Sexual abuse by teachers 10 times higher than priests

Archbishop Timothy Dolan defended comments he made on his blog that the rate of sexual abuse among New York City public school teachers is ten times higher than that among priests.

In his blog post of March 18 Dolan described a meeting with a man at Denver airport who would not shake his hand and told him that he couldn’t look at a Dolan or any Catholic priest without thinking of a sexual abuser.

In the course of the ensuing discussion Dolan reports he said, “you obviously never heard the stats on public school teachers. In my home town of New York City alone, experts say the rate of sexual abuse among public school teachers is ten times higher than that of priests, and these abusers just get transferred around.”

“Studies tell us that most children sexually abused are victims of their own fathers or other family members”.

Asked where Dolan’s statistics came from, a spokeswoman for the New York Archdiocese cited a NYS Special Commissioner of Investigation report that substantiated 78 abuse cases by teachers in 2009, and 73 such cases last year.

Another 2009 study from John Jay on incidence of priest sexual abuse was also cited.

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