One in Five

“One in Five lands with urgency at a time when movements around the world are demanding more than acknowledgment and are insisting on transformation. With astounding clarity, it exposes the scale and consequences of child sexual abuse while challenging the systems and narratives that have allowed it to persist. Centering prevention, accountability, and collective action, this book pushes the conversation beyond response toward what it will actually take to end this harm. For survivors, advocates, organizers, and leaders, it offers both a reckoning and a road map. One in Five is an essential contribution to a movement that is not only naming the crisis but insisting on its resolution.”

“The sexual abuse of children is both the most common crime, and the one whose victims have the least power to report and resist. Thanks to One in Five, we can no longer ignore this reality. It’s up to all of us to be aware and report this crime that’s damaging so many vulnerable lives.”

“One of the most remarkable stories we’ve ever put on our radio show, This American Life, has ended up in this book, the story of a teenager who realized he was a pedophile but had never acted on it; and—here’s the kicker—he didn’t want to be a pedophile. He wanted help. But he had trouble getting help for all sorts of institutional reasons and eventually started his own support group of other young people who felt the same way. This book picks up that story where we left it off. More importantly, One in Five lays out the scale of the problem of child sexual abuse like nothing I’ve ever read. I found this book to be readable, thoughtfully unhysterical and eye-opening. I was grateful for the authors’ fact-based, solutions-oriented approach.”

“In One in Five, Elizabeth J. Letourneau and Luke Malone make a bold case: Child sexual abuse, which is both frequent and horribly damaging, is also preventable. Challenging the long-standing focus on punishment after the fact, they expose the realities of abuse—who commits it, how it happens, and where prevention fails. With rigor and moral clarity, they present practical, evidence-based solutions that can interrupt harm before it occurs. At once unsettling and galvanizing, One in Five is a call to action—and a vision for a world where prevention, not inevitability, defines our response.”