said there are others who are able to recognize and control their behavior.

"Once they’ve been through some counseling, they may better understand what’s going on in their life so they would never contemplate repeating such an act."

Posted by Nealus at July 31, 2005 07:41 PM

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