6 ms·

Citation? What evidence shows that there are enough bad ones? Cherry picked news stories by for-profit media? What if all the good ones packed up and left when

by rgraham 16y ago

Citation? What evidence shows that there are enough bad ones? Cherry picked news stories by for-profit media? What if all the good ones packed up and left when they were treated like predators-to-be?

kenjackson 16y ago
One of the better papers to read is http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/female.htm http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/female.htm It is specifically about lifting the lid on abuse perpetuated by females, and not a "cherry picked" story. Here's a site that is more numbers focused: http://www.yellodyno.com/html/child_molester_stats.html http://www.yellodyno.com/html/child_molester_stats.html Here are some numbers: Nearly all the offenders in sexual assaults reported to law enforcement were male (96%). - Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement, 7/00, NCJ 182990, U.S. Department of Justice Males are reported to be the abusers in 80-95% of cases -Thoringer, D., et al., 1988 All but 3% of offenders who committed violent crimes against children were male. -BJS Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991. The typical offender is male, begins molesting by age 15, engages in a variety of deviant behavior, and molests an average of 117 youngsters, most of whom do not report the offense. -Dr. Gene Abel in a National Institute of Mental Health Study.
- vacri 16y ago
  Where are the stats about male /teachers/ alone with pupils having a worrying level of sexual predation, which is what you claimed.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Here's one about daycare workers: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf Here's a quote based on their data, "In summary this study found that a sexual interest in children is relatively common among male public sector child care workers". Here's another study about educators: http://www.taasa.org/library/pdfs/TAASALibrary142.pdf http://www.taasa.org/library/pdfs/TAASALibrary142.pdf Choice quote, "The vast majority (96%) of the abusers in our study were males". But lets be clear, I'm not saying to ban male daycare teachers at all. I'm just saying I won't send my children to one. And I think the numbers make this very clear as to why one might make this decision. Now clearly you don't think those numbers prove anything and that's fine. Like I said in another post, it's a great arbitrage opportunity for you.
    - potatolicious 16y ago
      Though you're certainly entitled to do whatever you wish re: your child's education and care, I do find your attitude highly disturbing. You are condoning the ostracism and discrimination of an entire gender from an entire field of occupation, and the best comment you can come up with regarding it is hey, maybe people can get some sweet deals from all the male caretakers who will now be working at slave wages just to find work. Imagine if we replaced "male" with "black". Would it seem like such a reasonable position then? Would we be okay with condoning the economic exploitation of blacks by encouraging an uneven employment playing field? So why are we ok with doing this to all men?
    - etherael 16y ago
      http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf This study is mindbogglingly dodgy, if you actually take it seriously I understand your hysteria, but a few thoughts; 1) Basic sanity check, you seriously buy that approximately one in five male workers in public sector child care work diagnose themselves as pedophiles? That's the most absurd up front point that just doesn't stand up to any kind of real world critical thought. 2) The methodology of the study claims that two questions were asked with responses on a likert scale "I am sexually attracted to some children" and "I would have sex with a child if it was certain noone would find out and there would be no punishment" with levels ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. On this seven point scale anything from 4-7 is considered to mean that the person is a pedophile. Children are defined as "before the subject's sixteenth birthday", by this measure someone who was unsure if they found a Britney Spears music video sexually attractive might potentially incriminate themselves as a pedophile. 