Smith column: How child sex abusers use 'testing' to find targets

In a previous column, I detailed Jimmy Hinton’s pivotal decision to report his dad for sexually abusing children, a decision that led to his advocacy against child sexual abuse.

With his dad likely imprisoned for life, Hinton embarked on an investigative journey to identify what makes individuals vulnerable to child sexual abusers. He corresponded with his father in prison, connected with victims and their families, consulted research and experts, and reflected on his lifelong relationship with his dad.

Previously, I have talked about how pedophiles “groom” victims, families, and communities to gain their trust in preparation for committing abuse. This often involves providing attention, gifts, flattery, and cultivating a facade of trustworthiness. Grooming involves establishing emotional connections, sometimes accompanied by displays of physical affection, gradually weakening victims and their families’ defenses, rendering them more susceptible to exploitation.

Hinton, however, offers a different perspective on grooming. He contends that many abusers who are known by their victims, are already trusted by both the child and community. They don’t need to spend time building trust each time they choose to abuse because their role or personality afford them the trust they need.

Hinton asserts that “testing” is a more significant technique, one that allows abusers to know whom they can abuse and how they will do it. Hinton defines such testing as “early interactions where abusers assess the victims’ boundaries, susceptibility, and willingness to comply with the abuser’s advances.” It aims to gauge the victim’s reactions to certain behaviors or suggestions, in order to identify vulnerabilities to exploit.

In Hinton’s exploration of deception, he draws parallels between the techniques employed by magicians and those used by abusers. Just like a skilled magician, a child sex abuser can identify his or her subject within seconds. A quick joke, a touch on the shoulder, a request about something mildly personal are all benign ways of testing a subject to find certain vulnerabilities.

Once a vulnerable subject is iwdentified, the abuser’s actions become routine, honed through repetition and observation. While grooming may occur, it’s secondary to the abuser’s primary goal of exploiting vulnerabilities and adapting themselves to fit the victim’s beliefs and desires. Every touch, smile, and conversation with the child and their the family results in “information mining” — a process aimed at gathering feedback and tailoring behavior to appear as the ideal, trustworthy individual to victims and their families.

The father of several siblings abused by Hinton’s dad described a chilling example of how testing was used on his family. After years away, the father returned to church with his kids to reconnect with God. Hinton’s dad, spotting him across the sanctuary, approached and began asking him personal questions about himself and his kids. Hinton’s dad projected an image that allowed him to make a connection with the man’s family. He also agreed to become the father’s spiritual mentor, something the father had shared he was looking for.

This conversation seemed benign to the father at the time. But to Hinton’s dad, it was a simple set of tests that, while lasting only a few minutes, provided him enough information to adapt his conversation in real time to achieve his end.

Hinton describes it as follows: “My dad walked into a room of 200 or so people that day and, within literal seconds, spotted his targets, approached the dad, tested him and the kids, and within days was sexually abusing the children.”

In a letter from prison, Hinton’s dad confirmed the value of this kind of testing to a pedophile. “I did all kinds of tests with the kids and parents at the same time — a hand on a kid’s buttocks, a piggyback ride, a reassuring pat while a kid sits beside you at church. The goal is to touch an area that is off limits to see how the child and parents respond. I didn’t have to groom kids into being abused. All I had to do was test them and the parents.”

Hinton asserts that if someone at the church had been trained to recognize the techniques Hinton’s dad was using to test that father and his kids, victims could have been spared. He continues: “We must recognize that while average abusers are skilled at deception, most people are unequipped and unskilled at detecting abuse in plain sight.”

Hinton notes that a lack of trained church members, combined with a determined abuser, resulted in tragedy. Effective child sexual abuse prevention training can be as comprehensive as that offered by GRACE — Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment — to protect an entire faith community (see netgrace.org) or as accessible and affordable as Hinton’s Mastering Abuse Prevention 8-hour online video training (see jimmyhinton.org).

I can honestly say, the latter has forever changed my perspective on keeping children safe. Would your family, church or local organization benefit from the same?