It is highly likely that you know a child who has been or is being abused.

Prevalence

• 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused by the age of 18.[1]
• 8 million of the 22.3 million adolescents in the United States have been sexually assaulted.[2]
• Persons under 18 years of age account for 67% of all sexual assault victimizations reported to law enforcement agencies. Children under 12 years old account for 34% of those cases and children under six years account for 14% of those cases.[3]
• In a landmark 17,337 participant study regarding Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), 20.7% or 3,589 individuals reported child sexual abuse in San Diego County.[4]
• Since 2002, over 51 million images/videos of pornography depicting children have been reviewed.[5]
• 100,000-300,000 American children are at risk of being trafficked for commercial sex in the U.S. [6]
• In our nation, there are over 811,389 registered sex offenders.[7]
• In the United States, children with physical disabilities and cognitive impairments are 3 times more likely to be sexually abused than non-disabled children.[8]

Please note: These crimes are significantly underreported. The prevalence rates cited above do not account for the fact that many people who were sexually assaulted as children never told anyone.

Childhood Disclosure of Sexual Assault

• Child molestation is one of the most underreported crimes: only 1-10% are ever disclosed.[9]
• Rape/sexual assault offenders account for under 5% of the total correctional population in the U.S.[10]
• This low rate of conviction leads to the conclusion that convicted sex offenders in corrections agencies in the U.S. represent less than 10% of all sex offenders living in communities nationwide.[11]
• In an adult retrospective study, 42% of women and 33% of men sexually abused as children reported never having disclosed the sexual abuse until being asked during the study.[12]
• Every 8 minutes, Child Protective Services (CPS) responds to a report of sexual abuse.[13]

Characteristics of Abusers

• More than 95% of all sexual offense arrests were committed by first-time sex offenders.[14]
• An average serial child molester has between 360-380 victims in his/her lifetime.[15]
• More than 90% of child sexual abuse victims know the perpetrator.[16]
• Sexual assaults committed by youth are a growing concern in this country. Currently, it is estimated that adolescents (ages 13 to 17) account for up to one-half of all cases of child molestation committed each year.[17]

Impact of Child Sexual Assault – Has profound immediate & long-term negative effects:

• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are linked with a range of long-term health impacts.  Individuals who reported 6 or more ACEs had an average life expectancy two decades shorterthan those who reported none. [18]
• Ischemic heart disease (IHD), Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), liver disease, mental health disorders, addictions and other health-related quality of life issues are tied to child abuse.[19]
• It is estimated that each year child sexual abuse in America costs the nation $23 billion.[20] These costs come from burdened criminal justice, healthcare, education, and welfare systems.

Please note: Not all sex crimes are solved or result in arrest and only a fraction of sex offenses are reported to police. The reliance on measures of recidivism as reflected through official criminal justice system data (i.e., rearrest or reconviction rates) obviously omits offenses that are not cleared through an arrest (and thereby cannot be attributed to any individual offender) or those that are never reported to the police. For a variety of reasons, many victims of sexual assault are reluctant to invoke the criminal justice process and do not report their victimization to the police. For these reasons, relying on rearrest and reconviction data underestimates actual reoffense numbers.[21]

[1] National Sexual Violence Resource Center http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf
[2] Kilpatrick, D.G. and B.E. Saunders “The Prevalence and Consequences of Child Victimization: Summary of a Research Study by Dean Kilpatrick, Ph.D. and Benjamin Saunders, Ph.D.” National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, 1997.
[3] Source: Snyder, Howard. “Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics.” Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 2000
[4]U.S. Centers for Disease Control/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/
[5] US House of Representatives, Committee on Judiciary, 2011
[6] U.S. Department of Justice, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
[7] Megan’s Law Report Card: Sex offender registry counts for each state from years 2005-July 2015
[8] Sullivan P. M. & Knutson, J. F. (2000) “Maltreatment and disabilities: a population-based epidemiological study.” Child Abuse and Neglect
[9] Parents for Megan’s Law http://www.parentsformeganslaw.org/public/statistics_childSexualAbuse.html
[10] Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/SOO.PDF
[11] Department of Justice http://www.csom.org/pubs/mythsfacts.html
[12] Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G., et al, Sexual abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence, characteristics, and risk factors, Child Abuse & Neglect, 14, pp. 19-28, 1990.
[13] Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims
[14] PsycINFO Database Record (2008) Sandler, Jeffrey C.; Freeman, Naomi J.; Socia, Kelly M. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Vol 14(4)|
[15] South Carolina Forcible Sex Crimes. (1999) South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Columbia, SC.
[16] Department of Justice (1997) and Finkelhor and Ormond. (2001).
[17] Barbaree, H., Hudson, S., and Seto, M.,(1993) “Sexual Assault in Society: The Role of the Juvenile Offender,” in H. Barbaree, W. Marshall, and S. Hudson (Eds.), The Juvenile Sex Offender
[18] U.S. Centers for Disease Control/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/
[19] Ibid.
[20] Parents for Megan’s Law http://www.parentsformeganslaw.org/public/statistics_childSexualAbuse.html
[21]Department of Justice http://www.csom.org/pubs/mythsfacts.html