3) further, the actual responses even by their dodgy methodology doesn't bring up the quoted 20% figure you offer, but these figures; Female childcare workers sexually attracted to some children 2%, Male childcare workers sexually attracted to some children 12%. I would have sex with a child if it was certain noone would find out and there would be no punishment, female 2%, male 4%. By these methods they actually then come to the conclusion "sexual interest in children is relatively common among male public sector child care workers". It is for reasons like these that I as a 31 year old male with no children or criminal history of any kind and an otherwise pronounced protective streak, would if walking down a dark street at night seeing a child crying and alone on the corner by themselves, not just keep on walking but move to the other side of the street. It should be terrifying to parents that this is the rational response for otherwise concerned strangers, but I guess that's more your problem than mine, and you can see how we come to that position by persecutory hysterical media such as the cited "study".
  - oiuhjyftgrdgh 16y ago
    Although I'm sure there are men who have a sexual interest in 5year olds - it is shall we say a rather 'specialized' section of society. However - what proportion of 25year old TAs have a sexual interest in 19year old students? Perhaps we should allow the men to be kindergarten teachers but ban them from being junior professors? Actually in my new lab we got these nice new offices with big heavy doors. We got 'advised' not to be in a room alone with students, then we got 'advised' by the fire dept that we couldn't wedge the doors open - so much advice for one little physics dept.
- aplusbi 16y ago
  You're going to want better (different, rather) citations if you want to justify your claims. None of those citations give reason to be wary of allowing a male teacher to be alone with a student. What are the statistics on the number of men who are pedophiles? Better yet, what are the statistics on the number of male teachers (who are screened before they are hired) who are pedophiles? If there was only one pedophile in the world, and he happened to be male, you could say that 100% of pedophiles are male and so you should never leave a child alone with a man. But that doesn't make sense, does it?
- falcolas 16y ago
  All of your statistics are pointing at society in general, which does not support your statement regarding the subset of male teachers versus female teachers (particularly if you take into account the gender ratios of teachers). These statistics are also in relation to the total number of molesters in the US population, which if my memory serves me (at work, no desire to look up the specifics on my work connection) is less than .01% of the US population. That's a pretty small chance of a random male of being an offender, much less so a male teacher.
- Dove 16y ago
  I didn't follow your links, but I do want to point out that the statistics you mention strike me as the wrong ones. You're discussing how many pedophiles are men, but I want to know how many men are pedophiles. It's like saying that one should always walk on the sidewalk because land mines are always planted in soil. Whether or not that's good advise depends very much on how much I expect to encounter land mines on my travels.
- oiuhjyftgrdgh 16y ago
  That's why we had to get rid of our German professor. Statistically there was a 7.5% risk he would gas the students (6 million Jews/80 Million Germans)
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I get your trying to be cute, but your example is pretty poor. One can reasonably argue that the Germans were either part of or led by the Nazi party. You could argue there hasn't been a gasing in 50 years. You can argue that they occurred in Europe (maybe you're in Europe, but just in case you're not). I can't give you any reassurance like that. I can't say that men with college degrees don't do it. That it hasn't happened in the US. Or has happened at all in the past 10 years or even past week. There doesn't exist an objective measure, that I know of, that I can use to rationally reduce risk. Now I've left this open, and clearly stated "that I know of". If you can show me a key piece of statistical evidence that I've missed that will make this clear, I'd be happy to see it. And I will make an effort to avoid Nazi daycare teachers.
    - oiuhjyftgrdgh 16y ago
