The Child Protection eNewsletter

85% of online child porn convicts admit to molestation…

An unpublished government study suggests a strong link between men who download sexual images of children and molestation, The New York Times reported. http://www.foxnews.com/ Of the convicted Internet offenders in the study, 85 percent said they had sexually abused minors, with offenses ranging from inappropriate touching to rape.

Experts say the Federal Bureau of Prisons study is the most in-depth examination of such behavior and has caused tension among psychologists, law enforcement officers and prison officials, who disagree over how to interpret and present the information. Some experts are pushing for quick release of the study in hopes of honing in on child sex predators by looking more closely at those who claim to be just browsing the pornographic images, the Times reported. Those who disagree point out the study’s sampling consists of men in prison and does not well represent all adults who have downloaded child porn.

The research, carried out by psychologists at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is the first in-depth survey of online offenders’ sexual behavior done by prison therapists who were actively performing treatment. Previous studies, based on surveys of criminal records, estimated that 30 percent to 40 percent of those arrested for possessing child pornography also had molested children. Read More Its findings have circulated privately among experts, who say they could have enormous implications for public safety and law enforcement. Traffic in online child pornography has exploded in recent years, and the new study, some experts say, should be made public as soon as possible, to identify men who claim to be “just looking at pictures” but could, in fact, be predators.

The psychologists who conducted the new study, Andres E. Hernandez and Michael L. Bourke, focused on 155 male inmates who had volunteered to be treated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, according to a draft of the paper obtained by The New York Times from outside experts who want the study published. The Butner clinic is the only residential program devoted to the treatment of sexual offenders in the federal prison system. The inmates in the study were all serving sentences for possession or distribution of child pornography.

About every six months as part of an 18-month treatment program, they filled out a record of their sexual history, including a “victims list” tallying their previous victims of abuse. Therapists encouraged the men to be honest as part of their treatment, and the sexual histories were anonymous, according to the paper. The psychologists compared these confessions with the men’s criminal sexual histories at the time of sentencing. More than 85 percent admitted to abusing at least one child, they found, compared with 26 percent who were known to have committed any “hands on” offenses at sentencing. The researchers also counted many more total victims: 1,777, a more than 20-fold increase from the 75 identified when the men were sentenced.

Dr. Hernandez and Dr. Bourke concluded in the paper that “many Internet child pornography offenders may be undetected child molesters.” But they also cautioned that offenders who volunteer for treatment may differ in their behavior from those who do not seek treatment. They submitted the paper to The Journal of Family Violence, a widely read peer-reviewed publication in the field, and it was accepted. In a letter obtained by The Times, dated April 3, Judi Garrett, an official of the Bureau of Prisons, requested that the editors of the journal withdraw the study, because it did not meet “agency approval.”

Miami Archdiocese settles abuse claim against accused Foley priest…

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami has settled a lawsuit in which a former altar boy claimed he was sexually abused by the same priest accused by former Congressman Mark Foley. Read More The lawsuit was not connected to Foley, who resigned in scandal last year.

The unnamed plaintiff claims the Reverend Anthony Mercieca sexually abused him in the 1970s when he was an altar boy at St. James Church in North Miami. http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/newsletter/vol4_iss45.html The accuser, then about 13 years old, said Mercieca molested him in the church's bell tower after a bicycle ride together. The lawsuit had sought more than $10 million in damages. Terms of the settlement were confidential, said the man's attorney, Jeffrey Herman. Mercieca retired to the European island of Malta. His attorney there, Alfred Grech, declined to comment because he was not aware of the settlement or lawsuit.

Foley, a Republican who represented the West Palm Beach area, resigned in September, 2006 after his sexually explicit computer messages to young male Congressional pages surfaced. His lawyer later said Foley was alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a clergyman.

In other news… 

As many as 2,100 newly paroled sex offenders are living illegally near schools and parks under the tough residency requirements passed overwhelmingly by California voters last fall, the state corrections secretary said. Read More The department will give the parolees 45 days to find new homes, a move that could spark renewed conflicts in communities throughout the state as sex offenders seek to comply with the law. Voters passed the Jessica's Law ballot initiative last November with 70 percent approval. It prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park.

A Florida man who had been released from prison early for good behavior was convicted of trying to kill a young mother and leaving her 5-year-old daughter to be eaten alive by alligators in the Everglades. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3387901 Prosecutors said the man, Harrell Braddy, then drove to a section of Interstate 75 in the Everglades known as Alligator Alley and dropped the girl, Quatisha Maycock in the water beside the road. She was alive when alligators bit her on the head and stomach, a medical examiner said.

A Thai immigrant who police say directed them to the body of a 12-year-old Tacoma girl http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/newsletter/vol5_iss44.html pleaded not guilty to charges that he violently raped two other young girls. Read More Authorities say one of the girls -- who is now 19 -- was abducted on her way to school in 2000. The other had lived with him for three years as a teenager.

A judge ruled that an Ohio teenager will be tried as an adult for the death of an 18-month-old boy he is accused of repeatedly swinging against a wall because he was frustrated with the child's toilet training. Read More Derris Smith, 18, the live-in boyfriend of the child's mother, has been charged with murder. He was 17 on June 27, when authorities say he delivered the beating that led to Malakai Glenn's death four days later. The boy's mother, 20-year-old Sasha Glenn, testified Wednesday that the impact of the child hitting the wall left drywall stuck to his head and cracked a wooden door.

Newsweek has a feature story on groundbreaking memory research that finds that young children are actually less likely to develop “false memories” than older teens or adults. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19814019/site/newsweek/ The studies find adults often classify new memories by gist as opposed to actual details, challenging the notion that an adult’s memory is more accurate, and hence more trustworthy than that of a very young child.

Four Moldovan teenagers testified that a wealthy American motel owner tried to seduce them, sometimes with invitations to play a children's game in the boarding house where he was staying. Read More Anthony Mark Bianchi is on trial this week under a 2003 law designed to thwart "sex tourism" by trying suspected overseas child predators in U.S. courts. Bianchi has been accused of assaulting nearly a dozen minors abroad. Eight boys from Moldova have been brought to the United States to testify, and two others from Romania are scheduled to come, prosecutors say.

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