What's a Pedophile?
A pedophile is an adult who's sexually attracted to children. Pedophiles come from all different backgrounds, educational levels, and ethnicities. In fact, many pedophiles are married; marriage allows them to mask their interests behind a more traditional lifestyle.
While there's no exact method for identifying pedophiles, some common traits and habits do exist:
- They have transient employment records. Pedophiles tend to frequently change jobs; they also tend to have significant gaps between jobs.
- They like to work around children. Pedophiles often take jobs where they can be near children — especially positions where they may be directly responsible for children.
- They exhibit a trustworthy nature. They know how to get children to trust them, often because they know how to communicate on their level.
- They prey on neglected kids. Kids who become victims of pedophilia often lack trustworthy and reliable mentors and authority figures in their lives. Pedophiles seem to be able to sense which kids crave attention.
- They target single-parent families. Statistics show that pedophiles often try to befriend the single parents of children they plan to victimize. This earns the parent's trust, eventually allowing a pedophile to be alone with the child.
- They prefer older children. While some pedophiles may be attracted to all children, many are most interested in those closer to puberty. Older children may be more curious about sex, and pedophiles tend to encourage them to express their feelings.
- They enjoy child-like hobbies. Studies show that pedophiles engage in leisure-time activities more commonly associated with children. A child predator may even choose a hobby that's a favorite of a targeted child, in an effort to further gain the child's trust.
Although there are exceptions, pedophiles typically aren't violent sex offenders. A pedophile's fascination with kids is so child-like that everything is built on trust; pedophiles actually believe that the unlawful sexual relationship is healthy and nurturing. And while many pedophiles were abused as children, abused children don't automatically lash out in similar ways when they reach adulthood.
What's a pedophile registry?
While there's no registered pedophile list per se, the names of known pedophiles will show up on both national and state registries of sex offenders. State registries have existed since California created one in 1947, while the national registry was introduced in 1994 through a federal statute known as the Jacob Wetterling Act. National sex offender registry laws have been updated since then through federal legislation, including a bill based on the provisions in New Jersey's Megan's Law (1996), as well as the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (2007).
Some of the provisions in various state sex offender registry laws are being challenged in the courts, but compiling sex offender information and making them available via these registries, including the subset of pedophile registries, will in all likelihood remain the law of the land.