6A
Monday, March 4, 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Most sex crime victims are children, teen-agers
The Justice Department data are consistent with a 1992 national survey of crime victims by National Victims Center.
The Associated Press
"Of those who were victimized sexually, 61 percent said it happened before they were 18," Beatty said. The Justice Department study found that more than half of the child victims were 12 years old or younger. Three-fourths of child victims of violence were female. One in seven children was molested by a stranger.
The largest survey of state prison inmates found that children younger that 18 years old bear the brunt of sex offenses, and that child molesting remains a crime most often perpetrated by relatives and acquaintances rather than strangers.
WASHINGTON — Two-thirds of sex offenders in state prisons attacked children. One-third of child molesters attacked their own child or stepchild, the Justice Department reported yesterday.
Child victimizers
"This high rate of child victims is behind the heightened concern, and the growing number of states passing laws that provide for notifying neighborhoods when sexual predators move in," said David Beatty, acting executive director of the National Victims Center, a private advocacy group in Arlington, Va. "The majority of sex crimes are committed against children because they are more helpless and easier to intimidate into silence."
The department's Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that state prisons held 43,546 inmates in 1991 who raped or sexually assaulted children younger than 18 years old. That represents 65.5 percent of the 66,482 state inmates convicted of raping or sexually assaulting victims of all ages.
About 19 percent of inmates serving time in state prisons for violent, crimes were convicted of a crime against a victim younger than 18.
The study found that males made up 97 percent of the prisoners who had attacked children, and 70 percent of them were white. The average child molester was five years older than the average inmate who attacked adults.
The study stated that 327,958 inmates committed violent crimes, and 18.6 percent of those inmates, or 61,000, attacked children. Rape and sexual assault outnumbered murder, kidnapping and other violent crimes against children.
Beatty said sex molesters of children might be overrepresented among state inmates in comparison to other types of criminals because these crimes against children are taken more seriously, and state laws have harsher penalties.
SOURCE: Justice Dept.; research by BRENNA SINK
He also said pedophiles often were repeat offenders, sometimes with up to 100 offenses, so they were more
Knight-Ridder Tribune
Three out of four child molesters committed their crimes either in their own home or the child's home.
These states were Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington.
likely to be caught and more likely to be sentenced to prison than other types of criminal.
Last September, National Victims Center found that 14 states had adopted community notification statutes, which gave notice to a community when certain sex offenders were released from prison.
Many state laws, such as "Megan's Law" passed in New Jersey in 1994 and named after 7-year-old Megan Kanka who was raped and killed, remain under court challenge. Last year, Attorney General Janet Reno had Justice Department lawyers assist New Jersey in defending the law from constitutional challenge.
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The Justice Department study was based on interviews of 14,000 inmates at 277 prisons in 45 states in 1991.
We go to great lengths to cater any of your special functions.
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743 Mass. 832-9797
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Contact Capt. Dean Wilson At 864-4676 or visit at KU Military Bld.
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