UNITED STATES
Patrick Noaker
Posted on April 29, 2015
By Attorney Patrick Noaker
Most of the attention regarding sexually abusive clergy members has focused on sexual abuse by priests. Most media reports and most research involve abusive priests. The 2004 John Jay College study was limited to diocesan and religious order priests. Consequently, information about sexual abuse by nuns is not widely discussed or understood. This article discusses what is known about the prevalence of nun sexual abuse of children.
Initially, it must be noted that 4.6% of all sex offenders are female.[1] However, some believe that this statistic is artificially low because women are more likely to be diverted from the justice system[2] and because societal and cultural stereotypes about female sexual behavior, including professional biases by police and prosecutors, discourage reporting of sex crimes by females.[3]
When it comes to female religious, there has been very little research conducted into the prevalence of sexual abuse. One of the only studies available is a 2002 study conducted by the former director of the Southdown Institute, a well-known treatment facility for thousands of religious men and women. According to this study, 0.7% of religious sisters who were admitted as patients confessed to sexual contact with minors.[4] But, there has been much criticism of this research and its accuracy on the basis that the information upon which the study is based is based upon the non-anonymous admissions by the perpetrator. Both research and common sense supports the conclusion that sex offenders are not always complete and honest about their criminal activities.[5]
Further, this Southdown Institute rate of 0.7% appears to be inconsistent with civil lawsuits that have been filed and expert opinions in the field. For example, in February, the Ursuline Sisters settled claims with 232 plaintiffs for physical and sexual abuse by nuns and priests at the Ursuline Academy in St. Ignatious, Montana. These cases, involved physical and sexual abuse by both priests and nuns and the sexual abuse by the priests was strikingly similar to the sexual abuse by the nuns. This antidotal evidence raises the question whether there really is any difference in the prevalence of priests sexually abusing children versus nuns.
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