The Bystander Effect and Child Abuse

[Secular Sanity]

BBC-Story: Child Abuse

^This story really bothered me but something that wasn’t mentioned is the fact that Facebook owns WhatsApp.

After reading it, I thought about what I’d do if I ever encountered a child being abused. If I was physically capable, armed or whatnot, I think I'd react in a similar but even more brutal manner than Charles Martland and Dan Quinn. I don’t think I could contain myself.

"I think everyone believes that they would go in and break that up," Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, said. But while child abuse experts say that catching perpetrators in the act is rare, child abuse goes unreported and uninterrupted more often than not. And given the unexpected nature of seeing a man sexually abusing a child, even well-meaning eyewitnesses might freeze up."

What surprised me the most, though, is that the people with more masculine traits are more likely to do nothing.

"They found that, in particular, highly masculine people were less likely to help, because they may have been more concerned about losing poise, and become embarrassed if their help proved unnecessary. The second reason for audience inhibition to occur is that people may be afraid to be associated with the problem or emergency in a negative way."

Masculinity Inhibits Helping in Emergencies

"The very rarity of the situation may have made it difficult to react, said Peter Ditto, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine, who studies moral decision-making. People often have very strong ideas about what they'd do in a situation — stop the rape, save the child — but crises can cause the mind to freeze, Ditto told LiveScience.

Research on the "bystander effect," the surprising fact that many people will stand by while terrible things happen, suggests that when something horrible occurs, people often go into a kind of denial, thinking that if it were really this bad, somebody else would be stopping it, Ditto said. (Involving other people makes the bystander effect worse, in fact, by diffusing the sense of responsibility to do something.)

"It's that crisis, split-second sort of quality," Ditto said. "Here this thing happens that's almost impossible to believe, and you're paralyzed for a while as to what to do. … In these kinds of crisis situations, delay is tantamount to not helping. Your opportunity is right there, to help, to stop it, and then you delay, you walk out and it's all kind of over."

A 1985 study found that the bystander effect influences people with more masculine personalities the most. In the research, 20 students took part in a group discussion via headphones in which one participant pretended to start choking. Actual gender didn't influence which people called for help, but those whose personalities were higher in stereotypically masculine traits such as "athleticism" and "aggressiveness" were more likely to sit idly by. Reporting in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers speculated that perhaps highly masculine people feared potential embarrassment and "loss of poise" and thus hesitated longer before reacting." 

"While fire drills and emergency simulations can prepare people for disasters and prevent the "freeze" response to a crisis, it's tougher to run through potential scenarios in which you walk in on a respected figure abusing a child, Ditto said.

People misunderstand how ambiguous situations are, just the uncertainty, you don't know quite what's happening," he said. "It's hard to know how to get out of that delay.

Sandusky's reputation probably contributed to the continued silence, Saewyc said.

It would take a remarkably self-confident person to say something, step in and do something." she said."

Child Abuse: Why People So Often Look the Other Way

[C C]

It may sound strange, but the woman who sent me the video was a fellow mum at the school gates. A group of us had set up a WhatsApp group to discuss term dates, uniforms, illnesses. [...] The police had my phone for two weeks. I found out the next day that they arrested the woman who sent it and visited other members of the group.

[...] I checked with ... a lawyer ... to see if any of the things I might normally do to track down people would work. Could I, for example, send former police officers a copy of the video to see if they recognised it? "You could be looking at a prison sentence of 10 years," he told me. Same goes for taking a still and sending that. Just possessing an image like this on my phone could land me in jail.

[...] This hit home late last year when a senior Metropolitan Police officer, Supt Novlett Robyn Williams, was given 200 community hours' unpaid work and threatened with losing her job for failing to report a video of child sex abuse her sister had sent her on WhatsApp. [...] I found out later from the woman who sent the video to me that she had been given three years on the sex offenders register.

