YNOT EUROPE – A new Garda report indicates sex offenses perpetrated by juveniles 10-18 trebled during 2010. Overall juvenile crime during the same period rose by 14 percent, the Irish national police force noted, with robbery leading the categories and doubling in frequency over the past year.

According to Garda and Ireland’s national rape crisis center, easier access to hardcore pornography may be a factor in the alarming rise of youth-perpetrated sex crimes, although neither organization offered data to back up the claim. The Irish Examiner newspaper proposed the dramatic increase probably is due to combinative effects of increases in both incidents and reporting.

Looking at statistics for previous years, there have been marked fluctuations in youth sex-crime statistics. In 2010, 195 incidents were reported nationally, compared to 74 case in 2009, 102 in 2008, 87 in 2007 and 82 in 2006.

“It is terribly worrying to see such a big jump like [the one between 2009 and 2010],” Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop, chief executive of Dublin’s Rape Crisis Centre, told the Irish Examiner. “It is absolutely shocking.

“There is no doubt that easy access to hardcore pornography on phones, on computers, is a factor,” she continued. “There is research that supports that conclusion. When someone is exposed to hardcore pornography, it definitely desensitizes them, particularly at a young age, when young people are developing.”

O’Malley-Dunlop did not provide studies or other statistics to support her psychosocial conclusions.