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The Social Science Journal of 2002 explains how prevalent child sexual abuse is, and how much sexual abuse can be a marker or magnifying glass for family dysfunction. According to the article, the National U.S. statistics (Wang & Dara, 1997) indicated that more than 200,000 children are reported to Child Protective Services each year for suspected sexual abuse. Sexual child abuse brings about four different family types. The first type is "Safe, secure families". "In a study of sexually abused children, 63% indicated that the adult response to their disclosure of abuse was supportive: the abuse was reported, the non-abusive custodial adult believed and supported the child victim, and the perpetrator was denied access to the child victim" (Kellogg & Menard, 2002). Hypothesis 2 goes against this type of family because is not willing to let anyone one harm their children. The second type is safe, insecure families, and works along with hypothesis 2. "A safe, but insecure family poses a considerable risk to children for abuse. This type of family is insecure for children because the adult dysfunctional behaviors overshadow the bonding, nurturing, and protection of children. These families may be characterized by loss: 40% of adult survivors of child sexual abuse have lost a parent due to divorce and 17% have lost a parent due to death during their childhood" (Burge et al., 2001). Unsafe, enmesh families is the third type. "The unsafe and enmeshed family is stable but an isolated family that is controlled by an abusive father figure. The children, and other adults, typically the mother, are integrated into a rigid system of functioning determined entirely by the abusive head of the family. There are no known dysfunctional behaviors among the controlled adults primarily because the abuser does not allow such information to be shared. Adults in the family of victimized children are more likely to have poor communication skills, confused roles, and difficulty with problem-solving" (Alexander, 1985; Courtois, 1988; Finkelhor, 1979; Hoagwood, 1990).
