A 4-year-old boy finished telling Monroe Police Detective Kimberly Pant about a sex act that his 13-year-old brother allegedly performed on him, then went off to play with his toys.

        “This kid goes telling me all this sex stuff, and then he goes and gets on his little motorized car, and you say to yourself, "There's something really wrong here,'” Detective Pant said. “He's a kid — and he wants to be a kid doing kid things, but his childhood has been taken away.”

        The lost innocence — of the victim and the offender — is one factor that helps rank child-on-child sex crimes among the most emotionally draining and time-consuming that officers face — and the crimes are becoming painfully apparent in some Tristate communities.

        Monroe, a city of 7,100 that lies in both Butler and Warren counties, has been hit with two cases in less than a month. Besides the rape case involving the 13- and 4-year-olds, police say another boy, 9, tried to rape a 3-year-old girl. Ms. Pant is currently Monroe's sole full-time detective in a city that had gone at least two decades without any child-on-child sex cases.

        Monroe's cases occurred during the same month that two boys, ages 11 and 13, were accused in the Aug. 15 rape and slaying of 8-year-old Takeya Bryant in Northside.

        And in July, a 12-year-old boy was accused of performing sex acts with another boy, 6, in Fairfield.

        The Hamilton County Juvenile Court recorded 112 rape cases with juvenile suspects last year — a 280 percent jump over 1990.

        Stricter laws, greater enforcement and better reporting might account for part of the increase.

        “I don't think there's a department in Butler County or elsewhere that doesn't have cases like this,” said Fairfield Township Police Capt. Alan Laney, who has been investigating such crimes since 1985 and participates in the Butler County Child Assault Task Force. “I think it's happening because our entire society is so sexually oriented.”

        Experts say parents can help by making sure their children are supervised and by teaching them at an early age about sexual conduct and abuse.

        The cases are rarely publicized because juvenile records are less accessible. But public awareness could help stop these crimes from occurring in the first place, says Barbara Polland, a marriage/family therapist for more than 40 years and a child-development professor at California State University in Northridge.

        “We can learn about what kind of situation they were in and how did it happen so we can build in ways to try to prevent it from happening,” says Dr. Polland, author of No Directions on the Package, a book that addresses sexual and other sensitive issues involving children.

        Parents may fear needlessly frightening their children, but Dr. Polland says, “I'd rather take the risk of a child being scared and alert than becoming an innocent victim.” Parents, she says, should discuss the cases and ask their children what they would do if confronted with a similar situation.

        While it's not unusual for youngsters to show curiosity about each other's bodies and perhaps “play doctor,” alarms should go off if sex-related activity involves youths of disparate ages, Dr. Polland and police agree.

        “Age span between the perpetrator and victim is the main factor in whether a case looks like we'll need to press charges,” Capt. Laney said. “If a child is more than a couple years older, that older child is bigger and knows he can coerce or entice that younger child, and they need to know that is conduct that won't be tolerated.”

        These cases can be tougher to investigate than murder cases, Capt. Laney said, because very young child victims may be reluctant, incapable or fearful of disclosing what happened.

        Cases of sexual contact (touching), are far more common than cases of sexual conduct (acts), police say.

        Hamilton, for instance, sees about 20 alleged child-on-child sex crimes a year, and about five of those cases involve more than just touching, said Sgt. Jim Malone, who supervises investigations involving juveniles.

        Sgt. Malone said a psychological examination of the offender is essential for guiding how authorities handle each case.

        “We have to decide: Do we want to prosecute this kid as a sexual offender? Is it a one-time curiosity or is it a tendency that this kid is going to do this again and again?” Sgt. Malone said.

        Another factor: whether the offender learned the behavior by being victimized himself — or by imitating what he or she has seen on television, videos, the Internet or movies.

        The 13-year-old Monroe boy told police that a movie influenced his alleged conduct with his 4-year-old brother, Detective Pant said.

        Once a child reaches adolescence, peer pressure plays a significant role, David Finkelhor, professor of sociology and director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center.

        “There's a lot of misinformation, a lot of pressures, a lot of experiences that they're being exposed to at developmental stages that they're not prepared to handle. In that mix, it's not surprising that a lot of kids get really confused and impulsive in the way in which they try to find out about sexuality,” he said.

        Most times, counseling is ordered for both offender and victim.

        Because a number of high-profile sex offenders have disclosed they began their behavior as youths, “there tends to be this idea that these (young offenders) are monsters in the making, and this is just the beginning of this career as a sex offender,” Dr. Finkelhor said. “That's not true. The research on juvenile sex offenders is that they do not repeat their offenses, and the potential for rehabilitating is very high.”

Protecting children from sexual abuse

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