      If 99% of abuse is committed by men but 90% is committed by family members - then worrying that a stranger is man is not logical. The point of the article though is that an unofficial blanket ban on male teachers - in case they are abusers - makes as much sense as a ban on Muslim airline pilots, or on Germans in uniform.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        The data I've seen (and cite/quote in previous posts in this thread) show that only 30% are committed by family members. 60% by out of family acquitances, like teachers, coaches, etc... And 10% by strangers.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  You've failed to address the core question, and instead are following a red herring: What are the chances of my child's teacher (of any gender) being a molester? The answer to that, as always is: vanishingly low. So sure, I'm willing to go along with the notion that, in the absurdly improbable case that your child's teacher is a molester, it's probably a man and not a woman. So? Your child is orders of magnitude more likely to be abused by a known family member than by a stranger or known authority figure. You're proposing that we exclude an entire gender from a legitimate profession because of this? If you're that concerned about this tiny, astronomically improbable occurrence, I suggest you also ban your uncles, aunts, and neighbors from visiting - statistically they pose a far graver threat to your child than any teacher. This strikes me as a similar attitude to people refusing to be seated at the front of a plane since, in the case of a crash, people in the back are statistically more likely to survive. This paranoia is fueled with the complete ignorance of the fact that the odds of a commercial airliner crashing is ridiculously low. At least the airline seat paranoid folk aren't harming anyone with their paranoia. Yours however, does.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    The answer isn't vanishingly low. Contrary to popular belief, while family is the single largest group to molest a child it isn't an order of magnitude difference. And to capture just sheer numbers, I've borrowed a quote from Wikipedia: "In North America, for example, approximately 15% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children.[11][12][13] Most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims; approximately 30% are relatives of the child, most often brothers, fathers, uncles or cousins; around 60% are other acquaintances such as 'friends' of the family, babysitters, or neighbors; strangers are the offenders in approximately 10% of child sexual abuse cases.[11] Most child sexual abuse is committed by men; studies show that women commit 14% to 40% of offenses reported against boys and 6% of offenses reported against girls.[11][12][14] Most offenders who sexually abuse prepubescent children are pedophiles,[15][16] although some offenders do not meet the clinical diagnosis standards for pedophilia.[17][18]" If you read my other link there's a study from the UK that notes 20% of studied male daycare workers had a sexual interest in children (maybe selection bias or reporting issues, but no indication that such a problem exists in that data). And regarding harming someone, I'm an incremental customer. My choice does no more harm than someone else's incremental choice to not fly at all due to "irrational fears" or not solicit a certain neighborhood bar due to "irrational fears". I just can't look at this data and see what you see. I'm sorry. I really wish I could see things your way. Honestly I do. But I can't seem to find a way to slice the data that gives me the warm fuzzies you have. And at the end of the day I'm not going to place my child in a situation that I'm weary of in order to make other people feel good.
- johngalt 16y ago
  1. Abuse > molestation. A woman can still horribly harm your child without sexual assault. 2. Regarding Mr. Abels quote, I think you'll find that female abusers go unreported more often precisely because of this bias. 3. Do you also avoid black people? Statistically they are much more likely to be criminals. So you only allow your family to be around white people right? Do you feel safer that way?
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Do you also avoid black people? Statistically they are much more likely to be criminals. So you only allow your family to be around white people right? Do you feel safer that way? This is an excellent question. Do I avoid Black people? Honestly, there are some Black people I do avoid. The difference between "Black people" == criminals and male childcare workers == pedophile, is my ability to differentiate when I think those equalities are true in a specific instance. The majority of crime by Blacks fits into a subset of the Black population that is distinguishable by a variety of factors. Not perfectly (not near perfectly), but close enough that I don't roll through certain areas of Detroit or BMore at 2am. I work with Blacks on the job, and they're no more likely to commit crime than Whites. I seriously wish the same could be said of pedophiles. Seriously, I'd pay money for that ability. I don't have that ability or insight. If someone else does, more power to them, I'd love to know what you know.

