Counter Pedophilia Investigate Unit

There are countless jokes about how seriously we take Packers football in Wisconsin, but a Grand Chute woman may want to put things in perspective.

The 36-year-old woman has been charged with child abuse after grabbing and choking her 11-year-old daughter after getting upset about the Packers loss to the Chiefs on Sunday. (more…)

A father who admitted he had his 9-year-old daughter drive his van while he was intoxicated pleaded guilty Monday to a felony child-abuse charge.

Shawn Weimer, 39, likely will receive probation when he is sentenced by Wayne County Circuit Judge Margie Braxton on Feb. 23.

He pleaded guilty to second-degree child abuse, a crime punishable by up to four years in prison, and a misdemeanor charge of allowing an unlicensed minor to operate a motor vehicle. (more…)

Any local paper will have it, most likely buried beyond page six, but it will most certainly be there. What I am talking about is some horrific account of ritual child abuse, long ignored, but uncovered by local police, neighbors, or child protective services – but always a bit too late.

Sometimes reading these accounts can literally churn your stomach, whether you are a parent or not. The idea of a violently oppressed child trapped in a cycle of abuse and neglect makes you question the humanity, or lack thereof, of your fellow citizen.

The fact is, as child abuse exists around the globe, it is the first world, highly industrialized, United States that boasts some of the highest rates of child abuse in the world. (more…)

For years, pedophiles have been diagnosed either after they have committed sexual offenses or after they have agreed to submit to an intrusive and imperfectly reliable test that measures penile changes as a subject looks at pictures of nude children.

A new study suggests that a pedophile’s different brain responses to photos of unclothed children and adults can detect pedophilia with greater accuracy.

The technique used also appears able to detect whether the individual’s pedophilic urges are hetero- or homosexual — a distinction that may call for different approaches to treatment. (more…)

As the U.S. economy began to tank, the number of abused kids landing in the hospital with severe brain injuries spiked, a new study shows.

Anecdotes linking child abuse to the recession have surfaced before, but there had been no hard data to back the connection until now. “It’s definitely disturbing,” said Elizabeth Gershoff, a psychologist who studies parenting but was not involved in the study. Although there is no proof that financial hardship itself is causing the uptick in abuse, earlier research has tied parental stress to child maltreatment. (more…)

CULLMAN — A man accused of sexually abusing a young girl took the witness stand in his Cullman County Circuit Court trial Wednesday.

Bobby A. Runnels, 63, of Gold Ridge, was indicted by grand jury in June 2010 of first-degree sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old, which is a Class B felony. He submitted a not guilty plea in Judge Greg Nicholas’ courtroom Monday.

Following strong closing arguments from defense attorney Len Brooks and Assistant District Attorney Martha Williams Wednesday afternoon, the jury went into deliberation behind closed doors for almost three hours before being released in recess. (more…)

Carlson Could Face Life Imprisonment, If Convicted

PHOENIX — An Indianapolis man has been indicted on charges that he forced his young grandsons on brutal hikes in triple-digit temperatures at the Grand Canyon.

Federal prosecutors announced the six-count indictment Thursday against Christopher Carlson, 45. He’s scheduled to be arraigned on the child abuse charges Wednesday in Phoenix. (more…)

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A lower court improperly overturned the conviction and sentence of a Rapid City man charged with molesting a 4-year-old girl at his motorcycle-repair shop in 2001, the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Dale Guthmiller, 54, was convicted of criminal pedophilia in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison, but he was released last year after a Pierre judge ruled that comments made by the trial judge prevented Guthmiller from getting a fair trial. (more…)

(Reuters) – As the U.S. economy began to tank, the number of abused children landing in the hospital with severe brain injuries spiked, according to a study.

Anecdotes linking child abuse to the recession had surfaced before, but the current study — based on hospital data from four U.S. states and published in Pediatrics — is one of the first to provide hard data to back the connection.

Although there is no proof that financial hardship itself is causing the rise in abuse, earlier research has tied parental stress to child maltreatment.

“It’s definitely disturbing,” said Elizabeth Gershoff, a psychologist who studies parenting but was not involved in the study. (more…)

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Dutch police have uncovered huge caches of child pornography on “hidden” websites, including four based in the United States, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

The discovery was made as part of the far-reaching investigation into a suspected pedophile identified only as Robert M. who was arrested in Amsterdam last year. He is accused of abusing dozens of young children while he worked in at least two Amsterdam preschools. (more…)