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	What Can We Learn from the John Jay Studies? By Monica Applewhite Virtus January 17, 2010 http://www.virtus.org/virtus/ UNITED STATES -- Editor's Note: We are pleased to welcome Monica Applewhite, Ph.D as a contributing author. Dr. Applewhite is an expert in standards of care and the dynamics of abuse in educational and religious environments. She has worked extensively with schools, churches, religious communities, and residential treatment facilities both nationally and abroad. By now, most of us have long since realized that sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is not a simple story. We have had no shortage of theories, perspectives, personal accounts, or opinions with respect to how and why the sexual abuse crisis occurred in 2002. This story has generated an enormously rich, deep discussion about our beliefs, our formation, and personal human pathways. None of this, however, replaces or renders irrelevant the role of concrete research into the problem. In 2006, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice asked for and was granted permission by the United States Bishops to conduct further analysis on the data generated during the Nature and Scope study. This additional analysis yielded a number of interesting findings with broad implications for Church Safe Environments as well as for the understanding of sexual abuse and sexual abusers in society as a whole. Some of the significant findings from the further analysis are presented below. Generalists versus Specialists—The majority (56%) of clergy accused of sexual abuse from 1950 to 2002 had one allegation against them, leaving 1,548 with at least two allegations of abuse. Contrary to the prevailing belief that clergy sexual offenders normally have a very specific "type" of victim, the study showed that more than half of the clergy with more than one allegation were "generalists." That is, 855 (55%) of those who abused more than one child, also abused more than one type of child, a significant portion of which abused both girls and boys. Of all clergy who abused more than one child, 693 (45%) only abused children of the same age (plus or minus two years) and gender. Only 2.2% of all clergy who had allegations of abuse fit the profile of a pedophile, which is the sexual preference of prepubescent children. An additional 10.8% fit the profile of an ephebophile, which is the sexual preference for mid-to-late adolescent youths. Patterns that Effect Reporting—Victims of pedophiles and victims of "male-only" offenders were the victims who waited the longest to disclose abuse to the Church, with victims of pedophiles waiting an average of 22 years to report and victims of male-only offenders waiting an average of 19 years. Victims of pedophiles also experienced the longest duration of abusive incidents, with an average of over two years. Another important finding was that pedophilic offenders tended to use relationships with the child's family as a method of grooming and were likely to perpetrate abuse in the child's home. Male-only offenders were more likely to perpetrate serious, invasive sexual abuse than other offenders were. Taken as a whole, the two groups of victims who had the longest duration before disclosure can be identified as (1) young children who were sexually abused over a long period of time by offenders who were close to their families and trusted with the child in the child's own home, and (2) boys who were subjected to severe sexual abuse by offenders who focused on male victims. Persistent Offenders—One of the more startling results from the John Jay analysis is that of all the victims of clergy sexual abuse over a 52-year period, about 3% of the offenders accounted for 25% of the victims. That is, 137 offenders abused approximately 2600 victims. These "persistent offenders" differed in many ways from the majority of clergy who abused. First, of the 1,915 clergy offenders who abused only one victim, the average age at which he committed his first known offense was 41, eleven years after ordination. Of the 540 clerics that abused 4 to 9 different victims, the average age of the cleric was 35, four years after ordination. Finally, of the 137 clerics that abused more than 10 victims, the cleric's average age of first known offense was 30 years old and he normally began abusing during his first year after ordination. There may be moments when we feel weary of addressing the issue of sexual abuse in the Church, or sense that it is time to "move on." Moving forward, we surely must, but we will be well served to advance our initiatives with renewed attention to evidence and analysis that has never before been available. The John Jay College is doing a remarkable job of collecting empirical data and providing invaluable research on behalf of the Church, but it is up to the thinkers from within the Church to determine just what to do with those findings.
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