Understanding the Dynamics of the Victim-Perpetrator Relationship in Child Sexual Abuse: an Examination of the Child Sex Abuse Victimization Data in South Korea

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyung-Shick Choi ◽  
Kyungseok Choo ◽  
Jisun Choi ◽  
Youngki Woo
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Crofts

The current Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has demonstrated serious long-term failures to prevent and adequately respond to child sexual abuse by institutions. Rather than regarding the law as a system of responsibility, this article argues that it can be read instead as organising irresponsibility, drawing upon Scott Veitch’s ideas in Law and Irresponsibility. His key argument is that legal institutions operate as much to deflect responsibility for harms suffered as to acknowledge them. This article focuses on the ways in which the criminal justice system is complicit in organising irresponsibility for systemic failures through an analysis of the Royal Commission Case Study No 6: The responses of a primary school and the Toowoomba Catholic Education Office to the Conduct of Gerald Byrnes. Through concrete examples, this article analyses the ways in which criminal law organises irresponsibility through the individuation of responsibility and the emphasis upon subjective culpability. These practices ensure irresponsibility for actors for systemic failures.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mangi J. Ezekiel ◽  
Felix Kisanga ◽  
Idda H. Mosha ◽  
Amani Anaeli ◽  
Switbert R. Kamazima ◽  
...  

Background: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is one of the most pervasive occurrences which are reported all over the world. It often goes unnoticed and undocumented due to surrounding taboos; its sensitivity in nature and affects the less powerful population. Anecdote information is available on the nature and extent of sexual abuse among children in Tanzania. The aim of this study was to explore factors, forms, context of abuse and perpetrators of child sex abuse in selected regions of Tanzania.Methods: Key informant interviews were conducted among adults including parents of the victims to explore factors associated with sexual abuse of children under 10 years old in Tanzania. The interview guide centred on factors for child sexual abuse, the type of perpetrators and the context into which these abuses take place.Results: There were incidences of child sexual abuse in Tanzania and the major forms were anal and vaginal penetration, and the most affected were girls. The abuses were rarely reported due to shame and embarrassment faced by the affected children and parents. The causes of child sexual abuse were poverty, ambitions and moral degradation, myths and beliefs, urbanization, foreign culture and poor parental care. Incidents of CSA were reported to occur in perpetrators’ homes and in semi-finished housing structures, madrassa and recreational venues where children can freely access entertainment by watching movies. These acts were committed by people in position of power, close relationship and trusted by the children. Contexts where child sexual abuses occur included overcrowded living spaces and social activities that go on late into the night.Conclusion: We recommend for strengthened interventions at different levels within the society to address the root causes and different contexts in which child sex abuse occurs. Increased awareness of the root causes should go hand in hand with measures to encourage parents and survivors to report incidents to relevant authorities timely as they occur.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Tadei ◽  
pekka santtila ◽  
Jan Antfolk

The Finnish Investigative Instrument of Child Sexual Abuse (FICSA) is a computerized tool that uses Bayesian statistics to estimate the probability that a reported child sex abuse (CSA) is true or false based on population level information regarding the correlates of CSA. FICSA can be used to assist decision-making in investigations of CSA. We compared forensic experts’ and students’ ability to use FICSA and whether its use affected the estimates of the probability of CSA in mock-scenarios. The use of FICSA was compared to only having access to the empirical information about CSA risk and protective factors, which FICSA is based on, and to unassisted decision-making. The 54 participants analyzed two scenarios of possible CSA and estimated the probability of the CSA allegation being true. The results show that participants using FICSA were prone to make technical mistakes that affect the correctness of the probability estimation. The performance of experts and students was equivalent in all the conditions, but in the group using FICSA, where experts tended to deviate from the probability provided by FICSA more than students. Having only access to empirical information did not improve estimates compared to unassisted decision-making. Both students and experts tended to adjust the estimates provided by FICSA downwards, that is, to decrease the probability of abuse. We conclude that FICSA can assist investigators to correctly integrate evidence and calculate probabilities but that proper training is required.


