On October 12, 2022, a Huron County jury found David William Gray guilty of two counts Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 1st Degree and two counts of Criminal Sexual Conduct in the Second Degree. All four counts involve the Defendant sexually assaulting two minor children when they were under the age of 13.
Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point states that a pivotal turning point occurs in “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” Did you know that by the year 1920 all states had made “wife beating” illegal? Astonishingly, it would take another fifty years before the tipping point would occur and society would begin to see domestic violence as something far more insidious than “just a family matter”.
Victims come from all walks of life, but one frequently present risk factor is a sense of alienation. The average age of recruitment is 12 years old, but age is not a protective factor. Transient youth, those who are homeless, have a one in five chance of being recruited for commercial sex trafficking within 3 months of being homeless and young adults with little to no supervision are at elevated risk. Individuals who already feel like outsiders due to a national, gender, or LGBT identity are also at a greater risk. People with victim mentality or little to no self-reliance are easy targets for recruiters. Poverty is a risk factor, however, higher socio-economic status is not a protective factor.
You see, generation to generation, families pass on parenting styles; gentle or harsh, right and wrong. We know only what we learn, and we learn often by what has been done to us. Unless we receive education to know better, we remain trapped in the old, and sometimes dysfunctional and harmful styles of parenting, and will repeat what we know /what we have learned – and we will sometimes pass on a legacy of abuse. But there is hope. When we know better, we do better.
