I lied. So did ABC News when they announced this in 2006. In 2005, Jim Acosta reported on CBS Evening News that "when a child is missing, chances are good it was a convicted sex offender." And that's not true either.
According to an article on the Live Science web site, the real risk to children is not online predators and convicted sex offenders. Most crimes against children are committed by the victim's own family, church clergy, and family friends. And contrary to Acosta's claim, the least likely explanation is a convicted sex offender. More prosaic causes like running away, abduction by a family member, and getting lost are at the top of the list of explanations.
Live Science traces the "1 in 5" statistic to a study done by the DOJ in 2001 that reported that 19% of the children between the ages of 10 and 17 had received an unwanted sexual solicitation. The DOJ defined "sexual solicitation" as a "request to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk or give personal sexual information that were unwanted or, whether wanted or not, made by an adult." This could include one teenager asking another if they were a virgin. When only the sorts of contacts that were a threat to children were counted, the statistic dropped to 3% of teenagers in the age range receiving unwanted contact.
Anti-porn activists link porn to predators and child sexual abuse. Inflated statistics help scare up support. The sad, stubborn truth behind the sexual predator hysteria is that the greatest threat to children comes from people they know.
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