Groundbreaking Australian study shows a significant proportion of men report sexual feelings or offences against children, highlighting the urgent importance of early trauma treatment and support to prevent abuse.
For years, child sex offenders have often been imagined as strangers lurking at the edges of family life. But the evidence points in a more unsettling direction: most abuse is carried out by people the child already knows, and the people who offend are often ordinary men embedded in homes, schools, workplaces and communities. Australian Institute of Criminology data show that 93% of people charged with sexual offences were male, while the National Office for Child Safety says abuse is usually committed by someone known to the victim. That reality makes prevention far more complicated than simply catching offenders after the fact. It also means parents and policymakers cannot rely on stereotype or suspicion alone.
New Australian research has sharpened that picture further. A UNSW-led study found that almost one in 10 Australian men said they had sexually offended against a child, online or offline, while about one in five reported sexual feelings towards children or offending behaviour. The findings do not mean that most men pose such a risk, but they do suggest the pool of potential offenders is larger than many people assume. Professor Michael Salter, one of the researchers behind the study, has argued that prevention must start long before the criminal justice system becomes involved.
One of the most important factors in that work is childhood trauma. The research found men who had offended were far more likely than non-offenders to report adverse childhood experiences, including being sexually abused themselves. A separate long-term study cited in the lead article found that children with substantiated sexual abuse histories were later more likely to be charged with a sexual offence, though the vast majority never became perpetrators. That distinction matters: childhood sexual abuse is a risk factor, not a destiny. Christabel Chamarette, a clinical psychologist whose work began in prisons in the 1970s, came to the same conclusion through years of direct practice. She said many of the men she treated carried a pattern of sexual violence, physical violence and neglect through childhood.
Chamarette’s central point is that untreated harm can distort development for years. Some men she worked with denied what had happened to them; others minimised it, recast it as normal, or buried it altogether. In her view, that unresolved trauma can remain dormant until later stress, parenthood, adolescence or contact with a child of the same age as the original abuse triggers it. That is not an excuse for offending, but an explanation for why prevention needs to look beyond punishment. It also helps explain why empathy-based treatment can matter. Chamarette has long argued that confronting offenders with the reality of what they have done, while also helping them name their own histories honestly, can reduce the risk of reoffending.
Her former programme, SafeCare, offers one example of that approach. When it began in Perth, it drew men who were frightened of harming their own children as well as men already known to authorities. The programme later reported very low recidivism, though those figures were based on self-selecting participants and were not independently tested through formal linkage studies. Even so, the broader lesson is difficult to ignore: some people at risk of offending do seek help, and some can change. The federal government’s Stop It Now! Australia helpline reflects that shift in thinking, but it is still only a first step. As Chamarette notes, a helpline without funded therapeutic services leaves many people with nowhere to go. If Australia is serious about reducing child sexual abuse, it will need to invest not only in detection and prosecution, but in early intervention, trauma treatment and support for children after abuse.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
