LJWorld.com

Noah Musser/Special to the Journal-World

It’s easy to find the address and photo of any of the 51 registered child sex offenders in Lawrence.

But it’s more likely that the person with the most potential to prey on a child is someone within a family’s circle of trust.

In the past five years, more than 200 child sexual assaults have been reported to the Lawrence Police Department, according to a Lawrence Journal-World and 6News investigation. In many of the cases, the offender was a relative — parent, uncle, cousin — or someone the family knew well, such as a boyfriend or baby sitter.

“We have this big sex offender registry in our country. Those people in my opinion don’t make up the majority of the risks,” said Yolanda Jackson, a clinical child psychologist and Kansas University associate professor. “In the majority of the cases of sex abuse that we see, the perpetrators are going to be people the child knows, not a random guy who just got out of prison.”

In fact, national statistics show that 85 percent to 95 percent of the time, the offender is someone the child knows.

“It’s not the green monster around the corner. It’s usually the people your child is getting familiar with or has a relationship with,” said Phaedra Wade, social work supervisor for Douglas County Child and Family Services.

Wade’s agency, which is under the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, works with police to investigate many of the sexual assaults reported in Lawrence.

“Sexual abuse is one of those topics that nobody likes to think about,” Wade said. “It touches more lives than a lot of people think.”

As the Journal-World/6News investigation shows, the assaults in Lawrence have occurred in neighborhoods rich and poor — and all over town.

Since 2006, SRS has substantiated 53 instances of child sexual abuse, accounting for 21 percent of the victims reported to the agency.

Of those sexual abuse victims, 75 percent were female and more than 70 percent were between the ages of 5 and 14.

Mostly, the abuse is between a man and a girl, but that’s not always the case. Women can be perpetrators and boys can be victims. Assaults occur to the very young and to those who were just about to reach adulthood.

A devastating crime

Because the perpetrator of a child sexual assault is often someone related to or close to the child, reporting such an offense can turn family dynamics upside down.

“It really is a family problem. Although it seems like something that happens to a child, it really is something that happens to the whole family. And everyone is usually reeling,” said Jackson, the child psychologist.

And families don’t always end the relationship with the person who committed the crime.

In Jackson’s 15 years of work in the field, she can count on one hand the number of times a woman divorced the man who molested her child.

“The majority of moms that I see don’t leave. He’s kicked out for a while, but he comes back,” Jackson said. “And that is what the girls are in therapy for. Every night they go home and the guy who raped them sleeps down the hall.”

Having close ties with the perpetrator also can make it more difficult for a child to come forward. Offenders can spend years grooming their victims, building a secret relationship and threatening them not to tell.

With the abuse comes guilt, shame and fear, said Pam Lawrence, a coordinator of adult and child services for GaDuGi SafeCenter.

In the most severe cases, it’s common for children to wait years before telling anyone, Douglas County chief assistant district attorney Amy McGowan said. The abuse often comes to the surface when the victim is entering adolescence and puberty.

However, since the statue of limitations for rape and sodomy expires five years after the assault occurred, victims sometimes miss their chance at seeking justice.

Regardless of whether there is a court trial, the scars of sexual abuse can last for years, leaving a damaged psyche. Children who are sexually abused and not treated have high rates of emotional and behavioral problems, substance abuse, dropping out of school and teen pregnancy.

“Just about anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” Jackson said. “They are working with parts that are damaged, so they are vulnerable to everything that comes down the pike.”