Sexual Offenders Who Target Children: Tips and Story Ideas

If someone is concerned about his behavior, can he find help? Dr. Fred Berlin says that people with sexually troubling feelings -- including juveniles -- are often afraid to get help because they risk being reported. If they want help, where can they go? The Association for Treatment of Sexual Abusers is working to create a network of therapists who will treat people who are concerned about their attractions but haven’t been involved in the criminal justice system. State definitions of CSA, and reporting requirements, vary. What kind of offense will trigger a report in your state?

Is anything stopping a family member from reporting abuse? Prevention advocates say that family members may dismiss their own concerns because they fear making a false accusation. Plus, if the suspect is a breadwinner, his arrest can affect the family's economic stability.

Follow someone receiving treatment, and use the opportunity to report on their family members and CSA survivors, too. Steven Sawyer of Minnesota’s Project Pathfinder led a social marketing campaign aimed at preventing someone from abusing a child. During that project the St. Paul Pioneer Press ran an op-ed feature that profiled an offender’s family member, and a CSA survivor. “Stories like that tell the whole picture and give balance,” Sawyer said. “The offender and the survivor can learn something.”

Use specific language. Prevention educators and therapists suspect that the word "predator" may promote the public’s inflated perception of stranger danger -- and an assumption that a person’s behavior cannot be managed through specific interventions. Yet CSA often occurs because caring adults don’t recognize an offender’s behaviors -- or trust their own suspicions. Abuse is often “a family issue,” says Deborah Donovan Rice of Stop It Now. “Everyone is really accountable for this having happened.”

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