Joseph Hayden Boston picked up the phone and called his mother to tell her about a frightening sexual assault, but he was not the victim.
CBS News reports the 18-year-old's mother walked her son into the Riverside police station in California after he allegedly told her he molested two children in the hotel room he lives in.
The four-year-old and eight-year-old boys who Boston befriended, lived in same the hotel as the teen with their parents. They had permission to visit Boston when the sexual assaults against them happened.
His confession took another shocking turn when he told police the two boys were not the only one he hurt, his victim list included many more children.
Riverside police spokesman Officer Ryan Railsback said Boston
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Darkness to Light reports:
FACT: As many as 40% of children who are sexually abused are abused by older, or more powerful children. The younger the child victim, the more likely it is that the perpetrator is a juvenile. Juveniles are the offenders in 43% of assaults on children under age six. Of these offenders, 14% are under age.
Juveniles who commit sex offenses against other children are more likely than adult sex offenders to offend in groups, to offend at schools, and to have more male victims and younger victims. The number of youth coming to the attention of police for sex offenses increases sharply at age 12 and plateaus after age 14. Early adolescence is the peak age for youth offenses against younger children.
A small number of juvenile offenders — one out of eight — are younger than age 12. Females constitute 7% of juveniles who commit sex offenses.
There is hope to help stop young sex offenders from continuing the crime into adulthood, according to Darkness to Light:
FACT: Most adolescent sex offenders are not sexual predators and will not go on to become adult offenders. Most adolescent offenders do not meet the criteria for pedophilia and do not continue to exhibit sexually
predatory