The existence of sexual feelings toward family members, friends or acquaintances does not signify a problem. However, the act of focusing on and then reinforcing these feelings create a compulsion to carry out sexual contact with another, including children and negates one’s sense of discipline and self-control. Thus, forming an arousal pattern. To act on this arousal pattern and the impulse the person has created, the person insidiously justifies his/her behavior to him/herself.

According to Finkelhor (Finkelhor, 1984; Araji and Finkelhor, 1985) there are four components that contribute, in differing degrees and forms, to the development of a child molester’s behavior. To explain the diversity of behavior of sexual abusers, there are four factors in a complementary process. These four factors are sexual arousal, emotional congruence, blockage, and disinhibition:

Sexual arousal: In order for an adult to be aroused by a child, there has frequently been cultural or familial conditioning to sexual activity with children: such as corporal punishment and/or sexual child abuse. The most recent study reveals approximately 50% of all Sex offenders were victims of sexual assault (Smith & Israel, 1987; Johnson, 1988; Longo, 1982; Seabrook, 1990). 70% of child Sex offenders have between 1 and 9 victims; at least 20% have 10 to 40 victims. Serial child Sex offenders may have as many as 400 victims in a lifetime. Elliott, M., Browne, K., & Kilcoyne, J. (1995). Child sexual abuse prevention: What offenders tell us. Child Abuse & Neglect, 5, 579-594.

In my work with Sex offenders in recovery the statistics reveal 85% of Sex offenders were sexually abused as children. Furthermore, corporal punishment triggers sexual stimulation, thus inducing sexual arousal. As adults these corporal punishment and/or sexual abuse survivors use sexual contact to ward off the internal emotional pain caused by the sexual and/or physical punishment. It is a case of doing to others what was done to them. The acorn does not fall far from the tree. This explanation merely explains the behavior not condone it.

Accurate sexual child abuse statistics are difficult to obtain. Different definitions of sexual abuse and SexSex will result in different statistics. Self-reporting is only accurate if the victim accepts the same definition as defined by the researcher. Even more frustrating is the fact that many survivors do not remember their abuse.

Furthermore the controversy regarding the phenomenon of whether a person can ‘forget’ something as significant as sexual activity has long been debated. The Betrayal trauma theory has most accurately identified the child’s experience. “[The] Betrayal trauma theory suggests that psychogenic amnesia is an adaptive response to childhood abuse. When a parent or other powerful figure violates a fundamental ethic of human relationships, victims may need to remain unaware of the trauma not to reduce suffering but rather to promote survival. Amnesia enables the child to maintain an attachment with a figure vital to survival, development and thriving.” (E. Sue Blume, Secret Survivors)

Emotional congruence: There is comfort in relating to a child and satisfaction of emotional need through the abuse. This is apt to be due to arrested development through limited intelligence, immaturity or low self-esteem.

Blockage: Age appropriate sexual opportunities may be blocked by bad experiences with age appropriate adults, sexual dysfunction, limited social skills, or marital disturbance.

Disinhibition: The abuser may lose control through impulse control deficits, psychosis, alcohol, drugs, stress, or nonexistent family rules-coupled with sexual arousal conditioning.

Finkelhor suggests that examination of these factors can help explain why sexual abusers are predominately male. Rowan, Rowan, and Langelier (1981) studied 600 Sex offender evaluations in New Hampshire and Vermont and found that in only nine cases (1.5 percent) was the perpetrator a woman. These nine incidents are reviewed in terms of Finkelhor’s (1984) four-factor model. In five of the incidents studied, the abuse occurred in conjunction with a dominant male partner; in four, the woman acted independently. The histories of several of the women revealed a history of childhood abuse and all had serious psychological problems or limited intelligence. The victims of the four women who acted independently were male. Of the five women who acted in conjunction with a male, three victimized females, one victimized a male, and one victimized both a son and a daughter.

The authors concluded that none of these incidents were true paraphilics according to the DSM-llI-R but that the female Sex offenders did fit the model proposed by Finkelhor. Understanding what motivates a person to abuse children sexually does NOT excuse him or her, or remove responsibility for the choices he or she has made.

Albeit the perpetrator (sex offender) was abused as a child, he/she is still responsible for his/her adult behavior and for the denial system that allows him/her to continue the abuse. The adult is responsible for protecting the welfare of children; therefore, the adult is responsible for protecting children even from him/herself if necessary.

By: Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD

About the Author:

In everyday news world wide, you could hear a child being molested by a Sex offender. Being a parent, you can not imagine your child can be molested by a Sex offender. This kind of news makes you feel worried about your children. Sad to say 99% of the child who survived from sexually abused by Sex offender knows their assailant.

