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Child Sex Abuse Expert Discusses How To Identify Perpetrators
By Keith Hagarty
OCEAN COUNTY - The number of sexual predators in communities across the United States is frightening, and Ocean County is no exception, according to Trish McConnell, executive director of the National Center For Safety Initiatives.
"Presently according to statistics in our country, at least one in four girls and one in six boys under the age of 18 will experience some form of sexual abuse," said Mc- Connell. "To put that in perspective, when you go into a classroom with about 20 kids, five of them have been, will be or are being sexually abused."
McConnell has been offering presentations before local governing bodies to help raise public awareness about the warning signs of child abuse and molestation and what can be done to help protect the safety of children in the community.
Criminal background checks are increasingly becoming required for anyone involved with children in a youth recreation program, whether in coaching, umpiring, managing or serving in any supervisory capacity for participants in the program.
In order to help such endeavors, the Ohio-based non-profit National Center For Safety Initiatives (NCSI) was created in partnership with the National Council of Youth Sports, which represents over 52 million children involved in sports programs throughout the nation.
The NCSI specializes in background screening for youthserving organizations through support-structured initiatives and to serve as a resource for member organizations for background checks, training, policies and other activities. The organization's purpose is to help eradicate harm to children throughout the country.
However one of the most difficult challenges in locating a child sex offender is that there is no central database or sex offender registry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any other federal agency identifying all known perpetrators. With such hurdles facing law enforcement agencies and local communities, the council unanimously looked for help from NCSI.
Child abuse and molestation is one of the most devastating crimes perpetrated in America today, McConnell said. Identifying perpetrators is made even more difficult by the fact that many are often masquerading as pillars of the community, according to McConnell.
"They're not easily identified," she said. "If you look at any of the news articles, all the stories that come out (about child abusers) seem to be about people who are part of the community, part of our day to day lives. They're our clergy. They're our politicians. They're our coaches, and administrators of programs."
While the general stereotype and perception of a child molester is usually an older man with a history of criminal activity, Mc- Connell said it's often someone who you'd never expect.
"When I look at some of the characteristics of a child molester, they're generally accepted by all age groups, they appear trustworthy, they're usually a respected member of the community, they can be any sexual orientation and any gender and they typically groom their way into a relationship with that child," she said. "They usually gain access through trust."
"While 75 percent of child sex offenders average between one in nine victims, at least 10 percent average even more victims," said McConnell. "An average serial molester may have as many as 400 victims in a lifetime."
McConnell recalled once when she was on an airplane and after casually chatting to the women sitting next to her, she soon learned that the woman had been a victim of sexual abuse for much of her childhood.
"In those 10 years, she was being abused in the home, there was no one around her that was equipped to ask her the right questions, or be able to identify some of the signs that she may have had to have helped her," said McConnell.
Speaking across the country as part of her program, McConnell is continually approached by victims, often years following their abuse, who are now brave enough to come forward and share their personal stories of pain.
"Those are the kinds of things that validate these statistics for me in every environment," she said. "The last thing the woman on the airplane said to me is she understood the nature of the work I do, saying, 'You must keep doing this. What you're doing could have saved my life.'"
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