ABSTRACT
The American constitutional separation of church and state and the country's totally secular government agencies mean that the latter law enforcement personnel have to prosecute the actions just as they would the same committed by non-clergy. Research on the prevalence of clergy malfeasance within the general population is virtually non-existent. Regional victimization surveys provide some indication of the scope of clergy malfeasance and whether it is "clustered" around specific clergy in specific churches or more widespread. Taken as an incompletely-known whole, clergy malfeasance appears to portend an immense, unexplored segment of the overall American crime and deviance problem. The true extent of clergy malfeasance will likely never be known. The conclusion to be reiterated from the limited data set is obvious: clergy malfeasance is neither regionally specific nor denominationally unique, nor does it involve only the highly publicized sexual cases, nor is it a flash in the pan phenomenon.
