Sex, Lies and Society Part VIII

Contrary to the belief that rapists are hiding in the bushes or in the shadows  of the parking garage,  almost two-thirds of all rapes were committed by someone who is known to the victim. 73% of sexual assault were perpetrated by a non-stranger — 38% of perpetrators were a friend or acquaintance  of the victim, 28% were an intimate and 7% were another relative. - National Crime Victimization Survey, 2005

One comprehensive report analysed data between 1976 and 1994 and estimated more than 37,000 children had been murdered. 1  In fact, during the same period 1 in 5 child murders were committed by a family member and 1 in 5 child victims were known to be killed by another child. Children under 18 accounted for 11 percent of all murder victims in the US in 1994. Nearly half of these 2,660 child victims were between 15 and 17. In most murders of a young child, a family member killed the child, while in most murders of an older child, age 15 to 17, the perpetrator was an acquaintance to the victim or was unknown to law enforcement authorities.

Keeping to the same statistical research we also find that in family murder of a child 10 percent of victims was age 15 - 17, while in murders by strangers 67 percent of victims were in this age category. Since the mid-1980’s the increases in the number and the rate of murder among 15- to 17-year-olds, particularly among black youth in this age range, outpaced changes in murder in all other age groups. 2  Since 1980, there has been a 15 percent annual average increase in the number of prisoners sentenced –- for violent sexual assault (other than rape) which is “faster than any other category of violent crime and faster than all other categories except drug trafficking.” 3 The majority of these prisoners are young men.

In another survey conducted by Staying with the US Nation Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse (NCPCA) the steady growth of child abuse over the last ten years was confirmed with the total number of reports across the US increasing by 45 percent since 1987 and the rate of child abuse fatalities similarly increasing by 39 percent since 1985.4  Based on data from all three years, the survey found 82 percent of children were under the age of five while 42 percent were under the age of one at the time of their death.

 Physical violence against children is more prevalent than sexual abuse yet they often they go together. Since the 1970s, the phenomenon of child abuse has been increasing and so too the limits of the extremes that surface:

Head trauma, strangulation and drowning were the most frequent methods of filicide (the killing of a person's own child). Fathers tended to use more active methods, such as striking, squeezing or stabbing; mothers more often drowned, suffocated or gassed their victims. Unusual methods included putting sulfuric acid in a nursing bottle, and biting a child to death. One father put his son on a drill press and drilled a hole through the heart. 5

In a study of child abuse in New York City the incidence of child abuse increased 1026 percent between 1964 and 1974 which ranged from neglect, physical violence, sexual molestation and assault to incest and emotional terrorism. 6 The US Department of Health, Education and Welfare stated: “An epidemic of child abuse is occurring in this country.” 7

Though fluctuating parallel to the number of cases investigated which has dipped of late, similar to the high incidence of missing persons, the increase was in part attributed to a growing awareness from the public and the willingness to report child abuse. Yet the number of total child maltreatment instances that were investigated by state agencies remained constant from 1986 to 1993 for example, but the percentage of cases investigated declined dramatically, suggesting a steady rise. Indeed, the instances of child abuse and neglect almost doubled in those seven years alone totalling more than 2.8 million children. 8

Back in the UK, 1 in 14 children have been violently assaulted by their parents. Incidences of being kicked, punched, choked, burnt or threatened with a knife have been listed as the common attacks within the home. Broken bones, bruising, bites, burns and head injuries were some of the results of this abuse, some of which were carried out by mothers at 52 percent and with fathers at 45 percent. It is almost a given that fathers are assumed to have been responsible for carrying out the vast majority of domestic abuse cases involving children yet many surveys and studies both in the UK and the US seem to prove that this is another myth. Most sexual abuse is carried out by step-fathers and siblings, with poverty and low income families most likely to harbour the abuse. 9, 10

 
One of the most common forms of sexual abuse is that of incest (or intra-familial abuse) remaining one of the most under-reported and least discussed crimes in the US. This is due in part, to the lack of accurate statistics and information borne from the fear and secrecy inherent in such a crime not least the difficulty in gathering such highly sensitive information. Social and familial pressure maintains a strong taboo that is almost impenetrable. The coercion by the abuser and the feelings of guilt and shame further cement the wall of silence.

Research indicates that 46 percent of children who are raped are victims of family members. Incest is traditionally defined as “sexual intercourse between persons too closely related to marry (as between a parent and a child)” yet here too the definition has been expanded to include a sexual abuse by anyone who has “authority or power over the child.”11 The perpetrators of incest may include immediate or extended family members, babysitters, school teachers, scout masters, and priests/ministers. This could be said to be one reason perhaps for the high rates and appears to be a highly dubious expansion of categorization.
The study of a nationally representative sample of state prisoners serving time for violent crime in 1991 revealed that 20 percent of their crimes were committed against children, and three out of four prisoners who victimized a child reported the crime took place in their own home or in the victim’s home. 12

While intra-familial abuse (incest) seems to often cross over into ritual abuse there are cases that are inter-generational and “poly-incestuous” involving parents, grand-parents, aunts and uncles. Sometimes this can extend to over three or four generations or more. 13 Deprived neighbourhoods with poor unemployment and a history of economic hardships also featured in a variety of studies. The “infection” naturally draws in “friends of the family” further increasing the perpetuation of abuse and the likelihood of psychopaths participating further increasing the severity of the effects.

Psychopaths tend to recognize each other “intuitively” and would be attracted to secret clubs or networks of this nature. Much like any microcosm of the macrocosmic principle of Pathocracy – psychopaths go where they can indulge their every whim with impunity, be it in the heart of the family or at the apex of the Establishment. Only the level of cunning, manipulation and charisma dictates where such persons will end up. But if the statistical level of abuse is correct then the damage done to generations of children, some of who may then continue the abuse on their own sons and daughters may begin to rise exponentially.

The already seriously flawed European Justice system was brought into sharp relief with the most recent case of Myriam Delay in France, where although abuse did take place, an extended ring of paedophilia in this case was said to have been absent. “The trial had shattered the lives of 18 people accused in the case, with one committing suicide and others losing custody of their children, while sending France into a paroxysm of soul-searching.”

Notes

1 US Department of Justice · Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crime and Victims Statistics 1998.

2 Statistical data from Yesican.org/

3 US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, February 1997.

4 Nation Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse (NCPCA) 2000 Annual Fifty State Survey.

5 ‘Child Murder by Parents: A Psychiatric Review of Filicide’ by Philip J. Resnick American Journal of Psychiatry, 1969.

6 Quoted from ‘Child Abuse in America: Slaughter of the Innocents’ By James W. Prescott, Ph.D.From Hustler, October 1977. 

7 Ibid.

8 Survey shows Dramatic Increase in Child Abuse and Neglect 1986-1993 Wednesday, Sept. 18, 1996, Michael Kharfen, US Depart. Of Health and Services, www.acf.dhhs.gov.

9 ‘Revealed: The Truth about Child Sex Abuse in Britain’s Families’ by Jeremy Laurance, The Independent, November 2000.

10 ‘'One in 14' children attacked, BBC News, 19 November, 2000.

11 1990. Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women, by Sue E. Blume, published by  John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.

12 The National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC) ncvc.org.

13 ‘Poly-Incestuous Families: an exploratory study’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, By K.C. Faller,1987.

• Sex, Lies and Society Part I
• Sex, Lies and Society Part II
• Sex, Lies and Society Part III
• Sex, Lies and Society Part IV
• Sex, Lies and Society Part IX
• Sex, Lies and Society Part V
• Sex, Lies and Society Part VI
• Sex, Lies and Society Part VII