Why I avoid such smartphone social cliques like the plague. There's inevitably some idiot in the bunch that will share to the whole group literally anything they receive -- ranging from terrorism material to something like this.

Yeah, the decision Williams made -- damned if you don't but some risk of being damned if you do, too (which she would similarly be in the know about). With respect to the latter... Before strutting in like a dutiful, wide-eyed doe to make the report... The "citizen who never asked for this" should at least probe a little beforehand to ensure the applicable police or national security department isn't of the hard-line "arrest everybody, slap them with sex offender or abetting terrorism status, and refinedly sort them out later" impulsive ilk. Blow some money on a mediating attorney if there is a procedural history that warrants being worried.

[Secular Sanity]

Yeah, that would suck. I don’t even have a Facebook account, much less a WhatsApp.

The numbers are extremely disturbing, though. I can’t believe that there are that many sickos in existence. Not wanting to talk about it or even think about it probably contributes to the unreported cases.

It’s fucked up.

[C C]

The numbers are extremely disturbing, though. I can’t believe that there are that many sickos in existence. Not wanting to talk about it or even think about it probably contributes to the unreported cases.

It’s fucked up.

In terms of "see no, hear no, speak no" attitude, I have to admit that I had enough of careless parents telling me more than what I ever wanted to know concerning what their kids are sexting to each other and carrying around on their devices. Their being worried about the jeopardy hanging over their offspring (usually the boys) in terms of even after eighteen hanging on to those illegal collections of nude pics and videos they exchanged with each other when they were underage.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the above is surely increasing the number of potential sickos. A new generation of adults looming on the horizon or already here that grew up as kids watching their fellow kids pose in erotic contexts. Trading or sharing that stuff instead of baseball cards.

There are the predictable studies trying to downplay the practice, which I skeptically don't place much stock in (as with much of the compromised human and survey-taking science territory nowadays). But even if the numbers were only heavy in cracker communities or urban-hillbilly Jerry Springer families, that's still an ample production source for deviants.

Perhaps another instance of bystander effect, too, with respect to aforementioned parents waving their hands around ineffectually. I assume it's the same excuse that began in the 20th-century, minus this new horror turn of tweens and teens peddling themselves as child porn: "They're hormone-addled youth, you can't stop them from doing it."

And forget the authorities. Even if they had the capacity to track it all down and be meticulously aware of it, they can't remotely and realistically prosecute all the minors breaking the law. Only target occasional ones to be made into public examples. Slapped with a sex offender label late into life and making brief appearances on television news magazines wailing about the miscarriage of justice for something they did as an impulsive and irrational adolescent.

[Secular Sanity]

In terms of "see no, hear no, speak no" attitude, I have to admit that I had enough of careless parents telling me more than what I ever wanted to know concerning what their kids are sexting to each other and carrying around on their devices. Their being worried about the jeopardy hanging over their offspring (usually the boys) in terms of even after eighteen hanging on to those illegal collections of nude pics and videos they exchanged with each other when they were underage.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the above is surely increasing the number of potential sickos. A new generation of adults looming on the horizon or already here that grew up as kids watching their fellow kids pose in erotic contexts. Trading or sharing that stuff instead of baseball cards.

There are the predictable studies trying to downplay the practice, which I skeptically don't place much stock in (as with much of the compromised human and survey-taking science territory nowadays). But even if the numbers were only heavy in cracker communities or urban-hillbilly Jerry Springer families, that's still an ample production source for deviants.

Perhaps another instance of bystander effect, too, with respect to aforementioned parents waving their hands around ineffectually. I assume it's the same excuse that began in the 20th-century, minus this new horror turn of tweens and teens peddling themselves as child porn: "They're hormone-addled youth, you can't stop them from doing it." 

And forget the authorities. Even if they had the capacity to track it all down and be meticulously aware of it, they can't remotely and realistically prosecute all the minors breaking the law. Only target occasional ones to be made into public examples. Slapped with a sex offender label late into life and making brief appearances on television news magazines wailing about the miscarriage of justice for something they did as an impulsive and irrational adolescent.

That would be somewhat comforting if the article hadn't quoted Maggie Brennan.

He told me to contact Maggie Brennan, a lecturer in clinical forensic psychology at the University of Plymouth, who has been studying child-sex-abuse material for years. Between 2016 and 2018 she combed through the child-abuse images in a database run by Interpol, to build up a profile of victims.

She found a chilling pattern that suggested the age of the boy in the video I saw is not that unusual.

18 months

[C C]

Astonishing that these characters are trying to make child pornography slash pedophilia distinct from child molestation. DUH... idiots... the porn has exploited children in it. That's what is providing material for your habit.

Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet, by Philip Jenkins (page 129): Posters explicitly challenge the link between a taste for pornography and actual molestation [...] : "Pedophiles are not molesters!!! The vast majority of posters [...] abhor the notion of child abuse and molestation. Some won't even condone consensual sex between children and adults. Do not post requests for help like 'how can I get into a young girl's panties' or where should I go to find kids to ####. If you do, you will be flamed out of existence."

That would be somewhat comforting if the article hadn't quoted Maggie Brennan.

He told me to contact Maggie Brennan, a lecturer in clinical forensic psychology at the University of Plymouth, who has been studying child-sex-abuse material for years. Between 2016 and 2018 she combed through the child-abuse images in a database run by Interpol, to build up a profile of victims.

She found a chilling pattern that suggested the age of the boy in the video I saw is not that unusual.

18 months

No doubt 54-year old men with grossly hanging bellies are among those most heinous molesters of babies/toddlers. These are the easiest monsters for us to picture. But many of those develop their pedophilia (as well as first commit it) when they're teens and children themselves.

I'm just saying that youth subculture grounded in smartphones is a new and additional factor when it comes to kids in erotic contexts being normalized to other kids themselves. The outlier they would be expanding the ranks of already exists, but the last thing society needs is that group having a recruitment source of that magnitude.

Supposedly "over a third of all sexual abuse of children is committed by someone under the age of 18". And this pertains to the old or traditional era prior to today's communication devices. As this 1988 study alluded, the idea of children abusing children was a disturbing taboo back then and it is still something people want to shut out: "... the existence of child perpetrators is largely dismissed and denied. Forty-seven boys between the ages of 4 and 13 are described who have molested children younger than themselves."

In the old days, pre-pederastic boys reportedly perused the underwear sections of mail-order catalogs to cultivate their emerging perversion. Prior to companies finally catching on to that and reducing or eliminating child models.

Today they have underage girls (or boys if they're gay) sexting them pics of themselves, and vice-versa. All quite illegal regardless of their being minors themselves. Their concerned parents worry about them hanging onto those collections even after they're adult age. It's difficult to say what kind of other related interests or behaviors can ensue, once they grow-up acclimated to eyeing kids in that fashion, with the old images as reminders. They may wander experimentally to younger and younger ages, and in real life to any opportunity that presents itself.

[Zinjanthropos]

Supposedly "over a third of all sexual abuse of children is committed by someone under the age of 18".

Is it safe to say none of these people, should they be known to law enforcement, become registered sex offenders at this age? Are there any states where the sex offender registry is accessible to the public? Is it unconstitutional for the public to view the registry? 

Once watched a true crime episode on Netflix where a 9 year old was raped and murdered by a known sex offender. Unfortunately the guy wasn’t registered because the law for registration was passed after his last offence. Also turned out that in the surrounding area where the young female victim lived there were, if I remember correctly, 47 registered sex offenders. The mother said that if she’d known that statistic then the family would never have lived in that neighbourhood. Do all states have that registry now? 

Pisses me off. In favour of all criminals, sex offenders, losing their rights and to allow public access to privileged information. Protect the kids first.

[C C]

Supposedly "over a third of all sexual abuse of children is committed by someone under the age of 18".

Is it safe to say none of these people, should they be known to law enforcement, become registered sex offenders at this age?

Snippets from misc sources (denialism of children as predators seems to have abated measurably in the decades since):

Throughout the United States, children as young as nine years old who are adjudicated delinquent may be subject to sex offender registration laws. For example, in Delaware in 2011, there were approximately 639 children on the sex offender registry, 55 of whom were under the age of 12. . . . A 2009 Department of Justice study, which focused only on sex crimes committed by children in which other children were the victims, found that one out of eight youth sex offenders committing crimes against other children was younger than 12. [...]

Jacob C. was 11 years old and living in Michigan when he was tried in juvenile court for touching, without penetrating, his sister’s genitals. Found guilty of one count of criminal sexual conduct, Jacob was placed on Michigan’s sex offender registry and prevented by residency restriction laws from living near other children. [...]

Ever since fliers calling 14-year-old Baron Brown-Lights a dangerous sex offender started to appear around his South Carolina neighborhood, he has stayed mostly inside his mother's house. The teen was convicted last year in juvenile court of aggravated sexual assault for abusing his 4-year-old cousin. He avoided jail time, but was forced to register as a sex offender: His name, photograph, home address and school are posted online. [...]

Are there any states where the sex offender registry is accessible to the public? Is it unconstitutional for the public to view the registry?

NATIONAL SEX OFFENDER PUBLIC WEBSITE
https://www.nsopw.gov/

The Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW) is an unprecedented public safety resource that provides the public with access to sex offender data nationwide. NSOPW is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and state, territorial and tribal governments, working together for the safety of adults and children.

[Zinjanthropos]

Canadian public does not have access to sex offender registry. I worry about my grandkids. Glad to know the USA has the NSOPW, we could use that here. Seems in USA that age doesn’t seem to be a barrier, you go on the list if guilty.

When should one check the registry? Are businesses or volunteer groups, even churches, where kids are under adult supervision required by law to access the registry or is it strictly a personal due diligent choice to make?

[C C]

Canadian public does not have access to sex offender registry. I worry about my grandkids. Glad to know the USA has the NSOPW, we could use that here. Seems in USA that age doesn’t seem to be a barrier, you go on the list if guilty.

When should one check the registry? Are businesses or volunteer groups, even churches, where kids are under adult supervision required by law to access the registry or is it strictly a personal due diligent choice to make?

https://www.childcare.gov/consumer-educa...ed-to-know

Federal law requires all states to implement state and federal criminal background checks that include fingerprints for child care providers. The comprehensive background check must include a fingerprint check of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) database to ensure that providers do not have a history of convictions that could put children’s health and safety at risk. Additionally, potential child care providers must be checked to ensure that they are not listed as a sex offender and have not been found to have committed child neglect or abuse. [...] Learn more about your state’s implementation of the federal background check requirements by visiting the state resources section of this website.

- - -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offend...rpetrators

The question of how to appropriately deal with underage sex assault perpetrators has led to some of the most emotional appeals against sex offender registries. In 2017, an Associated Press investigation found that for every adult-on-child offence, there are seven child-on-child sex offences. These crimes are rarely reported in the media or prosecuted. However, in Human Rights Watch's 2013 investigation of strict U.S. laws, it was found that child perpetrators as young as 11 have, at times, been forced to register on long-term publicly searchable databases. In some U.S. jurisdictions, consenting teenage couples in possession of each other's nude photographs have also been charged with possessing child pornography and forced to register as sex offenders under mandatory sentencing requirements.

Again, though, the sheer numbers of those doing that limits authorities to only making examples out of a few. Plus, despite all the adult-age young men being arrested for possessing child-porn, this is still a brain-dead zone in terms of experts themselves recognizing what a primary source of that porn is. Which is to say, these dimwits are still hanging onto to those exchanged pics from other girls/boys when they were all minors.