Juvenile
sex offenses are serious offenses. The consequences can be extremely
serious. A convicted juvenile sex offender could be made to register as
a public sex offender until age 28. The convicted juvenile could be
facing years of confinement as a juvenile and possibly even later as an
adult under the Determinate Sentencing laws. If old enough and the
allegations serious enough, the State could even seek certification of
the juvenile to be charged as an adult and transfer proceedings to
criminal district court.
According to an article by Cindy Horswell printed in the April 21, 2012 edition of the Houston Chronicle (see below), juvenile sex offenses are on the rise.
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Sex crimes by juvenile offenders on the rise
In Harris County, those offenses are up 17%, while others are rapidly declining
By Cindy Horswell
Last fall, a Houston mother grew perplexed as to why her 8-year-old son was constantly crying and having trouble sleeping.
Then
she received a phone call from a Houston policeman, who informed her
that a surveillance camera had captured her son being sexually assaulted
by two 10-year-old classmates on the school bus. The two older boys are
set for a hearing on the assault in May.
Two more boys, ages 10
and 11, also are awaiting trial on accusations that they sexually
assaulted an 8-year-old boy at a shelter for immigrant children in north
Houston.
Similarly, six juveniles— including one middle school
student— were accused of being among the 20 boys and men who gang-raped
an 11-year-old girl in Cleveland in 2010.
Five of those juveniles have since admitted their guilt.
In
the last five years, the number of juveniles committing sexual assaults
has increased 17 percent in Harris County while most other major
juvenile crimes have shown significant declines, probation records show.
Reasons not clear
Sex
offenses climbed from 121 to 142 during that period, while other
violent juvenile crimes such as murder and robbery declined, dropping by
28 percent and 24 percent.
Terrance Windham, chief of the
juvenile division of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, is
unsure what’s provoking the rise in sex offenses. But in such a highly
sexualized media world, where pornography is an Internet click away and
MTV shows and music videos glamorize risky youth behaviors, Windham
isn’t surprised, either. “When I was growing up, kids didn’t have the
kind of access to what they do now,” he said.
Two therapists
certified to treat juvenile sex offenders in Harris County, Robert
McLaughlin and Ramon Alvarez, say the vast majority of the youths they
treat have been exposed to pornography at an early age— sometimes as
young as 7 years old.
Alvarez recalled treating one 7-year-old who
was accidentally exposed to a porn star who popped up on the Internet
when his mother typed in the word “Disney.”
“It stuck inhis head
and then he later, trying to copy it, got into trouble with wrongful
touching while playing with a neighbor’s child,” Alvarez said. “These
days youdon’t have to seek out porn. It seeks you.”
But since most
juveniles often have some exposure to porn, McLaughlin said it’s
difficult to show any clear linkage to sexual assaults because not
everyone will react aggressively to it.
Yet he and Alvarez believe
some youths may be more vulnerable when exposed at a very early age,
before puberty when their brain is still developing.
“Those who
act out sexually may have more trouble with impulse regulation or
anticipating consequences. They want to experiment,” McLaughlin said.
‘Real red flag’
Harris
County juvenile court judge Mike Schneider said the juvenile sex
offenders who attack strangers are rare and that would be a “real red
flag” of a predator type.
“Usually, the perpetrator has had a relationship with the victim, such as a cousin, sibling or friend,” he said.
The
U.S. Justice Department says 36 percent of sex crimes against children
are committed by other children. Five percent of all sex offenders are
younger than 9, and 16 percent are younger than 12, records show.
One
of the latest studies disputes the stereotype that juvenile sex
offenders are like the typical young delinquent who comes from a broken
home with a criminal history, poor attitude, lacking social skills and
substance abuse problems.
“Rather, our review of thousands of
cases found juveniles who committed sex crimes were overall much less
antisocial than those committing other offenses,” said Michael Seto, one
of the foremost authorities on adolescent sex offenders, who coauthored
the study.
Seto, with the Royal Ottawa Healthy Care Group in
Canada, found the average sex offender was generally a socially isolated
individual who had developed an “atypical” interest in sex (from
coercion to incest), been abused sexually and exposed early to
pornography.
“The single biggest surprise to me from this study
was how incredibly young the first exposure was to porn. Now we’re
talking about hard-core porn with fetish content and unusual stuff being
exposed to elementary students,” he said, adding that more research is
needed into the role porn plays.
The good news, according to therapists, is that early intervention is effective with children.
After
treatment, the recidivism rate averages 14 percent nationally for
adolescent sex offenders, compared to 40 percent for similar adult
offenders.
