{ "id": "2001-novemberdecember-family-offense", "slug": "2001-novemberdecember-family-offense", "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2001-novemberdecember-family-offense.html", "year": 2001, "month": "November/December", "monthNum": 11, "headline": "Family offense", "kicker": "COURTS", "author_name": "Susan L. Oppat", "author_title": "Reporter", "affiliation": "The Ann Arbor News", "summary": "A journalist with two decades of crime reporting created a comprehensive database of 435 child sexual assault cases to expose the reality that perpetrators are rarely strangers and that these crimes occur across all family types and socioeconomic levels.", "keywords": [ "investigation", "database", "abuse" ], "topics": [ "Crime & Justice", "Investigative Methods", "Data & Databases" ], "technologies": [ "Access" ], "full_text": "I've spent most of my 21 years as a reporter working cops and courts, crime and punishment. It's been painfully clear that when it comes to the littlest victims, the children, there's plenty of crime, and not much punishment.\n\nLargely, punishment relies on already-traumatized children having the courage to tell strangers they were sexually assaulted, often at the hands of their own family members. But even when they do come forward, children often aren't believed.\n\nAnd, of course, there are the children who are too young to report. They are too young to speak - but not too young to be victimized.\n\nGoals\n\nI wanted to prove what I knew from experience that it happens, that the offender is only rarely a stranger, that it happens even in the best families, that the children are boys and girls, and every age.\n\nI also wanted to speak with conviction about what happens to the people who sexually abuse children.\n\nSelf-trained on Microsoft Access, I created a database with 35 different categories of information, the analysis of which would be the basis for all my reporting. I included:\n\nThe name of the suspect, age, gender, address, ZIP, previous criminal record, if known.\nThe name of the child, age, gender, address, ZIP code.\nThe location of the assault, date(s) of assault.\nThe relationship, if available, between the defendant and the victim.\nDetails on the nature of the assault, if available.\nWhich police agency investigated.\nThe exact charges, and how many filed.\nThe name of the judge, prosecutor, defense attorney.\nWhether the outcome was achieved by jury trial, bench trial, or plea agreement.\nThe charges on which the defendant was convicted, if any.\nThe sentence, and whether the defendant was sentenced to jail, prison or probation.\n\nI took a laptop computer to the county felony court, and spent more than a week combing through 435 cases of sexual assault on children under the age of 17 filed in the previous 6½ years. I had to limit myself to that time period because that's how long the cases have been listed on a computer database, and child sex assaults can be separated from all other sex assaults by an identifier on the case number.\n\nI was not charged a fee to sit in the file room and read through the hard-copy files. Court records here are listed in a computer database, but the information contained in the files is not. So it all had to be done by hand. I was a rookie with databases, but two things became immediately apparent:\n\nConsistency of input data is paramount. You must use a limited range of entries to get useful data. For example: Always refer to the police agency by acronym, or always spell it out. If you sometimes enter the acronym, and sometimes spell it out, your data won't be compiled accurately, and you'll be doing a lot of arithmetic by hand, always the quickest way to inaccurate data and ruined credibility.\nThe other thing seems like a no-brainer but it's crucial. Back up your data. Often. At LEAST daily, if not more. Keep it on diskettes AND the hard drive.\nYou REALLY don't want to re-enter all that data.\n\nTime to analyze\n\nThen it was time to analyze the data, over a period of days: How many of the defendants were men, how many women? Where did most of the defendants live in the county? What was the average age of the children? How many were related to the defendant, or at least knew the defendant? How many, really, were strangers? How many of the children were assaulted in their own homes? How many defendants were charged with the most serious offenses? How many of those pleaded down to a reduced charge? Which judge handed out the heaviest sentences? The lightest? How many of the defendants were children themselves? How many charges each defendant faced? Since there were only 207 defendants in 435 cases, it's obvious most were repeat offenders.\n\nSearching for reasons\n\nOn to the reporting: I talked to social researchers about why most of the offenses occurred in the area of the county with the lowest income. To prison officials and counselors about how they (don't) provide therapy to offenders while they're in prison, and their prognosis for change. To prosecutors and defense attorneys about why the overwhelming number of cases were pleaded down and most offenders serve only probation.\n\nI spoke to social experts about why children rape other children. To police about how hard it is to help children tell strangers their deepest, darkest secret while the offender is watching from just 15 feet away across the courtroom. To prosecutors and police about why many cases are reported, but never prosecuted.\n\nI interviewed the mother of a pair of young boys repeatedly molested by a trusted neighbor.\n\nAnd I spoke to police and counselors about what parents should really be looking for. It's not strangers you have to worry about. In 435 cases in 6½ years, only three strangers were prosecuted for sex assaults on children.\n\nThe result was a three-day series with nine or 10 stories, and additional graphics, including a ZIP code map indicating where the assaults occurred.\n\nSusan L. Oppat can be reached by e-mail at soppat@aa-news.com", "provenance": { "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6", "extracted_at": "2026-07-05", "verified": true }, "similar": [ { "slug": "1999-june-counting-crime-right", "score": 0.146 }, { "slug": "1996-april-hate-crimes", "score": 0.132 }, { "slug": "1997-june-beyond-the-nightmares", "score": 0.128 }, { "slug": "2007-marchapril-campus-crime-update", "score": 0.108 }, { "slug": "1994-december-crime-tops-car-agenda-for-94", "score": 0.107 } ], "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2001-novemberdecember-family-offense.html", "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2001-novemberdecember-family-offense.json" }