by rgraham 16y ago

Citation? What evidence shows that there are enough bad ones? Cherry picked news stories by for-profit media? What if all the good ones packed up and left when they were treated like predators-to-be?

kenjackson 16y ago

One of the better papers to read is http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/female.htm http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/female.htm It is specifically about lifting the lid on abuse perpetuated by females, and not a "cherry picked" story. Here's a site that is more numbers focused: http://www.yellodyno.com/html/child_molester_stats.html http://www.yellodyno.com/html/child_molester_stats.html Here are some numbers: Nearly all the offenders in sexual assaults reported to law enforcement were male (96%). - Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement, 7/00, NCJ 182990, U.S. Department of Justice Males are reported to be the abusers in 80-95% of cases -Thoringer, D., et al., 1988 All but 3% of offenders who committed violent crimes against children were male. -BJS Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991. The typical offender is male, begins molesting by age 15, engages in a variety of deviant behavior, and molests an average of 117 youngsters, most of whom do not report the offense. -Dr. Gene Abel in a National Institute of Mental Health Study.

vacri 16y ago
Where are the stats about male /teachers/ alone with pupils having a worrying level of sexual predation, which is what you claimed.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Here's one about daycare workers: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf Here's a quote based on their data, "In summary this study found that a sexual interest in children is relatively common among male public sector child care workers". Here's another study about educators: http://www.taasa.org/library/pdfs/TAASALibrary142.pdf http://www.taasa.org/library/pdfs/TAASALibrary142.pdf Choice quote, "The vast majority (96%) of the abusers in our study were males". But lets be clear, I'm not saying to ban male daycare teachers at all. I'm just saying I won't send my children to one. And I think the numbers make this very clear as to why one might make this decision. Now clearly you don't think those numbers prove anything and that's fine. Like I said in another post, it's a great arbitrage opportunity for you.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    Though you're certainly entitled to do whatever you wish re: your child's education and care, I do find your attitude highly disturbing. You are condoning the ostracism and discrimination of an entire gender from an entire field of occupation, and the best comment you can come up with regarding it is hey, maybe people can get some sweet deals from all the male caretakers who will now be working at slave wages just to find work. Imagine if we replaced "male" with "black". Would it seem like such a reasonable position then? Would we be okay with condoning the economic exploitation of blacks by encouraging an uneven employment playing field? So why are we ok with doing this to all men?
  - etherael 16y ago
    http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf This study is mindbogglingly dodgy, if you actually take it seriously I understand your hysteria, but a few thoughts; 1) Basic sanity check, you seriously buy that approximately one in five male workers in public sector child care work diagnose themselves as pedophiles? That's the most absurd up front point that just doesn't stand up to any kind of real world critical thought. 2) The methodology of the study claims that two questions were asked with responses on a likert scale "I am sexually attracted to some children" and "I would have sex with a child if it was certain noone would find out and there would be no punishment" with levels ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. On this seven point scale anything from 4-7 is considered to mean that the person is a pedophile. Children are defined as "before the subject's sixteenth birthday", by this measure someone who was unsure if they found a Britney Spears music video sexually attractive might potentially incriminate themselves as a pedophile. 3) further, the actual responses even by their dodgy methodology doesn't bring up the quoted 20% figure you offer, but these figures; Female childcare workers sexually attracted to some children 2%, Male childcare workers sexually attracted to some children 12%. I would have sex with a child if it was certain noone would find out and there would be no punishment, female 2%, male 4%. By these methods they actually then come to the conclusion "sexual interest in children is relatively common among male public sector child care workers". It is for reasons like these that I as a 31 year old male with no children or criminal history of any kind and an otherwise pronounced protective streak, would if walking down a dark street at night seeing a child crying and alone on the corner by themselves, not just keep on walking but move to the other side of the street. It should be terrifying to parents that this is the rational response for otherwise concerned strangers, but I guess that's more your problem than mine, and you can see how we come to that position by persecutory hysterical media such as the cited "study".
- oiuhjyftgrdgh 16y ago
  Although I'm sure there are men who have a sexual interest in 5year olds - it is shall we say a rather 'specialized' section of society. However - what proportion of 25year old TAs have a sexual interest in 19year old students? Perhaps we should allow the men to be kindergarten teachers but ban them from being junior professors? Actually in my new lab we got these nice new offices with big heavy doors. We got 'advised' not to be in a room alone with students, then we got 'advised' by the fire dept that we couldn't wedge the doors open - so much advice for one little physics dept.
aplusbi 16y ago
You're going to want better (different, rather) citations if you want to justify your claims. None of those citations give reason to be wary of allowing a male teacher to be alone with a student. What are the statistics on the number of men who are pedophiles? Better yet, what are the statistics on the number of male teachers (who are screened before they are hired) who are pedophiles? If there was only one pedophile in the world, and he happened to be male, you could say that 100% of pedophiles are male and so you should never leave a child alone with a man. But that doesn't make sense, does it?
falcolas 16y ago
All of your statistics are pointing at society in general, which does not support your statement regarding the subset of male teachers versus female teachers (particularly if you take into account the gender ratios of teachers). These statistics are also in relation to the total number of molesters in the US population, which if my memory serves me (at work, no desire to look up the specifics on my work connection) is less than .01% of the US population. That's a pretty small chance of a random male of being an offender, much less so a male teacher.
