Family Watchdog
By Tamara McHatton

A very good friend of mine recently sent me a link to a site about locating child molesters in my area. I figured, my youngest son is 19, so I'm past the point of having to worry about some child molester getting a hold of one of my children and taking off with them, but as it turns out, my worries are far from over.

I have two young, beautiful granddaughters living locally. And statistics show they are in grave danger. Even more so than when my kids were growing up.

1 of 5 girls will be molested before their 18 th birthday with the average age of the victim at 9.6 years old. 1 of 6 boys will be victimized before turning 18, with their average age being 9.8 years. 1 of 5 children have been sexually propositioned over the Internet. Over 90% of all sexual offenders know their victims. There are over 400,000 victims of sexual assault every year, and over 550,000 registered sexual offenders living in our communities. Over 1000 registered offenders report an address change every day and this doesn't include the 100,000 sex offenders that fail to register in the US . The typical sexual predator will assault 117 times before being caught, and the re-arrest rate for convicted child molesters is only 52%.

These shocking statistics come from recent studies on the epidemic of sexual assaults that plagues our society today. It's no wonder parents go to bed at night, fearing for the safety and well-being of their children.

I am very thankful I never had to go through the pain of a child being abducted, although I did come close once. My sons, Leif and Galen, are 16 months apart in age. When they were about two and three, I had taken them to our nearby mall, and as always, had a hold of them, with one tiny hand locked firmly within each of mine. All of a sudden this “little old lady” went by us, grabbed Leif by his free hand, and before I could react, had scooped him up in her arms and taken off running with him. I yelled the first thing that came to mind…”FIRE!” Everyone turned around to look, including two mall security guards, and I pointed frantically at the woman careening through the crowd with my child in her arms. The security guards gave chase and tackled the woman, then brought my son back to me. I was never so frightened as I was during those few tense moments.

But I was lucky. Many don't return.

So what can we do? How can we further protect our children than we already do? It's a known fact that many states have inadequate funding or resources to notify us when offenders are released or move into our communities.    more >>