The Department of Justice made some numerous cases studies about the Sex offender behaviors and characteristic. The Sex offender characteristic and behavior are as follow:

- 80% of children are sexually abused by adult male family member. (Grandparent, uncle, father and step-father usually)
- Worker from corporate executive, doctor, judge, lawyer and unskilled laborer and usually married
- They could easy relate to children
- They like children in a specific age level
- Usually bi-sexual
- Usually make volunteer on program which involve children of their age preference
- Collects and photograph their victim whether Sex* and dresses
- They pursues children to make Sex with them
- They treat or even blackmail the victim

It is parents’ responsibility to protect their children from such Sex offender. Sometimes, Sex offender used to be child molestation survivor. They usually seek children with the same age at which they were sexually abused or molested. Pedophiles usually correspond with other pedophile in exchange of children pornography.

To protect your children, incase you suspect a person who was closed to your children; you can make investigation of that person. Internet can provide different websites which can give you detail of that person such as information if that person has been charge in any lawsuit. Free search services can provide you such information. In such cases, you can easy check the person information including his/her cell phone number and residential address by conducting background checks or checking on its Sex offender records.

You cannot be with your children all the time to protect them. The best way is to tell and give them knowledge about this kind of criminal. With this, your children can detect if they are being target by this Sex offender. Once in a while checking your children activities, including friends even somebody who is extremely closed to your kids is necessary.

By: Maella Ayson

About the Author:

Do you know if you have a Sex offender living in your neighborhood? If you have young children this can be a scary and difficult issue to deal with. Kids tend to roam their neighborhoods and one would be well served to know who is registered as a Sex offender and exactly where those individuals might live in your neighborhood.

There are resources online that can help you pin point these individuals and allow you to determine the safety of your neighborhood.

What is a Sex offender report?
A Sex offender report is usually done within a geographic region such as a zip code. By entering in your zip code you can get a comprehensive report showing all the Sex offenders who are registered in that zip code as well detailed information about their actual convictions.

What’s contained in the report?
If you are paying for a report you would expect comprehensive information about all the individuals who are registered. You would expect to receive basic information such as the offenders name and current address, but you get a lot more information too.

Here’s what you should expect for each convicted individual in your area when you purchase a Sex offender report:
Detailed physical description of the individual, including eye color, tattoos, height, weight and more. Offense Description; including date description and code of the offense Basic victim information such as their Sex and age.
Some Statistics
Over 10 years ago there were over 230,000 Sex offenders under the control of correctional agencies. Sadly, the median age of the victims was less than 13 years old. Of the approximately 10,000 offenders released 5.3% were arrested again for Sex crimes and 40% of these people perpetrated these crimes in their first year after leaving prison.

Information Is Available
Dealing with a criminal convicted of a Sex crime in your neighborhood can be a very touchy topic; if you suspect someone in your neighborhood you can find out if they are registered or even if you have no suspicions arming yourself with the best information possible can help you protect your family.

By: David Finder

About the Author:

As a licensed minister, motivational speaker, and author of several books continuously in the public eye I take my reputation pretty seriously. While temporarily transitioning professionally after just getting married, I sought to take a job as a public school teacher at a local high school. I was immediately hired.

After completing orientation at the local county school board, I was ready begin the following Monday. That is until I received a phone call from the personnel investigator requesting that I appear before him at the local school board for a face to face interview before I commenced work.

Not knowing what this was about, I felt all weekend a bit nervous, like I was going to the principal’s office back in high school. The suspense was eating at me as the investigator refused to talk about the matter over the telephone. To comply with his request, I made the hour-and-a-half drive to the local county school board and appeared to answer his questions.

After the initial greeting and giving my driver’s license to the investigator, he began questioning me. Curiously, he asked if I had ever been to Parkridge, Illinois. I couldn’t say I had, nor had I ever heard about the place (which I was later told was a small suburb of 30,000 people outside of Chicago).

Later I learned that someone bearing my same name and nearly my same birthday (assuming it wasn’t identity theft, which I had experienced with a credit card the last time I stayed in Chicago when passing through for a day) had been arrested for a *** offense.

Knowing assuredly it wasn’t me, I immediately went home and visited the State of Illinois’ website and navigated to the *** offender link. Upon typing in my name, I found three males all who were *** offenders. Thankfully there pictures were also visible, further verifying they were not me. Of course that was a relief.

I immediately phoned the Parkridge Police Department and informed them, asking them to clear my good name. I also printed out the description of these three men along with their photographs and faxed them along with my driver’s license and passport to the Parkridge Police. Detective Ware told me “this is ridiculous” commenting on the fact our images didn’t match, neither our fingerprints.

Yet the FBI file was showing me whenever my social security number was being pulled up. The moral of the story is if you have a common name, or a name that someone else also bears; you may be unpleasantly surprised to find crimes on your criminal FBI report. It was then I realized why for over 2 years whenever Homeland Security and the U.S. Government ran background checks on me for high level governmental jobs, it was taking so long.

Thankfully I now am working through this and correcting the inaccuracies on record.

For God sake before you judge a person, do some thorough research and know the facts. Unfortunately investigator Chandler who did my background check for Homeland Security in 2007 told me that most likely few agencies or employers will be diligently enough to actually check and verify the records, and tend to believe whatever they pull up.

Hence it is worth you knowing what is on your record and quickly correcting it if there are any inaccuracies whatsoever.

By: Paul Davis

About the Author: