John Jay Report

2 The data which John Jay College collected will pr ovide the basis for the development of hypothes es and analyses which explain the causes of the distr essing sexual abuse phenomenon presented in this report. Even more important, it is my fervent hope that the facts which the John Jay study pr esents will ulti- mately work to prevent recurrence of such victimization of children in the future. Gerald W. Lynch President John Jay College of Criminal Justice 6 • At the time abuse is alleged to have occurr ed, 42.3% of priests were associate pastors, 25.1% were pastors, 10.4% were resident priests and 7.2% were teachers. Other categories (e.g., chaplain, dea- con, and seminary administrator) were under 3% each. • The majority of priests (56%) were alleged to have abused one victim, nearly 27% wer e alleged to have abused two or three victims, nearly 14% were alleged to have abused four to nine victims and 3.4% were alleged to have abused more than ten victims. The 149 priests (3.5%) who had mor e than ten allegations of abuse were allegedly responsible for abusing 2,960 victims, thus accounting for 26% of allegations. Therefore, a very small percentage of accused priests are responsible for a sub- stantial percentage of the allegations. • Though priests’ personnel files contain limited infor mation on their own childhood victimization and their substance and/or alcohol abuse problems, the surveys report that nearly 7% of priests had been physically, sexually and/or emotionally abused as children. The surveys also indicate that nearly 17% had alcohol or substance abuse problems. There are indications that some sort of intervention was undertaken by church authorities in over 80% of the cases involving substance abuse. • The surveys indicate that 32% of priests who wer e subject to allegations of sexual abuse wer e also recognized as having other behavioral or psychological pr oblems. OFFENSECHARACTERISTICS • The largest group of alleged victims (50.9%) was between the ages of 11 and 14, 27.3% wer e 15-17, 16% were 8-10 and nearly 6% were under age 7. Overall, 81% of victims wer e male and 19% female. Male victims tended to be older than female victims. Over 40% of all victims wer e males between the ages of 11 and 14. • Of the total number accused, 37% of priests with allegations of sexual abuse par ticipated in treatment programs; the most common treatment programs were sex-offender specific treatment programs specifically for clergy and one-on-one psychological counseling. The mor e allegations a priest had, the more likely he was to participate in treatment. However, the severity of the alleged offense did not have an effect on whether or not a priest par ticipated in a treatment program. Those who allegedly committed acts of penetration or oral sex wer e no more likely to participate in treatment than priests accused of less severe offenses. • Priests allegedly committed acts which were classified into more than 20 categories. The most fre- quent acts allegedly committed were: touching over the victim’s clothing (52.6%), touching under the victim’s clothes (44.9%), cleric performing oral sex (26%), victim disrobed (25.7%), and penile pene- tration or attempted penile penetration (22.4%). Many of the abusers wer e alleged to have committed multiple types of abuse against individual victims, and r elatively few priests committed only the most minor acts. Of the 90% of the r eported incidents for which we had specific of fense details, 141 inci- dents, or one and one half percent, were reported that included only verbal abuse and/or the use of pornography.