Stranger Danger
A sex offender moves into your neighborhood. What should be your response? Well, if you are like most people, your initial reaction will probably be fear. Fear for the safety of your children. But, is that fear based on reality or is it only a perceived threat?
With all the publicity surrounding the horrendous crimes against children the public gets the impression that these crimes are commonplace and that they are being committed by “sex offenders”. The truth is that cases where children are kidnapped and sexually assaulted are extremely rare. Even more rare are instances where these crimes are committed by convicted sex offenders. According to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice 90% of the rapes of children less than 12 years old were committed by a person the child knew not by a stranger www.ojp.usdoj.gov. Another report by the U.S. Department of Justice regarding a 1994 study shows that of 9,691 sex offenders from 15 states being tracked for three years after there release from prison only 5.3% were rearrested for another sex crime; 4,295 were in prison for child molesting.
You have probably heard reports that “these kind never change”. That 90% will go on to commit new sex crimes. I actually heard Congressman Mark Foley state on Fox News; “We have the facts, 100% of sex offenders will commit new sex crimes, we just don’t know when”! If those in the business of reporting news would get the true facts we wouldn’t be seeing so much fear and hysteria concerning sex offenders. Unfortunately our legislatures using a proven “vote getter” of “getting tough on crime” have hyped these myths and passed laws restricting where sex offenders can live, work and play. In Florida there is a state law where sex offenders cannot live within 1,000 feet of anywhere where children congregate. Many local municipalities have extended that restriction to 2,500 feet. A pedophile intent on finding a victim is not likely to stalk in the area where he lives for fear of getting caught. There has not been one thread of evidence to show that restricting where sex offenders live has been a deterrent to this dreadful crime. We should also know that only about 3% of sex offenders are pedophiles that stalk children.
How would you feel if your son at 18 had consensual sex with his girlfriend who was only 16 and found himself a convicted sex offender? He may go to prison and most certainly will be on probation for five or more years and have to conform to the residential restrictions of a sex offender. He now goes on the national registry for life. Twenty years pass and the national registry shows him as being 38 years of age and having sex with a sixteen year old. Those who see his picture on the national registry don’t know that he was only 18 at the time and picture him as the worst kind of pervert.
Is there really any danger of are children becoming a victim of a sexual assault? Absolutely! We are told that one out of every three girls and one out of every six boys will be sexually molested before they are eighteen. As parents we should be very careful of relatives, friends, teachers, coaches, etc. that are spending an inordinate amount of time and showing a lot of kindness to our children. There are many more instances of fondling than there are of rape but this kind of molestation can cause serious problems later in life.
The next time you see a reported sex crime on the evening news, don’t assume a sex offender did it. Rarely is this true. Most sex crimes reported on the news are new offenders.
Sexual addiction is no respecter of persons. We see people from all walks of life caught up in immoral and often illegal activities. Teachers, police and correctional officers, prosecuting attorneys, even judges have been arrested and charged with sex crimes. The very ones we think are protecting us.
Is it any wonder so many are becoming addicted to sex when we are now living in a sex-saturated society? Check the content of the programs that are being shown on prime time television. How does it compare to what we watched twenty years ago? At 12 billion dollars a year, the revenues of the pornography industry in the U.S. are bigger than ABC, NBC, and CBS combined. On the web there are an estimated 4.2 million porn sites hosting 372 million pages of X rated content. The average age when a boy is first exposed to pornography is eleven. The real danger to our children is not that they will be sexually assaulted by a stranger, but that they will be violated by someone they trust who has become addicted to porn. Of no less danger is that our children will themselves become addicted to porn and become the violator. Another statistic from the U.S. Department of Justice shows that 40% of victimized children under age 6 were violated by those under the age of eighteen.
If you have any questions about the content of this article, contact:
Rev. R.D. Witherow
(561) 670-5564