9-17-2014 Pennsylvania:
They connected on a mental level, authorities say. She was 29 and he was 14.
They talked and exchanged text messages, some with sexually explicit photos that she sent him, police said. During at least three secret rendezvous, they had sex before the six-month relationship ended with the 2011-12 school year, they added.
Fast forward two years and the Central Bucks School District band director, Bridgett Szychulski, now 31, is facing criminal charges for her alleged sexual contact with the boy who was her student when she worked at Lenape Middle School.
On Monday, the day before Szychulski, who is married, a mother and pregnant, surrendered to police, a 26-year-old woman was arrested by Middletown police accused of plying a 13-year-old boy with vodka before sexually assaulting him last month.
Since 2012, four more Bucks or Montgomery county women — all but one a school teacher — have been accused of inappropriate relationships with students.
Still, the number of women sex offenders is low compared to the number of men who commit similar crimes.
In Pennsylvania, eight of the 1,142 registered sexually violent predators — considered at highest risk for re-offending — are women, according to the state’s Megan’s Law registry. Among Bucks County’s 375 registered sex offenders, seven are women. In neighboring Montgomery County, women account for 17 of the 631 registered sex offenders.
In a potential demographic shift, a significant increase was seen in the number of adolescent girls entering the juvenile court system for sex offenses between 1997 and 2002, according to the federal government. Among this age group, incidents of female-perpetrated forcible rapes, other violent sex offenses and nonviolent sex offenses jumped 6 percent, 62 percent and 42 percent, respectively, the Department of Justice found.
Behavior experts have suggested that more research into female-driven sex crimes is needed, suggesting that a new offender typology needs to be developed. Women sex offenders share some common traits with male sex offenders, particularly grooming behaviors, choosing victims they know, and using emotional manipulation, not physical violence, to continue a relationship, behavior experts said.
Women sexual predators are often overlooked because society historically views them as nurturers, not dangerous, behavior experts say. Many alleged female sex abusers are young (31 is the average age of a first offense), attractive, even married, according to studies.
Lingering stereotypes about sexual contact between adult women and teen boys also often minimizes its seriousness, according to studies and experts.
Researchers have found that most law enforcement training ignores women as potential sex offenders. Studies have found police officers reacted with “disbelief” to allegations of sex crimes involving women, minimized the seriousness of the reports, viewed female suspects as less dangerous and were more apt to label a case as “unfounded.”
Females don’t fit sex offender stereotypes, according to psychologist Julia Hislop, who has extensively studied female sex offenders. Hislop’s research has found that women who engage in sex acts with juveniles rarely show an exclusive sexual preference for children. Many, but not all, female abusers have experienced childhood sexual abuse. Women also tend to focus on one or two individuals, rather than multiple victims as is more common among male abusers.
In her research, psychiatrist Janet Warren, of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, says she has never encountered a woman pedophile. Neither have any of her colleagues, including Hislop, she said.
She believes that many of these adult woman/teen boy relationships aren’t about sex and control as much as emotional attachment. She described women sex offenders — particularly teachers — as “situational offenders.”
“I don’t think of these women as predatory,” Warren said, adding that studies suggest the rate of sexual abuse in schools is higher than most anticipate.
A common denominator among young sexual assault victims is frequently their abuser is someone they know, trust and often love, according to Patti Levenberg, counseling coordinator for the Bucks County Network of Victim Assistance. Often they don’t see the sexual contact as wrong, she said.
“If someone knows the victim and the victim trusts that adult, in that relationship it creates access,” Levenberg said, adding that “Secrecy is the key to maintaining the relationship for the offender.”
Bucks County authorities say the now 16-year-old accuser notified Szychulski — a married mother of a 4-year-old boy and expecting a second child — that he told a friend in July about their past relationship.
Authorities said the allegations of inappropriate contact were reported Thursday by an anonymous “mandated reporter” to the Pennsylvania Child Abuse Hotline in Harrisburg. The boy was interviewed that day at the Bucks County Children’s Advocacy Center in Warwick, where he also disclosed the alleged sexual contact, according to court documents.
That such behavior could take place under the noses of adults isn’t unusual, NOVA’s Levenberg said. The secret nature of the relationships makes it harder for other adults to see “red flags” that something is wrong, especially if the adults around the child also trust the offender.
“It’s difficult for children, especially kids in their early teens, to really look at this through the perspective of abuse or victimization because it’s a relationship that is built,” she added. “They see it as a relationship, not a situation in which they are being forced or controlled or manipulated. It’s harder for them to view it as that.” ..Source.. by Jo Ciavaglia
September 17, 2014
Women make up small percentage of sex offenders
April 24, 2014
Are female sex offenders treated differently?
A light sentence for a teacher suggests courts still don't get it about women predators
It’s an all too common story – a high school teacher facing sex abuse charges involving students admits to the wrongdoing and faces the criminal justice system. But was a sentence of just one month in custody at a Community Correction Center sufficient punishment for a 39-year-old educator who has sex abuse investigations dating back six years? And could the slap on the wrist sentence have anything to do with the fact that in this case, the teacher sentenced is a woman, and the victim is a boy?
In a case that involves charges of abuse from two male students, Oregon teacher Denise Keesee has acknowledged multiple sexual encounters in 2008 with a then 16-year-old student, and currently faces a $5.1 million lawsuit from another male student. According to Oregon Live, court documents show that “Keesee told detectives she kissed [the other student] several times in 2012 when they were alone in her classroom. She also reportedly admitted to sending him photos of herself, including one of her naked.” Because that student was 18, no criminal charges were filed.
