Posted by Scott on January 21st, 2012 — Posted in Child Protection
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, juvenile arrest rates in the United States decreased 36 percent between 1996 and 2009. In 2009, there were 5,804 teenage arrests for every 100,000 youths ages 10 through 17 in the United States. This is great news, especially when you couple it with the statistic reporting that all crime in the United States decreased by a little more than 20 percent between 1996 and 2009.
Although the reasons behind this crime decrease are not explicitly stated, I would like to think that the proactive work of our nation’s volunteer youth mentors has played a small role.
When you volunteer as a mentor for at-risk youth, you are providing children with the support they so need and deserve. Everyone needs a good example to follow, and youth mentor programs give children and teenagers the chance to learn by positive example and support.
If you are looking for an opportunity to make an impact in the future of today’s youth, consider volunteering your time and support to an at-risk youth mentoring program. To get you started, I have listed below the names of some well-known mentoring programs in the United States:
1. Big Brothers Big Sisters: This national program pairs one child with a “role model.” This one-on-one relationship is fostered through trust and real friendship. You will visit with your “Little” a few hours a day, a few days per month and give the child the opportunity to do things they enjoy (playing board games, creating crafts, going to a dance class, etc). The goal of this program is to offer the child a new perspective on life and help them realize the potential for life.
2. National Mentoring Partnership: This 23-state mentoring partnership serves as a one-stop shop for information and resources on at-risk youth mentoring opportunities. Each of the individual state mentoring organizations works with a wide range of programs within their state to foster and improve the quality of at-risk youth mentoring.
3. Other Local Programs: Most cities (especially in urban areas) have their own independent volunteer mentor programs. To find these, use an online volunteer search site (like volunteermatch.org). You can also call your local school district to ask them about any programs they may be aware of or involved with.
Be advised that all volunteer mentor programs require all potential volunteers to provide references. One-on-one interviews and background checks are also required before acceptance to the program.
Remember, crime rates may be decreasing, but the need for positive, adult role models will never decline.
Shannon Barnett owns the site Careers in Criminal Justice. In her spare time, she enjoys writing articles for various other sites on many topics of interest.
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Posted by Scott on April 16th, 2008 — Posted in Child Protection
I am currently reading Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex
by Dr. Joycelyn M. Elders. I like it so far.
Anyway, while reading a chapter about censorship today, I was interested by some information. Elders points out that research has found that viewing erotica or pornography does not correlate with antisocial behavior. She goes on to say that researchers have found more evidence of the opposite. She points out studies that have shown that sex criminals tend to have been exposed to pornography less than other kids, and not an earlier age. According to John Money, one of the world’s foremost authorities on sexual abnormalities, the majority of patients with deviant sexual fantasies and behaviors had a strict anti-sexual upbringing in which sex was either never mentioned or was actively repressed and defiled.
Though the facts go against the common perception, they do not surprise me. My intuition tells me that, when a person is made from childhood to repress or feel disgusted by his or her own natural sexuality, it will lead to perversions. Generally, I assume that self-contempt leads to psychological instability. Also, generally, I assume that over-repressing natural and healthy sexuality will often make the interests and desires ooze out in perverted, overwhelming and dangerous ways.
In a silly analogy, imagine if we convinced people from childhood that drinking water is immoral and disgusting and that they are immoral and disgusting for wanting to drink water. That would probably increase violence and social deviance related to drinking water. At the very least, it would drive kids crazy and create crazy adults.
When the goal is protecting children and preventing sexual violence, I think adults need to give uncensored, accurate, factual information to curious children so the children can make healthy decisions then and later in life. The kids need facts not puritanical opinions. I believe censorship and pushing sexual repression on children leaves them ignorant and leads to unhealthy decisions.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on March 27th, 2008 — Posted in Child Protection
I just read a story about a 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness who refused a blood transfusion and died. The boy refused the transfusion on religious grounds. The boy’s legal guardian is also a Jehovah’s Witness.
I have heard some people call it child abuse to allow a kid to refuse needed medical treatment that would save his life. Generally, I feel a 14-year-old boy can make his own decisions. But what about a younger kid? What if an 8 year old refused treatment? Would letting an 8-year-old kid refuse life-saving treatment be considered child abuse?
At what age and in what circumstances do we leave the decision up to the child’s parents or legal guardian? What if the parents disallow a child from getting treatment due to their religious beliefs even when the child wants it? What if the child does not want treatment but his legal guardian does want him to get it?
I do not know the answers. But I think we do need to come up with consistent principles for deciding what qualifies as child abuse and what does not.
Of course, we may want to take care not to spend so much effort worrying about actions that may or may not be child abuse when we could focus on acts that are clear-cut child abuse, such as battery and sexual molestation.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on March 13th, 2008 — Posted in Child Protection
Many questions have come up about what qualifies as child abuse.
