CH 8 Introduction

CHAPTER 8 [Introduction]

[Page 229]

"Ann knows from personal experience. Her children were molested not once, but twice. Both times by men [patient 1 and patient 2] who were treated ... [at the clinic]. There were others like them. When a patient ... [patient 3] sexually abused three boys. While an outpatient [patient 4] allegedly molests a 9-year-old girl. Former [patient 5] is convicted for having sexual relations with boys, ages 7 to 13. While in treatment ... [patients 6 and 7] sexually abused three boys ... [patient 8] accosts and molests seven women in what the paper called bizarre spree. A convicted child abuser, ... [patient 9] takes two pre-targeted boys with him to the ... [clinic]. While he is in therapy, they drive his car into the wall of the hospital ... [patient 9] was later charged with molesting two boys,"
(from a television series, quoted in Berlin and Malin, 1991, p. 1573)

Berlin and Malin did not like this sort of media coverage of their clients at the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic. Television took an interest at a time when a well-known public figure had referred himself there for treatment. Of the nine apparently recidivist offenders that were described in the programme, the "truth" of their "re-offending" did not always match what was claimed by the series:

	Two were reconvictions while under treatment
	Three had avoided or resisted therapy
	One was mentally incompetent to stand trial
	One had sprayed women with paint but with no sexual assault
	One was not accused of having genital contact by the boys involved
	One took the boys to the clinic for evaluation at the clinic's request, although his re-arrest was not unexpected

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The "misrepresentation" can be illustrated by the case of a patient who was a homosexual paedophile. According to Berlin and Malin, the programme failed to reveal that his "recidivism" occurred when one of the three boys put debris into the offender's trousers when he refused to give them motor scooter rides; he put debris down their trousers in retaliation. None of the boys alleged any genital contact despite the man's history of fondling boys sitting on his scooter. At a parent-teacher association meeting, a parent had announced that there was a convicted molester living locally, which led to a police investigation. Taking his lawyer's advice into account, the patient pleaded guilty to a minor offence against the boys.

Despite Berlin and Malin's defence of the crime, some might be inclined to regard the man as being at an early stage of his re-offending cycle -- exhibiting the pattern that had previously led to abuse.

Similarly, the paint-throwing incident involving another of the patients may not be quite the non-sexual assault that Berlin and Malin claim it to be. They neglect that some clinicians argue that there may be serious sexual underpinnings to apparently non-sexual offences -- including physical assaults on women (Revitch and Schlesinger, 1988).

The clinic's overall criminal recidivism rates for exhibitionists, paedophiles and sexual attackers of women treated at the clinic was actually quite good (less that 10%) and only 3% for paedophiles who cooperated fully in treatment:

"Biased media presentations that focus only on treatment failures, sometimes in a less than fully informed fashion, do a disservice to patients, mental health workers, and society at large."
(Berlin and Malin, 1991, p. 1576)

But who is to blame? It is easy to suggest the media but this ignores important aspects of how paedophilia was created as part of a major social issue.

Did the media invent

	the slogans of the child abuse debate;
	the idea that sex offenders are never cured;
	the idea that sex offenders are difficult to treat;
	that paedophiles lie, deceive and cheat;
	the ideas of the paedophile ring and satanic abuse;
	the idea that children never lie;
	ritual abuse;
	and the idea that paedophiles are violent?

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Most of these are drawn directly from the public claims of child protection workers. Imagine, for now, what impression is created by the following, which combines a simplistic critique of the role of the media with sloganistic view of child abuse:

"Our national preoccupation with sex, particularly as reflected in the print and electronic media, cannot be overlooked as contributing to an 'ecology of deviance' that heightens the vulnerability of children to sexual assault and increases the prevalence of adolescent child bearing and child rearing. Parenthetically, I consider any sexual overtures made to children by adults, whether violent or flatteringly persuasive, as human sexual aggression. For me to think otherwise would be to accept the premise that children are the aggressors in their own victimization."
(Green, 1988, p. 402)

Rhetorically, Green blames the media for everything from sexual assault to teenage pregnancies. Such a diffuse target is little other than a vehicle for a moral outcry inappropriate to a serious academic publication. After all, just a few years earlier, it was possible for another serious academic review of child victims to conclude:

"Without doubt, the child victim's own behaviour often plays a considerable part in initiating and maintaining a pedophiliac crime. However, when we speak about victimological aspects in pedophiliac acts of children who are 'precipitating' or 'participating' , it is important to bear in mind that they do not necessarily always view the pedophiliac acts in the same sexual way as the adults ... These acts can often seem to them something exciting, an expression of their stimulus-seeking behaviour, or a way to establish relationships with adults."
(Virkunnen, 1981, pp. 130-131)