A casual observer of the news might think there was an epidemic of molestation cases involving women against boys.
Last week, a former Orange County middle school teacher was sentenced to six years in prison for committing lewd acts with boys. The same day, a seventh-grade teacher in Kern County pleaded not guilty to two counts of annoying and molesting a minor.
The next day, a probation officer was arrested on suspicion of having sex with a 17-year-old ward whom she met while working at a correctional facility in Fresno County.
Since November at least eight California cases have made the news, involving women either being accused or convicted of sexually exploiting boys. Most of the perpetrators were teachers or other school personnel.
In reality, the phenomenon is not new, sociologists and criminal psychologists say, nor is there a growing trend.
Statistics from the California attorney general's office show that the number of females convicted of sex offenses in the state averaged 386 per year between 2000 and 2004, a number in keeping with previous years. The average figure for men committing similar crimes during the same time period was more than 9,000.
It is unclear how the figures for California's female sex offenders compare to other states, because there is no nationwide information on the number of women who sexually abuse children, according to officials at the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
More cases of women molesting boys might be making headlines because of stricter law enforcement and the realization that boys, not just girls, can be victims of sexual misconduct, experts agree.
"People are more willing to report these incidents if they hear about them," said David Finkelhof, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. "Police are more willing to investigate them; prosecutors more willing to prosecute them; newspapers more willing to write about them."
"Everybody used to think that a 15-year-old male who got together with a 25-year-old female was just lucky," said Carla F. Grabert, a deputy district attorney in Kern County, who prosecutes unlawful sexual intercourse and statutory rape cases.
"But I think we are noticing a change of perception with the publicity that has happened nationwide," she said. "It gets thought about more. If it's publicized more, it generates conversation. There is a lot of talk about it."