For example, some people have advocated making it illegal for parents to smoke cigarettes in a car with a child, at least with the windows down. Namely because of the very harmful health effects of secondhand smoke, some people see it as child abuse to make children secondhand smoke by smoking in a car.
In another example, many people wonder about when it qualifies as child abuse to let a child become morbidly obese. At what point of extremity does neglecting or enabling a child’s unhealthy eating habits become abusive?
I think we have no black and white answer. I think we need to look at the specific situation in any case to determine whether or not that specific case qualifies as child abuse. More importantly, when judging a parents’ relationship with their children, we have to consider the whole relationship. Generally, we can not judge it based solely on one factor such as whether the kid has become obese or whether the parent makes the child secondhand smoke. We also have to look into how else each parent treats their children. The one action may or may not represent a pattern of neglectful or abusive parenting.
I avidly want to stop child abuse, but I also worry about trusting the government to micromanage people’s lives and parenting methods.
What do you think? Do you consider it child abuse to make a child secondhand smoke? Does it qualify as child abuse to let a child become morbidly obese?
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Posted by Scott on March 10th, 2008 — Posted in Child Protection
I just read a frightening and saddening article in which experts explain that parents have a reluctance to report the sexual abuse of children.
The article started with a story about multiple families who had known that a karate instructor sexually abused children more than 10 years before one of his many future victims finally came forward to file a police report.
Of course, it seems frequent that someone who abuses children gets away with it for a while. Of the people who do come forward to press charges, most do not do it until someone else already has.
Experts say that parents of abused children feel a complex set of emotions including self-recrimination, guilt, betrayal and denial. These complex emotions can make the parents reluctant to report the abuse. Also, the parents may worry about the stigma and trouble their child would have to go through.
While I can sympathize with the parents’ feelings in the terrible situation, the reluctance to report child abuse scares me. When victims do not report the abuse, then the abuser will likely continue to abuse others. Reporting the abuse will greatly help protect future victims. For that reason, I think anti-abuse organizations need to find ways to encourage people to report abuse.
At the very least, people can make anonymous tips.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on March 9th, 2008 — Posted in Child Protection
It costs a lot less to prevent violent crime and victimization in the first place than to try to rectify the problem afterwards. Once people have committed an act of violence or victimization, we already have a victim and a victimizer–two major problems.
The people in society have many ways of preventing violence and victimization. Today, I want to stress the usefulness of getting psychological treatment for troubled kids.
Due to abnormal conditions, some normal people may commit a crime of passion. However, the other violent criminals and victimizers have some sort of psychological abnormality that makes them more dangerous than other people. I bet most of those people show signs of trouble long before they become full-fledged violent criminals. Namely, I bet they show signs of behavioral problems and psychological disturbance as kids.
If we provide help to those wayward kids, then we can probably often prevent them from becoming violent criminals or victimizers. We can save both the would-be criminal and the their would-be victims. Otherwise, the wayward kids will end up hurting people, at which point we will have to catch them, stop them, and either rehabilitate them or keep them locked up for life.
Many schools already have some on-site psychologists. But most schools currently have very limited funds and can barely afford up-to-date textbooks let alone psychological care. To prevent future crime, I think the people in society need to make a massive effort to fund psychological resources for kids.
Also, when kids commit crimes, the kids get punished often with jail. But that does not seem to effectively rehabilitate most of them. I believe jail often acts as a crime school; people come out more dangerous than they go in. I would recommend putting the children into required psychological treatment to correct their behavior rather than throwing them in jail or serving other punishments. If the children’s behavior makes them a serious danger to others or themselves, then let’s have them restrained and treated in a medical facility rather than thrown in jails that mostly exacerbate the problem.
Remember, psychologists can find the causes of all sorts of psychological disturbances and provide solutions. Different solutions work for different problems and different kids. Some possible solutions for any given kid include mentoring, education, therapy, medication, and so on and so forth.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on December 14th, 2007 — Posted in Child Protection
I just read an article about an Australian police program called Keeping Me Safe. The program helps teach children how to identify safe people, places, and situations. Additionally, the program will raise awareness about various types of victimization including bullying, harassment, and cybercrime.
From what I read in the article, the program sounds great. I hope to see similar programs used not only throughout all of Australia, but also throughout the world.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on September 6th, 2007 — Posted in Child Protection
RealTruth.org recently published an article about the rising rate of child sexual solicitations on the internet. I include an expert:
Approximately one in seven youth ages 10-17 have received a sexual solicitation on the Internet, according to research published by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Youth.
The study, which compared the online victimization of more than 1,500 young people across the United States from 2000 to 2006, showed an increase in the amount of children’s exposure to sexual material through the Internet in addition to an increased level of online harassment.
“While we strongly believe in the power of the Internet to provide valuable information for those of all ages, we also believe children need extra attention and guidance as they venture online, because they, more than any other group of the population, are most vulnerable to risks found on the Internet,” the report stated.
