As a male Canadian survivor of child sexual abuse, I am grateful for this crucial study, though it disgusts me.

Australian men who have committed sexual offences against children are 2.73 as likely to be working with children than non-offending men.

They’re also over twice as likely to use cryptocurrencies — colour me shocked /s

That approximately 10% of all Aussie men have sexually offended against children is a horrifying but critical statistic — I’m not aware of a similarly rigorous study for Canada or elsewhere, but these numbers are likely generally representative here and in the “west”.

I’m frankly not sure how we best deal with this reality: all of these men need to be held accountable, provided help where willing and appropriate, restricted from access to children until demonstrated to be no longer a threat (likely forever in many or most cases), and incarcerated as necessary.

But regardless of the costs & disruption, we owe it to all the victims past, present, and future) to tackle this problem adroitly.

This will have major economic impacts, both positive & negative: taking many of these men into custody and/or removing them from their work (paid or volunteer) will leave a substantial hole in those workforces; on the flip side, the women freed from such abusers (many of whom will have multiple paraphilias & violent behaviours) will be better able to participate more fully in society, and the recurring costs of sexual trauma to future generations of children will be greatly reduced.

I would hope that unemployment would lessen in such circumstances as well: I’ve been unable to access anything specific to Canada or Australia, but it appears the US unemployment rate excludes incarcerated persons, and as such I would presume the same is true globally as this metric is considered part of the suite of primary economic indicators used to compare different countries (vera.org/news/people-in…).

Assuming that’s the case, there will be many more opportunities for the un- and underemployed to take on the positions left vacant due to incarceration or exclusion (e.g., working with children) of offending men.

Regardless of the economic implications, any (though hopefully a significant!) reduction in harm to children is priceless.

Ben Atkinson, PhD: I wonder if you’ve ever come across anything through your work that would be useful in evaluating the potential economic impacts of such a widespread holding to account of (mostly) male child sexual offenders. Any thoughts you might have would be tremendously appreciated 🙏