Your neighbor down the street. A local coach. A trusted family friend.

Pedophiles can be anyone, but they're probably people you know.

"Parents would be in a better position to protect their children if they just remembered that they probably know a sex offender who has never been caught," said Cory Jewell Jensen, the co-director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention.

Studies have shown one in five children is sexually abused. Only 5 percent of the offenders are strangers, whereas 75 percent are related to or acquainted with children and their families. The remaining 20 percent access victims through youth work, such as education, sports, day care or church.

Jewell Jensen and her husband, Steve, founded the center in 1982. It's a private-practice sex offender evaluation and treatment program in Beaverton.

Through her work there, Jewell Jensen said she's found child molesters come from all walks of life. She and her husband have treated college presidents and truck drivers. Though women sometimes molest children, a significant majority of pedophiles are men.

Origins of a sex offender

While it's difficult to profile pedophiles, their behavior often is linked to sexual feelings, not just control or power, Jewell Jensen said.

Three-quarters of child molesters began as children or teens, she explained. They are often triggered by an intense sexual experience, such as early exposure to pornography or observing parents or older siblings having sex. They may have been sexually abused themselves, but research shows only 25 percent to 30 percent of offenders were molested, she said.

"Based on those early sexual experiences with other children, they developed a sexual attraction to children and a belief system that condones sexual contact with kids," she said. "Most kids who get molested do not go on to offend other people. Being molested is only one piece of the puzzle of how people grow up to become sex offenders."

According to a 1998 study on sex abuse, child molesters averaged 120 sex crimes before getting caught.

Offenders search for easy victims they know they can control, such as children with single parents or those from homes rife with discord or drug abuse. Child molesters make them feel special, gain the family's trust, and then convince the children the abuse should be kept secret.

"A perpetrator's job is to manipulate the family and the child into believing that they're a generous, kind person," said Sonia Amlin, a child advocate and prevention specialist at the Children's Advocacy Program in Coos Bay.

Problem with protection

For years, schools have taught children about sexual abuse, warning them against stranger danger, and the differences among good touching, bad touching and secret touching. But Jewell Jensen said that isn't enough.

"For kids to be able to understand that and protect themselves from being abused is really too complex of a task for most children," she said.

Instead, parents need to learn the signs, understand how predators approach children, and set a special time to speak with their kids every day.

"We need to prepare children, talk to them about sexual abuse and offender behavior," Jewell Jensen wrote in a pamphlet on the issue. "If we don't talk to them, who will?"