Human Affairs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-198
Author(s):  
Sergei Levin

Abstract Child sexual abuse and paedophilia are ethically loaded public health issues. This paper looks at whether there are any specific moral duties related to paedophilia. I argue that the moral duty not to commit child sex abuse is universal and that the duty to reduce the individual risk of child sex abuse is specific to paedophiles. A paedophile is a person who is sexually attracted to children. Some paedophiles commit child sex abuse offences, but others are able to refrain from doing so and have the rational capacity to take adequate preventive measures. The risk of committing child sex abuse and the ability to reduce that risk are a moral duty pertaining specifically to paedophiles. I further argue that society has a moral duty to help paedophiles to fulfil that duty. Unfortunately, societies rarely provide such opportunities and hence fail in their moral duty towards paedophiles and children.


Author(s):  
Richard Wortley

Explanations of child sex abuse typically focus on the offenders’ presumed pathological dispositions that are seen to drive their offending behavior, and pay little attention to the role played by opportunity and other situational factors. It is argued in this chapter that child sexual abuse, like all behavior, is the product of a person-situation interaction and as such can be analysed using the theories and approaches of environmental criminology. Child sexual abuse is found to occur in contexts where potential victims can be easily accessed and where personal, social, situational, and legal controls over potential offenders are weak. Establishing a situational basis for child sexual abuse opens the way for the application of situational crime prevention strategies to create safer places for children.


2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 658-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. White ◽  
Karen J. Terry

The Catholic Church response to its sexual abuse crisis and how the problem should be addressed parallels the “rotten apple” assertions of police deviance. The rotten apple theory, however, does not fully explain police deviance, as there are often also structural explanations. This article employs Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert's (1998) police deviance framework to characterize and understand the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, drawing specific comparisons to the intentional use of excessive force by police. Though the analogy has limitations, there are similarities at both the individual and organizational levels, particularly because the Church has implemented accountability mechanisms similar to the police. The article concludes with a discussion of lessons the Church can learn from the police organization as they seek to prevent, control, and effectively respond to sexual abuse of children by their clergy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-380
Author(s):  
Susan P. Robbins

Sexual abuse of children has garnered a substantial amount of empirical research, state and federal legislation, and media coverage in the past several decades. This article briefly examines the history of child maltreatment and child sexual abuse (CSA) and societal responses to it. A review of selected articles on CSA that were published since the inception of Families in Society reveals how our knowledge of and ideas about sexual abuse, the perpetrators, responses to abuse allegations, and the Freudian concept of repression have changed over time. The phenomenon of repressed and recovered memories of abuse is also discussed, including the articles that were published in the journal. Despite continued disagreement in the field between researchers and clinicians, a summary is provided detailing points of consensus related to CSA and recovered memories.


1989 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
George F. Indest

In this article the author reviews the scope and magnitude of the problem currently faced by medical and investigative personnel in detecting and proving the sexual molestation of children. The legal effects of poor medical records are discussed in detail. Various medical and legal issues that may present pitfalls for the unwary examining physician are identified and discussed. The admissibility of various portions of the medical examination and medical report as evidence in courts of law is reviewed as well as newly emerging forensic tests and techniques for collecting medical evidence. The author provides a comprehensive and detailed summary of steps to be followed in the physical examination of a child sex abuse victim, emphasizing the importance of a strict, thorough procedure for protecting the interests of the patient, the physician and society.


2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (01) ◽  
pp. 267-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Grant Bowman

The prosecution of child sex abuse in cases involving very young children presents difficult problems for the justice system. Ross Cheit's book The Witch‐Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children (2014) addresses these problems in the context of the 1980s cases involving daycare centers. While the conventional conclusion drawn from these cases is that young children are not credible witnesses, Cheit's examination of the trial records in these cases reveals credible evidence of abuse in many, as well as evidence of injustice attributable to untrained and/or overenthusiastic interviewers. Cheit's examination of this litigation provides an opportunity to evaluate the legal system's treatment of child witnesses in sex abuse cases, as well as to discuss the appropriate use of social scientific evidence in litigation, the impact of mass media accounts on public policy, and the respective merits of criminal versus civil lawsuits in child sex abuse cases.


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