Youth abusers often past victims says study

By CATHERINE MASTERS

About 40 per cent of youth sex offenders are themselves abuse victims, says a survey.

Hundreds of adolescent New Zealanders have been treated for violent acts of sexual abuse against younger siblings, relatives and sometimes child strangers.

The country's first study into the behaviour and backgrounds of young sex offenders found that 39.4 per cent of the 482 males surveyed had been sexually abused and 43.8 per cent physically abused. Nearly 70 per cent came from broken homes.

About 40 per cent of victims were under 6 years old, and most were related to or knew the offender.

Many offenders had multiple victims.

Although the total number of victims came to 1416, the psychologist heading the five-year study, Dr Ian Lambie of Auckland University, said there were likely to be many more victims.

The number of offenders was also likely to be much higher. The ones in the study were only those who had been caught and sent for treatment.

Dr Lambie said the study showed a link between being sexually abused and going on to abuse.

But it also showed many adolescents who were sexually offending had not been abused, and therefore were abusing for other reasons.

The offending was serious, he said.

"It's quite intrusive and quite violent offending where they are raping and sodomising, and they're also using force as part of the offending behaviour."

The youths had often been traumatised in their family life and had not been taught boundaries about appropriate behaviour.

"A lot of our kids have been rejected by their parents. There's a lot of family break-ups, a lot of family abuse, violence.

"You're in an environment like that where there are poor boundaries and your idea about what's wrong goes out the back door."

Society needed to look at how young boys were taught to treat people - especially women - and to look at the highly sexual imagery on television and in magazines that contributed to the problem.

Dr Lambie said internet pornography was set to become a major "can of worms" with adolescent offenders, but even some of the near-naked pictures in women's magazines and underwear catalogues fed inappropriate fantasies.

"For a young 13-year-old who sees a pair of breasts in a magazine like that, that's enough to arouse his interest . . .

"There are certainly kids in our programme who have got off on that, and lingerie magazines, you know, Farmers magazines, where they advertise women in bras and that sort of stuff."

John McCarthy, director of Auckland's Safe treatment programme, said the adolescents and children in the study represented "the tip of the tip of the tip" of the iceberg, and were only the ones at the serious end of offending who had been caught.

Adolescents were carrying out an "enormous amount" of inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Effective treatment was available and the offenders involved should not be turned into monsters.

Society needed to look at why families broke down and the effect on children, he said. The plight of fatherless children needed extra attention.

In session after session, young offenders lamented not knowing who their father was, or knowing him but having no contact with him.

"Now how in God's name do you develop into a responsible adult male when you're not surrounded by responsible adult males or you don't have one decent relationship with a responsible adult male in your life?"

Mr McCarthy also said society had to take it seriously when young people began to misbehave.

Safe had children as young as 10 on its programme, and there could be even younger children who were offending.

"These kids are committing forcible, violent, manipulative sexual acts on other younger children.

"Let's not minimise that. Let's look the problem squarely in the eye and get these kids some help."