[lbo-talk] Child Sexual Abuse Statistics and Trends (was Apthekerallegations)

[Jesse Lemisch]

It is bizarre beyond belief that a person of any sophistication would pass
on to us figures purporting to show a decline in child sexual abuse without
a whit of concern as to how these figures were arrived at. Merely to read
these figures, with their false precision (787,071 victims) is to laugh
through tears. Did the chidren who suffered abuse sashay over to the local
office of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, where they forthrightly
reported how Daddy played choo-choo with them? (It's a real Norman Rockwell
scene,"The Kids Report to the Feds What Daddy did to Them.")  Did Junior
make sure that Sis got out of bed to report? Or did Daddy drive Sis and
Junior there, to be followed by pizza as a reward for reporting? Or did
Daddy fess up and report it himself, and then treat himself to pizza? Maybe
Mom drove the whole bunch of them, Dad, Sis and Junior.

Really, come off it. I do hope that next Yoshie will give us equally precise
figures on rape itself.

And it's hard to know which is worse, the above, or the invention of
statements for me, placed in quotation marks. This, and the above, are no
way to argue.

Jesse Lemisch

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages at gmail.com>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 1:06 AM
Subject: [lbo-talk] Child Sexual Abuse Statistics and Trends (was
Apthekerallegations)


> On 10/21/06, Jesse Lemisch <utopia1 at attglobal.net> wrote:
> > Anyone who watches Oprah knows that there is a socially conservative
frenzy
> > about pedophiles. It has yet to be seen that there is in fact sufficient
> > attention, reporting and punishment for events like those Bettina
describes
> > in Intimate Poilitics. From what I understand, and know directly, just
about
> > every family -- yes, just about every family has a relative who has
suffered
> > in this way. Again, people ought to read the book rather than relying on
> > secondary and tertiary versions.
> On 10/21/06, Jesse Lemisch <utopia1 at attglobal.net> wrote:
> > Huh? Murder, too, seems widespread, so it's natural and shouldn't be
> > published?
>
> In your opinion, does "just about every family" have "a relative" who
> has been _sexually abused by her (or his) natal father from age three
> till thirteen_ like Bettina Aptheker says she was?  If so, what is the
> source of your information (I hope it isn't Oprah)?
>
> Sexual abuse of such young children is hardly common, contrary to what
> a paranoid style of law and order politics in America leads one to
> believe (e.g., "just about every family has a relative sexually abused
> by her [or his] parent for ten years from age three").
>
> See "Table 3-11 Victims by Age Group and Maltreatment Type, 2004" of
> _Child Maltreatment 2004_ (U.S. Department of Health and Human
> Services,  Administration on Children, Youth and Families, 2006),
> <http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm04/table3_11.htm>.  The
> proportion of 1-3 year olds and younger who are sexually abused (by
> all types of perpetrators such as natal parents, step parents, family
> acquaintances, and strangers) among the total population of all types
> of child abuse victims (787,071 victims) in 2004 was 0.7%.  The most
> common form of child abuse is neglect (496,232 victims).
>
> It should be noted that child sexual abuse has declined, much like
> most other crimes: "After a 15-year increase (1977–92), national data
> show that substantiated cases of child sexual abuse have been
> decreasing since about 1992. Summary data from NCANDS indicate that
> cases of substantiated child sexual abuse reached an estimated peak of
> 149,800 in 1992, followed by declines of 2 to 11 percent each year
> through 1998, the last year for which data are available (figure 1).
> In 1998, estimated cases of child sexual abuse reached a low of
> approximately 103,600.1 This is a total decline of 31 percent in
> identified child sexual abuse cases over a 6-year period. . . . These
> significant declines contrast with the period of the 1980's, when most
> States experienced 10-percent annual increases in child sexual abuse
> caseloads" (Lisa Jones and David Finkelhor, "Substantiated Sexual
> Abuse," _Juvenile Justice Bulletin: The Decline in Child Sexual Abuse
> Cases_, January 2001,
> <http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_1_1/page2.html>); and "The
> decline in reported and substantiated cases of child sexual abuse does
> not appear to be just an extension of a general declining trend in
> overall child maltreatment. The estimated total reports of child
> maltreatment increased dramatically in the 1980's and, though the rate
> of increase has slowed, the numbers have continued to climb through
> the 1990's.4 However, despite increasing numbers of reports during the
> 1990's, the percentage of reports that were child sexual abuse
> allegations decreased. Sexual abuse reports dropped from 16 percent of
> all child maltreatment reports in 1986 to an average of 8 percent of
> reports from 1996 to 1998" (Lisa Jones and David Finkelhor, "Decline
> in Child Sexual Abuse Greater Than Decline in Physical Abuse or
> Neglect," _Juvenile Justice Bulletin: The Decline in Child Sexual
> Abuse Cases_, January 2001,
> <http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_1_1/page4.html>).
>
> The trend in child sexual abuse is best understood in the context of
> the rise and fall of the "recovered memory" mania as well as the
> general crime trends.
> --
> Yoshie
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
>
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