The justice system doesn’t lack for stories of male abusers who get off with relatively light punishments. And it’s important to note that every story involving sex abuse is unique. But at the same time that Denise Keesee is facing just 30 days of confinement for what happened between her and a 16-year-old, a male teacher in her same state was last week sentenced to nearly three years in prison for “an inappropriate sexual relationship” with a 16-year-old female student. Last month in Idaho, a special education teacher was sentenced to five to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing two adolescent girls. ..Continued.. by Salon.com
May 30, 2012
Female sex offenders protected by the criminal justice system
5-30-2012 National:
Female sex offenders receive lighter sentences for the same crimes than males says a study recently published in Feminist Criminology, a SAGE journal and the official journal of the Division on Women and Crime of the American Society of Criminology.
Embry and Lyons looked at the sentences that male and female sex offenders received for specific sex offenses and found that even after the implementation of sentencing guidelines to ensure equality in sentencing, on average male sentences were between 6% and 31% longer than female sentences for the same or similar crimes.
"It appears as if the criminal justice system actually treats women more leniently than men," wrote Randa Embry and Phillip M. Lyons, Jr., authors of the study.
The researchers explained this disparity by discussing the American idea that "women are weaker and, therefore, must be protected at all times regardless of their status as victims or offenders."
Embry and Lyons analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Justice's National Corrections Reporting Program from the years 1994 to 2004. Sex offenses included rape, statutory rape, sexual assault, child sexual assault, and forcible sodomy.
"This leads to the supposition that women, regardless of the departure from social and gender norms committed in concurrence with the offense for which they are being sentenced, continue to be viewed as individuals who should be protected by the justice system," wrote the researchers. "Obviously, as a social institution, the criminal justice system is reluctant to break those social norms and gender roles in response to atypical gendered behavior."
More information: Find out more by reading the article, "Sex-Based Sentencing: Sentencing Discrepancies between Male and Female Sex Offenders," in Feminist Criminology. The article is available free for a limited time. ..Source.. by Phys.org
October 19, 2010
Female sex teachers expose bad law
10-19-2010 National:
The increasing number of affirmed accusations against female school teachers for having consensual sex with under-age boys ought to bring the complex and often taboo subject of statutory rape under scrutiny.
Statutory rape is a broad, non-technical term for “rape” by way of legal statute. Its pretense is that adolescents under a certain age, usually between 14-18 depending on the state, are deemed unsuited to give consent to sexual relations of any kind and to anyone, not just older partners.
Given the average age of first-time intercourse is 17, the law has been broken by most without repercussion or public outcry.
The age of the partners in question, the age difference between partners, and whether the “offender” holds a position of authority, such as teachers and coaches, determine the severity of the crime and maximum sentence.
The overarching interest of creating a staunch, cut-and-dry legal statute aimed at protecting vulnerable youths and deterring potentially malevolent predators is understandable, but such blanket restrictions can turn victimless crimes into false calamities against humanity.
It defies sensibility to invoke the word “victim” when discussing the 14-year-old boy from Florida who endured the torturous agony of having consensual sex over and over again in the classroom, at home and in an SUV on the freeway with his reading teacher, a 23-year-old “firecracker” named Debra LaFave.
In 2004 LaFave followed the female sex-teacher pioneer, Mary K. Letourneau, and became perhaps the most infamous of sex teachers, largely due to Lafave’s barbie-doll looks and her documented sexual deviance.
The charges against her had a 30-year maximum prison sentence which reflect an overemphasis on generic content like age, rather than scaling age with the circumstances of the case.
The victimization propaganda fueling the public’s simplistic narrative on statutory rape is peddled by the courts, psychologists, social opinion leaders and Terri Miller, the president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation in Nevada.
“This isn’t an affair; it’s abuse, and we have to shift the paradigm,” Miller told TIME magazine of female sex predators like LaFave. “We say, ‘Bully for the boy and his conquest of the geometry teacher,’ but that makes it harder for boys to vocalize their victimization.”
Statutory rape has haphazardly allowed consensual sex to become synonymous with violent, forcible rape, sexual abuse and assault. It should be apparent that the interchangeability of consensual sex and sexual abuse (i.e., rape) leads to misguided conclusions because they follow from false premises.
Finding the “victimization card” laughable does not require having a PhD in psychology. Despite what the boy’s father said about LaFave— “It’s a horrible, ugly thing that she’s done”—after the boy’s consummations with LaFave he was not overtaken by victimization, depression or thoughts of suicide. He was in an utter state of nirvana as he reflected on his provocative escapades with LaFave amongst his buddies, deliriously dumbstruck as to what he had done to deserve living out every boy’s fantasy.
If there is a victim here it is LaFave, a women whose bi-polar disorder and many other emotional and psychological handicaps subjected her, a mildly attractive women, to sexual relations with a 14-year-old kid. The boy, however, is quite the opposite of a “victim.” He’s what sane people and Creedence Clearwater Revival would call a fortunate son.
The infamous LaFave saga does not define all “female sex predator” cases; many involve legitimate manipulation and physical and mental abuse, often instigated by an adult holding a position of authority. Surely it is appropriate that LaFave, due to her professional obligations and position of power, pay the professional and social consequences of being barred from teaching and having to register as a sex offender, but current protocols of legal recourse are drastically out of bounds.
The same rule applies if the gender roles are switched. The circumstances of any inappropriate sexual relationship should guide the response, not numbers. For instance, if a 16-year-old girl is legally permitted to give consent and abort her fetus, it is not easily defended that such a person is legally prohibited from giving sexual consent to a much older man. This analogy is not perfect because statutory rape involves a second actor who is sometimes in a position of power over the consenter, but it is suggestive. ..Source.. by Mike Boylan, The Collegian, California State University, Fresno
