The issue is in the news a lot lately because of the current royal commission into child sexual abuse, but incidents are also regularly reported as alleged offenders face the courts.

The media also regularly features interviews with survivors and the frequency of these reports suggests child sexual abuse remains a problem for our community.

Whether there is an increase in such abuse or just better reporting of the incidents, I cannot guess, but we are seeing an increase in the number of matters coming before our courts.

And what can be noticed from the increased reporting of these court matters is how often the accused says they were victims of such abuse in their own childhood.

Now, I suspect that while some offenders are straight out making it up, many others would be telling the truth: They were indeed childhood victims of sexual abuse and have continued the cycle.

And that is where there seems to be an odd disconnect. We are being told, time and again, that this abuse is breeding the next generation of abuse. So why, as a society, are we not absolutely screaming for more action on this issue?

According to a brief prepared for the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, over the two-year period 2009 and 2010, 495 offenders were convicted of child sexual assault.

Ninety per cent of those convicted were male and 64 per cent of offenders had no prior convictions in the preceding five years.

The most common penalty imposed on an offender convicted of child sexual assault was a prison sentence, the brief reports.

Prison penalties were imposed on 75 per cent of offenders convicted of aggravated child sexual assault, with an average aggregate sentence of 68 months, and an average minimum term of 39 months.

I honestly couldn’t tell you whether what is needed to break the cycle is harsher jail terms for offenders, much more intensive counselling for victims, neither of these, or both, but there are a great many people from police and judges to victims, offenders and those who counsel them who have years of experience and, no doubt, have some strong opinions.

So let’s hear it. Let’s get all of these people together and start really looking, without politics and without any attempts to predetermine the outcome according to the fashionable thinking of the day, for a genuine solution.

It’s well past time to smash the cycle of abuse and we need to start by encouraging victims to come forward and get the help they need as they try to heal.