In the wake of shocking crimes such as the mass murder at Virginia Tech, parents are bound to be worried about the safety of their children. But there is good news to report: America's children are actually safer. Since the early 1990s, crimes against children and adolescents have plummeted. The dangers have decreased, often dramatically...
For example, not only have official crime statistics documented a decrease in childhood sexual abuse, but community surveys, often involving those who never reported their victimization, document the same decrease. Moreover, the declines have occurred not only for unambiguous cases involving victims with sexually transmitted disease and confirmed by perpetrator confession, but also for cases lacking any kind of corroboration.
If the decline were merely due to victims' increasing reluctance to report abuse, the decline would not have occurred for anonymous surveys as well as for official police statistics, and it would not have occurred for both uncorroborated as well as corroborated cases....
Richard J. McNally
The Wall Street Journal
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