Citation

Henschel MM, Grant BJ. J. Child Sex. Abus. 2019; 28(1): 26-45.

Affiliation

Department of Statistics, California Polytechnic State University , San Luis Obispo , CA , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10538712.2018.1483459

PMID

29924695

Abstract

While the media continue to report incidents of school employee sexual misconduct, few empirical studies focus on this issue. To address this gap in the literature, expand knowledge and awareness around the problem, and inform future research and programs, this research intends to document and analyze the characteristics of school employee sexual misconduct cases reported in the media. The authors conducted a landscape analysis of 361 published school employee sexual misconduct cases in the United States from 2014, documenting factors such as offender and victim characteristics, type of incident, technology use, location of offense, and resulting disciplinary actions by schools and law enforcement. These analyses showed that offenders were most often male and general education teachers, with approximately a quarter identified as athletic coaches. Offenders' average age was 36 years, while the average age of victims was 15. More than half of incidents took place at school or school-related events.

RESULTS also showed that school employee sexual misconduct incidents most often involved physical contact; however, technology (i.e., cell phones, computers, cameras/video recorders, and storage devices) played an important role in three out of four cases. Finally, analyses of the criminal and school-related consequences showed that over half of offenders were placed on administrative leave or resigned immediately following their arrest and almost all were convicted of their crimes. Additional findings concerning this topic are also reported in this article.

Language: en

Keywords

School employee sexual misconduct; education policy; school personnel; sexual abuse; student safety; teachers