Sex Offenders

Victim-Offender Relationship

The vast majority of sexual victimizations, especially those involving females and young children, are committed by offenders who are related to or know the victim prior to the attack. In fact, only 3% of the youngest victims (under the age of 6) are sexually assaulted by strangers. These data are contrary to popular perception, which harbors the notion that most sex crimes are committed by strangers. Although victims are less likely to be sexually assaulted by strangers than by someone they already know, stranger-induced sex crimes are a serious social problem because these offenders tend to be the most dangerous and violent.

Prevalence and Vulnerability to Sex Crimes

Underreporting makes it impossible to determine the true number of sex crimes that occur. Because victims experience high levels of denial, fear, shame, and embarrassment, they are often reluctant to notify police or even to confide in family members or friends about the sexual assault. More specifically, as many as 85% of women who are sexually assaulted do not report the crime to authorities. Still, conservative estimates indicate that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape. These numbers climb even higher among certain populations such as the disabled, women in college, and young children. For instance, women are about 10 times more likely than men to be the victim of a sexual assault, and 1 in 5 college-age women has experienced forced sexual intercourse. Investigations into sexual victimization and age indicate that nearly two thirds of reported sex crimes are committed against minors. Stated slightly differently, being female, young, and physically or emotionally vulnerable dramatically increases the odds of becoming a victim of a sexual assault.

Consequences of Sex Crimes

Sex crimes are related to countless short- and long-term physical and emotional problems, ranging from rape trauma syndrome and death to sexually transmitted diseases, psychosomatic disorders, chronic pain disorders, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Children who are sexually abused suffer a host of other problems, such as acting out in sexually inappropriate ways, developing severe emotional and behavioral problems, experiencing intense guilt and shame about what happened, feeling betrayed by the abuser-who is often a family member or friend-and experiencing intense fear that they are powerless to protect themselves from further harm.

The emotional consequences are most intense when the offender was perceived by the victim as being safe. In other words, when the victim and [Page 647]offender share a familial, intimate, or emotional connection with one another, the consequences are more intense and the recovery longer and more complicated than for victims who are sexually assaulted by strangers. This is likely due to the fact that victimizations between known persons tend to occur repeatedly and increase in severity. In comparison, sexual assaults by strangers usually occur only once and tend to be less physically intrusive. In spite of the increase in victim-related suffering associated with known assailants, sexual assaults between strangers continue to be viewed and treated as a more serious crime, even when controlling for other factors.

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