Pedophile, Child Sex Abuse | featured news

There have been nearly 17,000 victims of clergy sexual abuse since 1950 and legal settlements for their suffering continue to climb. Add another $10 million to the $2.5 billion that the Catholic Church in the USA has spent in confronting the clergy sex abuse crisis.

Amid reports of widespread sexual abuse of children in the late 1980s, several leading youth organizations began conducting criminal background checks of volunteers and staff members. Big Brothers Big Sisters ordered the checks for all volunteers starting in 1986. Boys and Girls Clubs of America recommended their use the same year. One of the nation's oldest and largest youth groups, however, was opposed — the Boy Scouts of America.

A 43-year-old Department of Homeland Security worker allegedly used Facebook to solicit more than 70 area children for sexual acts, according to authorities. Robert B. Rennie Jr., a Loudoun County resident, was charged Oct. 24 with five counts of using a computer to solicit a child under the age of 15, after a school resource officer was tipped off to suspicious activity on a Mercer Middle School student's Facebook page.

Los Angeles Times review of Boy Scout documents shows that a blacklist meant to protect boys from sexual predators too often failed in its mission. For nearly a century, the Boy Scouts of America has relied on a confidential blacklist known as the "perversion files" as a crucial line of defense against sexual predators.

The defense has begun the public rehabilitation of Jerry Sandusky, hoping to portray the former Penn State University assistant football coach as a normal human being rather than the predatory pedophile that prosecutors presented to the jury.

A psychologist who looked into a 1998 allegation against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky told police at the time that his behavior fit the profile of a likely pedophile, NBC News reported Saturday.

Clergy sex abuse victims upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic leaders have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests are asking the International Criminal Court to investigate the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity.

Police say they have rescued 230 child victims of abuse and arrested 184 suspects in a global investigation into a Dutch-based international pedophile ring.

A man who wrote a controversial book considered a "how-to" guide for pedophiles was booked into a Florida jail Tuesday after defending his book to reporters.

The Vatican said on Tuesday it would prove it cannot be held legally responsible for the actions of a priest at the center of a sexual abuse scandal in the United States.