Epilogue It Takes a Village

EPILOGUE IT TAKES A VILLAGE With one of this book’s primary purposes being to explicate the incredible scope of the problem of child sexual abuse, I found myself again and again struggling with its magnitude. As both a professional and parent, I often despaired at the enormity of this societally imposed calamity and at the threat it poses to my children and the children of our nation. To cope, I would detach emotionally as I did my work. Yet, even with this protection, two portions of this book recently broke through my defensive detachment, overwhelming me with the sheer tragedy and immensity of the problem. First, as I worked on the chapter on offenders (Chapter 9), I needed to know how many offenders were actually identified, convicted, and prosecuted. Gathering the applicable studies, I made the necessary computations. Yet, I simply was not ready for the answer. How can our society allow more than 90% of offenders to remain within the child’s environment or to return within the year? It seems incredible. And even as I write these words, a case of child sexual abuse was recently reported in the media in which the offender picked the child up off the street and molested him while brandishing a weapon. The presiding judge, however, believing that the case was not severe enough to warrant incarceration, placed the offender on probation. Thus, until evicted by the housing authority, the offender continued to live in a complex, within the victim’s environment, that housed many other young children. Not surprisingly, the reaction of the public and media to this event was outrage. How could this judge possibly allow this offender to go free? And yet my calculations suggest that the vast majority of identified offenders are allowed to remain within the child’s environment or to return within the year. How can this be? The second finding for which I was simply unprepared was the number of nonoffending mothers who continue to be charged as co-offenders. While the only previous study reporting this information found that an extraordinarily high percentage of mothers were charged as co-offenders, this study was done in 1981 (Finkelhor & Hotaling, 1984). Surely, a society moving into the 21st Century had given up this barbaric practice. Then, just within the last few months, the latest NCANDS national incidence study reported information not published in its previous annual studies (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000c). This report found that mothers were charged as either offenders or co-offenders by child protective services in 53% of all abuse by parents. It is difficult to find the emotional detachment necessary to distance myself from this knowledge. In my work with other professionals, however, and while writing the chapter on the professional response to child sexual abuse, I was struck many times by the intent and purpose of exceptional professionals who have devoted their professional careers to the problem of child sexual abuse. Indeed, this book is only possible because researchers have worked to develop a professional body of empirical literature on child sexual abuse that is now extensive. These researchers, as well as clinicians, lawyers, law enforcement agents, and others move me to hope that the scope of the problem 273 274 EPILOGUE of child sexual abuse will someday be so diminished that it will not require an army of professionals to respond to it. As such, this epilogue acknowledges both my despair and my hope. The first section, by discussing prerequisites that may be necessary for effectively responding to the problem, pays tribute to the despair. The second section, by providing one perspective for what an effective response to child sexual abuse might be within our future society, pays tribute to the hope. PREREQUISITES FOR TARGETING CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE To effectively target an epidemic often requires changes on the part of all members of society, who must buy in to the need for addressing the epidemic. Yet, today’s social milieu is not one in which most Americans will willingly commit to some of the changes in socialization patterns or the power structure that will be necessary for substantially reducing the problem of child sexual abuse. Thus, this section considers possible prerequisites for a receptive society. These prerequisites represent roadblocks to reaching a goal of the drastic reduction of child sexual abuse. The first proposed prerequisite may be that the level of violence within society must become intolerable. We remain a nation of more than 200 million guns, nearly one gun for every adult and child. We are not only the most violent industrialized society in the world, but our homicide rates are two to 10 times higher than rates in other developed countries.1 To reduce the level of violence will require the nation, the media, the institutions within society, and most Americans to embrace the belief that we have the right, and even demand the right, to live in a violence-free nation. Because sexual abuse is in many ways a violent act and one that is endorsed more frequently by those who also endorse interpersonal violence (Briere & Runtz, 1989), the prevalence of sexual abuse may not decrease until Americans commit to living within a safer society. The second prerequisite may be that society must become more child-centered. While our words and the words of our leaders often suggest that we are child-centered, it is difficult to concur when a fifth or more of all children live in poverty (Betson & Michael, 1997). And with our mainly puritan backgrounds, we are still a country that endorses the ownership of children and the parental right and privilege to use corporal punishment. As long as we are a country that believes in the ownership of children, they will remain at risk for abuses of power over them. The third prerequisite may be a far less patriarchal society. Sexual abuse remains primarily a gendered abuse of females by males. While not wishing to ignore the unfortunate male victims nor the few female offenders, the beliefs and value systems of male privilege and domination remain probably the single most important causal factors for child sexual abuse. Until males are willing to cede some of that power and to take responsibility for their abuses of that power, and until these abuses of power are recognized as violent actions, child sexual abuse may remain a significant problem. The final prerequisite for decreasing the prevalence of child sexual abuse may be a public so outraged about the problem that our nation becomes intolerant of the 1 www.soros. org/crime/gunreport.htm. EPILOGUE 275 sexual abuse of any child. With this level of public outrage, the media may finally be influenced to stop highlighting sexual victimization, sensationalizing male privilege, and sexualizing children. If these are the prerequisites, then we are many years away From being able to substantially reduce the problem of child sexual abuse, for we are still too violence- prone and violence-proud. It may take years of violent deaths of our children and youth for society to become fed up with its self-induced calamity. The violence will also likely have to move into the middle-class and affluent sections with as much ferocity as it plagues some of the lives of those without before those with power add their voices to the fight for change. It will also take time for us to adopt our nation's children as our own so that we become intolerant of the harm not only to our own children, but to our neighbor's, and even those children who represent our differences instead of our similarities. And surely it will take time for the powerful to cede their power for the good of the people. Thus, major change is probably many years away. Yet, we must hope that the time will come when simply being a child, or worse being a girl, will not be a significant risk factor for child sexual abuse. A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE And when we have arrived—when we live in a society that is fully focused on reducing the tragedy of child sexual abuse—what would that response be? This section suggests one possibility. As such, it represents the ever-present hope for a better future. First, the people in this future society would lead the battle, for mothers and fathers, as well as their schools and communities, would demand protection for their children. Most individuals would have a working knowledge of the prevalence and risk factors associated with child sexual abuse, as well as its effects. Armed with that knowledge, survivor-led grassroots organizations would advocate for the protection of children. Knowing that they must represent the people to stay in office, politicians would also trumpet the cause. Mothers and fathers would also take responsibility for socializing their children differently, especially their boys, conscientiously parenting them in ways that would not perpetuate messages that provide children with implicit permission to be sexually aggressive. Curriculum-based prevention programs would be in all schools for all grade levels. Not only would these programs teach young children about the rights they have over their bodies, but they would also teach children about the boundaries of appropriate behavior with others. These programs would be neither harsh nor punitive, but would simply be another focal point for moving society's young from childhood to adulthood. The media would support these programs, and male domination, the sexualization of children, and sexual aggressiveness would no longer be premium fare for prime-time viewing. Many other community-based programs would also be in place to prevent child sexual abuse, including regular screening for previous or ongoing sexual abuse.

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