Generally, I believe the internet gets overrated as a threat to children. Parents need to watch their children, and take responsibility for their children. Blaming the internet for negligent parents who do not monitor their children is like blaming parks for child abductions. Children face threats to their safety everywhere. Parents need to protect children from these threats by monitoring the children and by teaching the children about threats and how to avoid them.
Don’t leave children unsupervised on the internet. If you plan to let children–including teens–go on the internet, make sure you understand it as well as they do. We need to communicate with children and make sure they know how to protect themselves on the internet.
Most children know how to get around filters and parental spyware. The best way to know what your children do on the internet is by having a trusting relationship with them and asking them what they do on the internet.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on August 7th, 2007 — Posted in Child Protection
A recent article on ABC News offers 12 tips for parents to keep their children safe on the internet. I want to highlight 1, 2, 4, and 12:
1. Spend time with your children online. Have them teach you about their favorite online destinations.
2. Talk to your child about sexual victimization and potential online danger. Explain that whatever they are told online may or may not be true.
4. Keep the computer out of your child’s bedroom. Put it in a common room like the kitchen or living room. 5. Do not install webcams. It is dangerous to put images on the Internet.
12. Be mindful of your child receiving phone calls from men you don’t know or making calls, sometimes long distance, to numbers you don’t recognize. Most predators want to talk to the children on the telephone. They often engage in “phone sex” with the children and often seek to set up an actual meeting for real sex.
Some outdated tips still circulate. For example, telling people not to post pictures of themselves on the internet has little point. Posting a normal picture of yourself on the internet, say on your social networking profile, won’t cause any harm. Telling someone not to post one is equivalent to telling a person to wear a bag over their hand when they go out to the store or park.
In today’s world, the internet is becoming a safer version of the real world. Instead of sneaking out to a strange clubs to meet older men, teenage girls go online in the safety of their own home. The difference is that parents may not be familiar with these new internet-based risks as they are of traditional risks.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on August 6th, 2007 — Posted in Child Protection
In a sarcastic article about molestation and sex offender rights, Terry Brown cites a real statistic about child molestation:
“Sexual assaults committed by youth are a growing concern in this country. Currently, it is estimated that adolescents (ages 13 to 17) account for up to one-fifth of all rapes and one-half of all cases of child molestation committed each year.”
This statistic tells you to remember that you have to take care to protect your children from other children as well as adults. For the same reason you would not leave your child alone with an adult you cannot trust, you also do not want to leave your child alone with other children. Additionally, you want to teach your children about sex, and teach them about inappropriate touching. Make sure they know to tell you if anyone touches them in appropriately.
If you suspect someone may have abused your child, get a professional to interview them as quickly as possible, preferably on video tape. The more people that talk to a child about an alleged incident before the child officially reports it, the less reliable the child’s testimony. Many alleged sex offenders get acquitted by claiming that adults may have lead the child, which thus casts reasonable doubt on the reliability of the child’s testimony.
Talk to your children before incidents occur, not after.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on July 21st, 2007 — Posted in Child Protection
Overprotecting children can backfire. If you try to restrict them, they will turn away from you and sneak around, and then you cannot protect them at all.
However, you can easily just keep track of where your children are. Have them call you to check in at a certain time at night or in the evening. If you allow them to stay out all night, make sure they call you by a certain time in the morning. Doing this will help you spot a problem before it happens, or at least limit the time it takes you to spot it. Additionally, the very act of checking in will make your child think about what they are doing and any risks involved.
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Posted by Scott on May 19th, 2007 — Posted in Child Protection
Wltx.com recently reported about protecting your child from a stranger. I include an excerpt:
Like clockwork, hundreds of children pour out of schools on weekday afternoons. So, what if a person waiting outside is not a parent, but rather a predator? Would your child know how to react?
We try to talk about strangers, said Carolyn Beck, who works at the school her 11-year-old son attends. We try to tell him they dont look like the boogey man. They look like anybodys mom and dad.
However, Sergeant Jeff Flanders with the Lexington County Sheriffs Department says parents should do more than talk to their children about dangers. He suggests they role play.
Ill reach out and grab him and say, Youre going to come with me, explained Flanders, showing Becks son how to react to an abductor. Braden is going to start yelling out, This is not my dad. I dont know this person. Turn me loose. Someone please help me. Fire. Fire. Fire.
Read entire article on wltx.com.
I like the idea of yelling fire. The child needs to know to make a scene if a stranger grabs him. Unfortunately, adults teach children to trust adults. Children need to know not to trust all adults, namely strangers.
Of course, most child abductors know the child. Strangers do not commit most of these. Nonetheless, it remains very important for all children to learn not to go with strangers and how to defend themselves when a stranger attempts to abduct them.
What do you think?
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