The newspapers reported recently a terrible incident where two teens were arrested and accused of raping a young boy at knifepoint. This is only one incident in a series of heinous crimes targeting young children. Sociologists and psychologists should get involved to analyze the motives for these brutal attacks.
If rapists are simply locked away to rot in prison, rather than analyzed by qualified experts, we will fail to root out the causes of this criminal behavior. Prison alone is not the answer. The answer lies in the minds of the perpetrators.
It’s important to know the root causes of the assassination of the innocence of our children. We know that children who are subjected to such crimes at an early age have a tendency to be adversely affected for the rest of their lives. We also know that wolves tend to linger near sheep — that sexual predators are often closely associated to their victims, be they neighbors or family members.
We must wake up to this social problem. If we don’t, the next victim may be somebody close to us, somebody we love and are committed to nurture and protect. As parents, we should always keep our eyes open, to know with whom our children interact. If we do not maintain diligence with our children, or watch for deviant behavior in our teenagers, then we are, though in an indirect way, among the victimizers.
Police (and parents) should approach this terrible social ill with an iron fist. If we do not, the number of victims of sexual predators will grow.
