It's one of the worst things that could ever happen to a child—to be sexually molested. But what happens when the abuser is a parent or guardian? Gayle talks to Jan Goodwin, who wrote "Please Daddy, No," for the November issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, about legal loopholes all across the country that allow incest offenders to return home.

Jan says that incest is the most common form of child abuse. "The numbers are massive," she says, with the majority of sexual abuse cases involving a relative or guardian, and only 4 percent being prosecuted. Instead, the majority of accused offenders plea bargain, which results in probation or short sentences, and then the offender is allowed to return home. Jan says three-quarters of the states in the country have these incest loopholes.

Why do these loopholes exist? "There are two lots of laws," Jan says. "Some of them are very ancient laws that have simply never been modernized." Others are the result of "some benighted social workers in the '80s, who thought they were being very progressive and they didn't want to have the father or the guardian removed from the home because he was the 'breadwinner' and the family would suffer terribly if he was gone.

"In many, many cases, they turn a blind eye to it," Jan says about the judicial system.