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States are increasingly passing laws that criminalize not only sexual abuse, but the grooming process that often precedes the abuse.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema / Unsplash / Creative Commons
At least 13 states — Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia — have made grooming a criminal offense, independent of any sexual abuse conduct that may follow.
“Grooming a child for inappropriate sexual activity and the inappropriate sexual activity itself are now two separate criminal charges in the above-referenced states. It is not a defense to the grooming charge that the underlying inappropriate sexual activity did not actually occur,” Gregory Love, an attorney and founder of MinistrySafe, wrote in an article about the grooming laws.
Love told MinistryWatch in an interview that he is unaware of any prosecutions under these laws, but most of them have been in effect only about a year.
He sees these laws as another tool in the tool box of prosecutors who are dealing with sexual predators. For example, if victims won’t testify because the abuser is a family member, these laws would allow for a charge if others can testify that grooming took place.
The laws can also act as a deterrent before the sexual abuse itself occurs.
Love also believes that the increasing number of anti-grooming laws demonstrates a cultural shift in the attitude toward the dangers of child sexual abuse and a recognition that the grooming process itself is harmful.
The grooming laws can be a valuable tool given the proliferation of electronic communication in our culture, a path that is often used by sexual predators to reach their victims, Love pointed out.
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“As we see state governments passing laws to make grooming illegal, we are seeing it work to protect the vulnerable and to fulfill its God-given mandate,” Jeff Dalrymple, the director of abuse prevention and response with the SBC Executive Committee, told MinistryWatch. He expects legislators to pass more laws to reduce the number of sexual abuse victims.
The criminal laws are fairly broad in their definition of grooming. The Texas statute defines grooming as when someone “knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces, or attempts to persuade, induce, entice, or coerce, a child younger than 18 years of age to engage in specific conduct” that would subject the actor to criminal liability.
While the definition is broad enough to take in a range of grooming behaviors, it can also bring challenges.
“Grooming laws have always been difficult because of challenges in differentiating between innocent behavior and culpable behavior,” said Theresa Sidebotham, a Colorado-based lawyer who assists ministries with child protection.
“It looks like the new laws are targeting lower-level sexual behavior, as well as showing children inappropriate material,” she added.
Love doesn’t expect the anti-grooming laws to impact insurance premiums for churches and ministries. Insurers have already digested the grooming process and accounted for it; criminalizing the grooming process doesn’t “move the needle” for them, Love said, because they have already recognized that grooming is bad.
Additionally, the anti-grooming laws have not yet been extended to change reporting requirements for church or ministry staff nor have they created civil causes of action that can give rise to insurance claims. Love said he is keeping an eye on that.
If the anti-grooming laws are extended in any way, Love would like to see them create more training requirements. For example, Texas has implemented specific training requirements in the Texas Youth Camp Safety and Health Act. The act requires that training include “the typical patterns of behavior and methods of operation of child molesters and sex offenders that put children at risk.”
However, even if states don’t enact training requirement laws, Love urges ministries to engage in training that includes information about the grooming process.
MinistrySafe has developed its training with the grooming process in mind. It provides scenarios and granular instruction about it, noting that the process can differ depending on the age and sex of the intended victim, Love said.
There are patterns that are predictable and preventable, but that aren’t necessarily intuitive, Love noted. All of a church or ministry’s child safety policies and procedures must be “grooming-informed,” he added.
“It is vital that churches and all child/youth serving organizations include grooming awareness as a standard part of training for all employees and volunteers that supervise minors. This training should include indicators of grooming, such as isolation, desensitizing, threats and guilt in order to maintain control, excessive or inappropriate attention and gifts, sharing or keeping secrets, and pushing boundaries,” Dalrymple said.
“Volunteers and staff should also be trained on any specific programmatic or jurisdictional context that applies to the organization – such as laws in their state which criminalize grooming,” he added.
Sidebotham added that reporting requirements for ministries should be updated to reflect the anti-grooming laws that have been passed.
“Churches and ministries need to stay up to date with the laws in their jurisdiction and be ready to report appropriately. Failure to report could always bring about liability, and I suppose civil liability could be expanded by the definitions of grooming,” Sidebotham said.
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