{"id":3364,"date":"2007-11-19T13:37:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-19T13:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/11\/the-mind-boggles.html"},"modified":"2007-11-19T13:37:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-19T13:37:00","slug":"the-mind-boggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/11\/the-mind-boggles.html","title":{"rendered":"The mind boggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

You read news like this<\/a> and don’t know where to begin to understand it, or even explain it:<\/p>\n

Three boys ages 8 and 9 were being held Monday in a detention center on charges of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old girl in the woods near a suburban Atlanta apartment complex, officials said. <\/p>\n

The alleged attack happened Thursday and the girl’s mother reported it to authorities Sunday, Acworth police Capt. Wayne Dennard said. <\/p>\n

The girl said the boys lured her into the woods behind her Acworth apartment complex, reports Rebekka Schramm of CBS affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta. <\/p>\n

“And they said, let me see your breasts and I said no,” the girl told Schramm. “And they said you better do it. And they had this kind of like a rope thing and he was hitting me with it and it hurt really bad.” <\/p>\n

The girl said the little boys raped her against her will. <\/p>\n

“I feel very mad what they did to me, because I wish they didn’t do this to me,” the girl said. <\/p>\n

The three boys were charged with rape, kidnapping, false imprisonment and sexual assault, Dennard said. Their names were being withheld because of their age. <\/p>\n

Prosecutors have not decided whether to try the suspects as adults. <\/p>\n

“They do need to be taught a lesson because if they do it to her, they could do it to somebody else,” the girl’s mother said. “And who knows when they become teenagers what they can do to other girls.” <\/p>\n

The father of one of the boys said his son is being accused of luring the girl into the woods. <\/p>\n

“He’s only 45 inches, 40 pounds in the third grade,” the boy’s father said. “This girl’s in the fifth grade, she’s 11 years old, 2 foot taller than him. How can my boy with a broken wrist be accused of any kidnapping charge?” <\/p>\n

The boy’s father said he believes she made up the story to cover up her promiscuity. <\/p>\n

“She’s trying to cover her own butt by getting everyone else in more serious trouble,” the boy’s father said. “I guess we’re just going to have to see how this is going to unfold.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meantime, there was this study<\/a> a few months ago that may put this story in context: <\/p>\n

Courts have seen the number of sex offense cases involving juvenile offenders rise dramatically in recent years, an Associated Press review of national statistics found, and treatment professionals say the offenders are getting younger and the crimes more violent. <\/p>\n

Some psychologists blame the increase in numbers \u2014 40 percent over two decades \u2014 on a society saturated with sex and violence and the fact that many of the accused were themselves victims of adult sexual predators. Others say there aren’t more children committing such crimes, simply more awareness, better reporting and a general hysteria about sex offenders. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think it’s appropriate to suggest we have whole schools full of sexual predators … but we’re seeing more of it and more sexually aggressive acts,\u201d said Scott Poland, past president of the National Association of School Psychologists. \u201cHow do these kids even know about this? It’s permeated throughout our society.\u201d <\/p>\n

Robert Prentky, a psychologist and nationally renowned expert on sex offenders in Bridgewater, Mass., thinks the statistics are misleading. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren’t more kids, there are more laws,\u201d he said. \u201cWe now have fairly draconian laws with very harsh sanctions that apply to juveniles.\u201d <\/p>\n

The number of children under 18 accused of forcible rape, violent and nonviolent sex offenses rose from 24,100 in 1985 to 33,800 in 2004, the AP’s analysis found. Violent offenses include attempted rape and sexual assault, while nonviolent offenses including fondling, statutory rape and prostitution. <\/p>\n

By comparison, rape and sexual assaults by adults decreased more than 56 percent from 1993 to 2004. Comparable statistics were unavailable before 1993. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You read news like this and don’t know where to begin to understand it, or even explain it: Three boys ages 8 and 9 were being held Monday in a detention center on charges of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old girl in the woods near a suburban Atlanta apartment complex, officials said. The alleged attack…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nThe mind boggles - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/11\/the-mind-boggles.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The mind boggles - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You read news like this and don’t know where to begin to understand it, or even explain it: Three boys ages 8 and 9 were being held Monday in a detention center on charges of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old girl in the woods near a suburban Atlanta apartment complex, officials said. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}