To feel stunned about the lack of child protection figures?

[WhyPig]

I wouldn’t think of myself as a naive but I've just read the following and am completely shocked.

"Police said there was no typical offender and previously it had been estimated that up to 840,000 adults in the UK had a sexual interest in children."

The full article is here:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/17/police-arresting-1000-paedophile-suspects-a-month-across-uk

Surely this is a national crisis and needs immediate tackling?

I can't emphasise my contempt for Tech companies enough and their failure to protect children, but the government needs to take control over tougher sentencing, fast tracking CCTV in schools and nurseries, stricter rules for working with kids, teaching kids awareness, definitely banning social media for kids etc.

I feel really disturbed and depressed know just how common this has become and how there aren't stricter measures in place to tackle this. Am I actually naive not knowing how prolific this problem is in the UK and losing faith in authorities dealing with the issue?

I did know. Few people do, though, and even fewer want to admit it's true.

The authorities actually do amazing work on this. It's like whack-a-mole, though. When they get offenders into court, nonce judges often apply pathetically feeble sentences.

All the other depressing statistics aside, I love how they say 'children' and 'adults', lumping everything in together, when:

"78% of all CSAE victims were female; 82% of all CSAE suspects male."

What a shocker! (And who knows how many of the female suspects are actually 'transwomen'.)

Before I worked in teaching I was naive.

a few years in teaching and you really do see the shit side of human nature and how it impacts kids.

it no longer surprises me.

What do they mean no typical offender?

The typical offender is male.

It is shocking and from what I can see the authorities are trying their best. I’ve a friend who works in the police safeguarding unit and says it’s an uphill struggle as these people become more and more clever. He also says there is no typical offender. As for DBS checks etc they are a starting point however people can have clearance but be perpetrators who have not been caught.
As for tech companies not protecting children, yes they have a part to play but you cannot blame them entirely as ultimately it comes down to parents to monitor their children’s use and ensure any parental controls are implemented.

I mean the reality is the majority of children will be abused in their own home by family members so none of this will really ever do much.

Does your friend not consider that men are the typical offender or are they claiming that there is a 50/50 split between male and female?

I'll just translate that for readers with percentage blindness.
Male / female splits:

Men & boys are four times more likely to sexually abuse a child.

Girls are four times more likely to be sexually abused.

They don’t claim a 50/50 split but the difference is not as great as you would think. Women don’t tend to SA (though some do) but are accessories. By that they do nothing to stop it. Women do tend to abuse in other ways though.
By no typical offender they mean it could be your friend, neighbour, family member as most abuse is carried out by people known to the victims. They said if you lined up 10 people and asked you to pick out the offender you couldn’t do it.

Thank you, Garlic! That's much clearer.

I know there is no typical offender in terms of age, ethnicity, job type, income level, educational level, but there definitely is a typical offender of direct SA in terms of sex, it is that vastly its men.

There isnt any 'difference not as great as you think'. I work in this area (not police)

Women are often accessories in some way, not as often as its sometimes claimed.

Women abusing in other ways is a different thread though, so not relevant to my query.

There is a typical offender.

840000 people. Assuming they are all men. The adult male population is about 33 million. So just over 2.5%

Is anyone researching into why this 2.5% are like this? Genetics, environmental factors, upbringing etc?

These are people with that interest, are there services to help them suppress their urges? Stopping them offending will reduce the number of victims

It would be very interesting to understand the research across the world, is it the same sort of percentage?

I think what these shocking figures are missing - which would make them even more impactful- is the number of victims.

840,000 offenders. And I believe that they are all offenders - with access to the internet, I seriously doubt that there is more then a tiny % of these creatures who don’t look at images online of child SA. Whilst probably kidding themselves that it’s ok because they’re not the ones perpetrating the abuse physically.

Out of the offenders who physically abuse children I’d bet my house that the vast vast majority don’t stop at abusing just one child.

Millions of children.

I feel like an idiot because I am a teacher too. I just didn't know the scale of it. I find it so depressing that many children I teach might end up as victims of predators. I don't think education goes far enough teaching kids to be wary of strangers but totally understand it is a tricky one. I don't think we can rely on all parents to educate their kids about staying safe well enough.

Yes, it would be useful to know for prevention. It does mention increasing radicalisation of abusers in the article, so presumably the same factors apply for radicalisation in other areas eg. Isolation, exposire to extreme views, obsessive personalities, vulnerability e.g. mental health issues etc.