Dove 16y ago
I didn't follow your links, but I do want to point out that the statistics you mention strike me as the wrong ones. You're discussing how many pedophiles are men, but I want to know how many men are pedophiles. It's like saying that one should always walk on the sidewalk because land mines are always planted in soil. Whether or not that's good advise depends very much on how much I expect to encounter land mines on my travels.
oiuhjyftgrdgh 16y ago
That's why we had to get rid of our German professor. Statistically there was a 7.5% risk he would gas the students (6 million Jews/80 Million Germans)
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I get your trying to be cute, but your example is pretty poor. One can reasonably argue that the Germans were either part of or led by the Nazi party. You could argue there hasn't been a gasing in 50 years. You can argue that they occurred in Europe (maybe you're in Europe, but just in case you're not). I can't give you any reassurance like that. I can't say that men with college degrees don't do it. That it hasn't happened in the US. Or has happened at all in the past 10 years or even past week. There doesn't exist an objective measure, that I know of, that I can use to rationally reduce risk. Now I've left this open, and clearly stated "that I know of". If you can show me a key piece of statistical evidence that I've missed that will make this clear, I'd be happy to see it. And I will make an effort to avoid Nazi daycare teachers.
  - oiuhjyftgrdgh 16y ago
    If 99% of abuse is committed by men but 90% is committed by family members - then worrying that a stranger is man is not logical. The point of the article though is that an unofficial blanket ban on male teachers - in case they are abusers - makes as much sense as a ban on Muslim airline pilots, or on Germans in uniform.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      The data I've seen (and cite/quote in previous posts in this thread) show that only 30% are committed by family members. 60% by out of family acquitances, like teachers, coaches, etc... And 10% by strangers.
potatolicious 16y ago
You've failed to address the core question, and instead are following a red herring: What are the chances of my child's teacher (of any gender) being a molester? The answer to that, as always is: vanishingly low. So sure, I'm willing to go along with the notion that, in the absurdly improbable case that your child's teacher is a molester, it's probably a man and not a woman. So? Your child is orders of magnitude more likely to be abused by a known family member than by a stranger or known authority figure. You're proposing that we exclude an entire gender from a legitimate profession because of this? If you're that concerned about this tiny, astronomically improbable occurrence, I suggest you also ban your uncles, aunts, and neighbors from visiting - statistically they pose a far graver threat to your child than any teacher. This strikes me as a similar attitude to people refusing to be seated at the front of a plane since, in the case of a crash, people in the back are statistically more likely to survive. This paranoia is fueled with the complete ignorance of the fact that the odds of a commercial airliner crashing is ridiculously low. At least the airline seat paranoid folk aren't harming anyone with their paranoia. Yours however, does.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  The answer isn't vanishingly low. Contrary to popular belief, while family is the single largest group to molest a child it isn't an order of magnitude difference. And to capture just sheer numbers, I've borrowed a quote from Wikipedia: "In North America, for example, approximately 15% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children.[11][12][13] Most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims; approximately 30% are relatives of the child, most often brothers, fathers, uncles or cousins; around 60% are other acquaintances such as 'friends' of the family, babysitters, or neighbors; strangers are the offenders in approximately 10% of child sexual abuse cases.[11] Most child sexual abuse is committed by men; studies show that women commit 14% to 40% of offenses reported against boys and 6% of offenses reported against girls.[11][12][14] Most offenders who sexually abuse prepubescent children are pedophiles,[15][16] although some offenders do not meet the clinical diagnosis standards for pedophilia.[17][18]" If you read my other link there's a study from the UK that notes 20% of studied male daycare workers had a sexual interest in children (maybe selection bias or reporting issues, but no indication that such a problem exists in that data). And regarding harming someone, I'm an incremental customer. My choice does no more harm than someone else's incremental choice to not fly at all due to "irrational fears" or not solicit a certain neighborhood bar due to "irrational fears". I just can't look at this data and see what you see. I'm sorry. I really wish I could see things your way. Honestly I do. But I can't seem to find a way to slice the data that gives me the warm fuzzies you have. And at the end of the day I'm not going to place my child in a situation that I'm weary of in order to make other people feel good.
johngalt 16y ago
1. Abuse > molestation. A woman can still horribly harm your child without sexual assault. 2. Regarding Mr. Abels quote, I think you'll find that female abusers go unreported more often precisely because of this bias. 3. Do you also avoid black people? Statistically they are much more likely to be criminals. So you only allow your family to be around white people right? Do you feel safer that way?
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Do you also avoid black people? Statistically they are much more likely to be criminals. So you only allow your family to be around white people right? Do you feel safer that way? This is an excellent question. Do I avoid Black people? Honestly, there are some Black people I do avoid. The difference between "Black people" == criminals and male childcare workers == pedophile, is my ability to differentiate when I think those equalities are true in a specific instance. The majority of crime by Blacks fits into a subset of the Black population that is distinguishable by a variety of factors. Not perfectly (not near perfectly), but close enough that I don't roll through certain areas of Detroit or BMore at 2am. I work with Blacks on the job, and they're no more likely to commit crime than Whites. I seriously wish the same could be said of pedophiles. Seriously, I'd pay money for that ability. I don't have that ability or insight. If someone else does, more power to them, I'd love to know what you know.