Innocence Lost: Educator Sexual Misconduct and the Epidemic of Sexually Victimized Students

Introduction

The abuse of students by educators in the United States is not a new phenomenon; however, the empirical literature has not kept pace with the incidence and prevalence of the problem frequently portrayed in popular press and national news media. The present chapter provides a review of the extant literature on educator sexual abuse highlighting prevalence estimates, as well as offender, victim, and incident characteristics. Victims of educator sexual abuse are in many respects invisible victims. Their abuse is perpetrated by adult members of the community placed in a position of trust by victims, their parents/guardians, and the school, creating an atmosphere where the abuse may be more difficult to detect and victims may be less likely to report (Moulden et al., 2010). An important step in ending victim invisibility is making the perpetrators, their modus operandi, and their offenses known, drawing attention to all aspects of the offense, and subsequently bringing the invisible victims and their experiences out of the shadows and into the light.

While the abuse of children is frequently viewed with disdain and contempt, the occurrence of child victimization persists with incidents of child maltreatment uncovered often (Kim & Drake, 2019). Understanding child abuse originates in many forms occurring across a spectrum of physical, psychological, and sexually abusive behaviors has galvanized researchers, practitioners, and policymakers for more than a century. For example, some of the earliest medical investigations and subsequent publications on child abuse were documented more than 150 years ago by French forensic pathologist, Ambroise Tardieu, in 1860 (Krugman & Korbin, 2013). These early works provided a foundation for Kempe, Silverman, Steele, Droegemueller, & Silver’s, (1962) seminal publication 100 years later titled, “The Battered-Child Syndrome,” in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The sexual abuse of children has received considerable attention and is well-rooted in a vast body of empirical literature (see Tallon & Terry, 2004). Child sexual abuse prevalence estimates range somewhat dramatically throughout the literature due to frequently unique and differing methodological approaches, definitional inconsistencies, data collection limitations, and significant underreporting. There have been several large-scale studies of abuse providing baseline estimates. For example, Finkelhor, Shattuck, Turner, and Hamby (2014), in a national study surveying youth, found the prior lifetime risk of sexual abuse before age 18 was 26. 6% for females and 5. 1% for males. Finkelhor et al., (2014) conclude the findings of their study confirm many others, suggesting sexual abuse affects a considerable proportion of the youth population. Similarly, Townsend and Rheingold (2013) in their meta-analysis of child sexual abuse, found sufficient consistency across the studies reviewed to support estimates that one in 10 children are sexually abused prior to age 18 (one in 7 females and one in 25 males). Presented in a more population-based context the authors state, “[A]s many as 400,000 babies born in the U. S. this year will be sexually abused before their 18^th birthday…” (p. 21). By any measure or definition, the perpetration of sexual abuse by adults against children/minors is occurring intolerably too often.

Perpetrators of child sexual abuse are present in seemingly every community as evidenced by print, online, and television news media. While we long ago dispelled the myth or notion perpetrators of the worst crimes must somehow be obviously distinguishable from the rest of us, we continue to be astonished, and communities shocked, when the unexpected offender is identified among us. The betrayal of trust is profound and may be especially so when the child sexual abuser is a recognized, respected, and trusted member of society (Moulden et al., 2010).