Legislative bills would make sexual grooming of children a crime

Bills are making their way through the Missouri Legislature that would make sexual grooming by predators - a precursor to physical sexual abuse and rape - a crime.

Two bills, HB 1814 and HB 2551 have been introduced in the Missouri House.

In the the Missouri Senate, SB 893 is sponsored by Senator Jill Carter from Granby.

"It is a manipulative process that sexual predators use to gain trust of their victims to gain compliance and prevent disclosure," Madison explains.

She says grooming displays itself in a number of ways:

"Isolating a child from their friends and families, their social network; gift-giving, secret-keeping, normalization to sexual touch and content; manipulative tactics and pitting them against their friends and family, she says.

It would also be "trying to convince them that any sexual contact that does take place was their fault, and threats, saying if disclose anything, your life will be ended and no one will believe you."

Maddison works with Missouri State Senate Vulnerable Youth Advisory Board.

She says the bills will make grooming prosecutable. She says at this time, many predators won't be prosecuted without a charge of rape or overwhelming evidence.

She says most sexual abuse happens from someone the child knows personally.

She says Senator Carter's bill will also target sextortion - manipulating a child into sending inappropriate images, often followed by threats to ruin the child's life by sending the images to people they know.

She says studies from the Centers for Disease Control show that one in four girls and one in twenty boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18.

"Grooming can be more damaging than rape itself," Maddison states. "We want to be able not to prosecute not just for physical sexual contact but also for grooming."