Most Victims of Sex Crimes Are Children, Report Says

Two-thirds of sex offenders in state prisons attacked children, and a third of these victims were offspring or stepchildren of their attackers, the Justice Department said Sunday.

The report, based on the largest survey ever of state prison inmates, said children younger than 18 bear the brunt of sex offenses and that child molesting remains a crime most often committed by relatives and acquaintances rather than strangers.

The department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that state prisons held 43,552 inmates in 1991 who raped or sexually assaulted children younger than 18. That represents 65.5% of the estimated 66,482 state inmates convicted of rape or sexual assault. The study was based on interviews with 14,000 inmates at 277 prisons in 45 states during 1991.

“This high rate of child victims is behind the heightened concern and the growing number of states passing laws that provide for notifying neighborhoods when sexual predators move in,” said David Beatty, acting executive director of the National Victims Center, a private advocacy group in Arlington, Va.

The study found that more than half the child victims were 12 or younger. Among all child victims of violence, three-fourths were female.

A third of child molesters had attacked their own child or stepchild. Another half of the molesters were a friend, acquaintance or more-distant relative. Only 1 in 7 molested a child who was a stranger.