...according to a report prepared for the US Department of Education entitled Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, “9.6 per cent of all students in grades 8 to 11 report… educator sexual misconduct that was unwanted.”
You’ve posted that link twice now. The fact that other organizations do it does not make it any better.
1. I remember reading something on FR in the past few days about teenagers lying on surveys to be clever/shocking/funny. That’s normal teen behavior.
2. I would guess that if the 9.6% of students in grades 9-11 is accurate (and see #1 about that), that would certainly mean a much lower percentage of adults who perpetrate. One thing we know about sexual predators is they are rarely one and done; most have many victims.
First of all, these two stats aren't comparing the same thing.
“available research suggests that approximately two to five per cent of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor”
“9.6 per cent of all students in grades 8 to 11 report… educator sexual misconduct that was unwanted.”
One of the percentages is the number of priests. The other is the percentage of children, who might well be abused by a very much smaller number of educators. Even 0.5% of educators could easily abuse 9.6% of children, which makes priests from 4 to 20 times more likely to be abusing children than lay educators.
Second, there are so many problems with these stats: What the hell is the sample variance of two to five percent? Second, 2-5% of priests have had a sexual "experience" with a minor, is not the same thing as the 9.6% of students reporting "sexual misconduct." The former description suggests sexual assault, the latter could range from unwanted, non-contact propositions or harassment to touching, to sexual crimes. Who really knows?
We should also point out the obvious thing: in the case of priests, the people assaulted are almost always young men and adolescents. The assaults are perpetrated by what is a very small percentage of the adult male population [1.5-2% by most sane estimates.] The "inappropriate behavior" cited against educators probably involves young females and adult males, and we also know it involves a certain percentages of adult females and boys. So ... you are comparing a large heterosexual population which has contact with dozens or even hundreds of adolescents in the schools per year, with a small number of priests whose access is much more limited -- unless they are teaching in Parochial Schools.
Not saying heterosexual assault isn't crime. What I am saying is that these ARE NOT statistical cohorts by any stretch of the imagination.
Third, Priests are supposed to be moral exemplars.
Fourth, and this is by far the biggest problem: What stats do we have which suggest that teachers with a history of sexual assault are moved to other school districts or in other ways have their transgressions covered up? Again, I don't see the union-dominated, protect rank-and-file members at all costs school systems on a comparable moral footing with what the Church is supposed to be.
Which is not the same as saying that 9.6 % of all teachers engage in sexual misconduct.
A muddying of the waters with that stat. it is irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is the fact that when allegations of abuse came up, the Church handled it wrong until forced to by the victims going public with it and the church having its hand forced by the bad publicity.
All that tells anyone is that if the secular world did not put pressure on the church to do the right thing, it would still be going on.