What is child abuse? Good question. An abused child is any one who is afraid. Afraid of being hit, degraded, touched in ways they should not be touched. An abused child is one who is called an idiot, worthless, or just feels unwanted. Do you ignore your child when they speak? Does your child crimge when you raise your hand? Is your child fearful of you, your spouse or a relative? Then it is very possible that child has been or is being abused by that person.

I have found some sites that give proof that child abuse is a booming business now :s( These following quotes come directly from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Warning some of these may make you stop, think and maybe even cry.
"According to data compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of sex offenders jumped 300 percent between 1980 and 1994. In 1994, there were approximately 234,000 sex offenders under the care, custody or control of corrections agencies - 60 percent under conditional supervision in the community - on any given day."

"The FBI, directed by the Lychner Act to register sex offenders and to notify communities in States lacking "minimally sufficient" programs, used fugitive statistics from four California field divisions (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento) and information on noncompliant sex offenders from the State's Department of Justice to study the assignment's impact on its resources. The study found that, if the FBI were made responsible for administering California's program, every agent working in the four divisions at the time of the study would have to be assigned full-time just to track down sex offenders who failed to register as required."

"Mr. Lawrence Greenfeld, principal deputy director of BJS, recently conducted a study of imprisoned offenders whose victims were children under age 18. Utilizing BJS's National Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities, a self-report survey conducted among nearly 14,000 State prisoners every 5 years, he learned something from incarcerated sex offenders that, to our knowledge, had never been reported anywhere before. Two-thirds of all offenders serving time in State prisons for rape or sexual assault had a victim under age 18.

Since there are an estimated 95,000 sex offenders in State prisons today, well over 60,000 most likely committed their violent sex crime against a child under age 18. This finding is consistent with BJS data on rape from 12 States- which did not include sexual assault and was limited to female victims that showed more than half the victims were under 18.

What is even more shocking is that for the majority of these prisoners serving time for violent sex crimes against children, their victims were age 12 and under. This really makes the case
as to why this type of information needs to be collected at the incident level. BJS repeatedly emphasizes that there are few things more important for police departments to record about
crime than basic information on the victimization of children, especially young children. "

"--------------------------------------------
Characteristics of offenses against children
--------------------------------------------

*An estimated 18.6% of inmates serving time in State prisons in 1991 for violent crimes, or about 61,000 offenders nationwide, had been convicted of a crime against a victim under age 18.

*1 in 5 violent offenders serving time in a State prison reported having victimized a child.

*More than half the violent crimes committed against children involved victims age 12 or
younger.

*7 in 10 offenders with child victims reported that they were imprisoned for a rape or sexual
assault.

*Two-thirds of all prisoners convicted of rape or sexual assault had committed their crime against a child.

--------------------------------
Characteristics of the offenders
--------------------------------

*All but 3% of offenders who committed violent crimes against children were male.

*Offenders who had victimized a child were on average 5 years older than the violent offenders
who had committed their crimes against adults. Nearly 25% of child victimizers were age 40 or
older, but about 10% of the inmates with adult victims fell in that age range.

*While nearly 70% of those serving time for violent crimes against children were white, whites
accounted for 40% of those imprisoned for violent crimes against adults.

*Inmates who victimized children were less likely than other inmates to have a prior criminal
record--nearly a third of child-victimizers had never been arrested prior to the current offense,
compared to less than 20% of those who victimized adults.

*Violent child-victimizers were substantially more likely than those with adult victims to have been physically or sexually abused when they were children, though the majority of violent
offenders, regardless of victim age, did not have a history of such abuse.

*About 14% of child victimizers carried a weapon during the violent crime, compared to nearly half of those who victimized adults.

*About 10% of violent offenders with child victims received life or death sentences and the average prison term was 11 years, somewhat shorter average sentences than received by those with adult victims.

------------------------------
Characteristics of the victims
------------------------------

*3 in 10 child victimizers reported that they had committed their crimes against multiple victims;
they were more likely than those who victimized adults to have had multiple victims.

*3 in 4 child victims of violence were female.

*For the vast majority of child-victimizers in State prison, the victim was someone they knew
before the crime:

A third had committed their crime against their own child.

About half had a relationship with the victim as a friend, acquaintance, or relative other than offspring.

About 1 in 7 reported the victim to have been a stranger to them.

*Three-quarters of the violent victimizations of children took place in either the victim's home or
the offender's home.

*4 in 10 child victims of violence suffered either a forcible rape or another injury."

Found in PANdora's Box:

"Finkelhor and Browne (1986) acknowledged that effects of the
molestation may be delayed into adulthood. Long-term effects
that are frequently reported and associated with sexual abuse
include depression, self-destructive behavior, anxiety, feelings
of isolation and stigma, poor self-esteem, difficulty in trusting
others, tendency toward revictimization, substance abuse, and
sexual maladjustment (Courtois & Watts, l982; Finkelhor &
Browne, 1986, Herman & Hirschman, 1977; Tsai & Wagner,
l978)."

Lets try to break some of the forms of abuse down. I will add more information about all of this from time to time. So if you find a web page about any forms of abuse please let me know... I can only hit so many web sites just by looking :s)

Sexual Abuse

Incest:

Incest is one of the forms of abuse I have had to deal with as a child. Incest is when any older family member has sexual relations with a younger family member. Can be a brother, sister, mother, father, aunt, uncle, cousin or grandparent. To me this form of abuse is the most damaging physically. A child who has to deal with this feels dirty, and unloved. How can someone who says they love you hurt you in this way? How can a child ever feel really safe? How do they learn what love really means and that life is a safe place to feel love in its truest form.

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