The State of the Debate About Children's Disclosure Patterns in Child Sexual Abuse Cases

2006 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERNA OLAFSON ◽  
JUDGE CINDY S. LEDERMAN
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
The State ◽  
Disclosure Patterns

scholarly journals Children with a language disorder are vulnerable to sexual abuse

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Preliminary Data ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Disclosure Patterns

Preliminary data suggest that children with language disorder may be at an increased risk of child sexual abuse (CSA),1,2 but few have studied the CSA experiences, disclosure patterns or reactions to disclosure in these children.

Horses and Corpses

Screw Consent ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 117-134
Author(s):  
Joseph J. Fischel
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Young Children ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Final Point ◽  
Men I

In the state of Washington, in the early 2000s, several men regularly convened together to be penetrated by horses. Around the same time, three men in Michigan tried to exhume a woman’s corpse so one of the men could penetrate it. I consider these strange scenarios to puncture the good liberal’s posture. The good liberal defaults to consent: sex with horses must be wrong because horses cannot consent and sex with human corpses must be wrong because corpses cannot consent. But consent is startlingly inapposite. Horses and corpses are not the kinds of things to which a consent inquiry reasonably applies because consent is a human construct for governing human relations. These meditations lead to unsettling conclusions about child sexual abuse. The modern notion of the “child” presupposes adult superintendence because children are creatures incapable of consent. But then why should it matter that children cannot consent to sex? Sex between adults and young children is wrong, but not primarily because of the lack of consent. The final point of the chapter is about men. I surmise that what these men sought in sex was not gendered dominance but a break from the strictures of gendered dominance.

School counsellors' knowledge of the nature of child sexual abuse and proceedures and laws

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliette D. G. Goldman ◽  
Usha K. Padayachi
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
State Department ◽  
The State ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
School Counsellors ◽  
Formal Procedure ◽  
The Law ◽  
State Department Of Education

All school counsellors employed by the State Department of Education in Queensland, Australia, were sent a questionnaire asking about their understanding of child sexual abuse, and their familiarity with procedures and current laws. Results from the 122 respondents (52 males and 70 females), show that they have diverse knowledge of child sexual abuse. There was uncertainty among them as to whether their school had a formal procedure for reporting cases. Most school counsellors have a general knowledge of the laws in Queensland on reporting suspected cases of abuse, but only a minority of them know what the laws require them to do. When asked to describe the laws in Queensland, counsellors who indicated they knew about the law, then described four differing laws. In terms of knowledge of child sexual abuse, females made more accurate statements about sexual abuse than males. Training does contribute to improving counsellors' knowledge of child sexual abuse.

Patterns of Disclosure in Child Sexual Abuse

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J. Collings ◽  
Sacha Griffiths ◽  
Mandisa Kumalo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression Analysis ◽  
The North ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Disclosure Patterns

This study examined patterns of disclosure in a sample of 1 737 cases of child sexual abuse (1 614 girls and 123 boys) reported in the North Durban policing area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, during the period January 2001 to December 2003. A content analysis of disclosure patterns identified two broad dimensions of disclosure (Agency: child-initiated disclosure versus detection by a third party, and Temporal duration: an event versus a process); with these disclosure dimensions defining four discrete categories of disclosure: purposeful disclosure (30% of cases), indirect disclosure (9% of cases), eyewitness detection (18% of cases), and accidental detection (43% of cases). A multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that disclosure patterns were independently predicted by the victim's age, the nature of the victim-perpetrator relationship, the offender's age, the frequency of abuse, and reporting latency. The implications of the findings for primary prevention, forensic interviewing practice, and future research are discussed in detail.

scholarly journals Conceal or Reveal? The Role of Law in Black Collar Crime (2007) Vol 1 Art 4

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Lesley Townsley
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
The State ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
The Way

This article reconsiders the way in which the State deals with the suppression or concealment of crimes, particularly child sexual abuse, by members of institutions such as churches. There are legal mechanisms available to bring such prosecutions and yet they are not being utilized. This article critically analyses the exemption from prosecution for concealing a serious indictable offence, by members of the clergy under section 316 (4) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW); and that section’s relationship to the religious confession privilege under section 217 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW). The article deconstructs the three major justifications underpinning the legislative provisions. These justifications overlap, but can be isolated under the following headings: history, freedom of religion, and spiritual considerations. I argue that interpretation of section 316 (4) of the Crimes Act 1900 should, at a minimum, be confined to the scope of the religious confession privilege in section 217 of the Evidence Act 1995. Further, I argue that the justifications underpinning the legislative scheme and the assumptions they are based on are untenable in a secular society.

scholarly journals Trauma and the Construction of Suffering in Irish Historical Child Sexual Abuse Prosecutions

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 88-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinead Ring
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Broad Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Relationship

Adopting the special issue’s broad definition of criminal law reform, this article explores some of the ways the Irish criminal process is grappling with the demands for justice of adults who report childhood sexual abuse. In particular, it shows how the cultural notion of trauma is bound up with the construction of victims’ suffering. In historical child sexual abuse prosecutions, trauma is shown to be an effect of the abuse on the victim/survivor; a site of mediation of the relationship between the state and victims; and a site of mediation of the relationship between the state and its past. The article first explores these insights in relation to the law’s approach to questions of alleged procedural unfairness to defendants flowing from the passage of time. Trauma is exposed as both legitimating some forms of suffering, and disqualifying others. The article then employs the trope of trauma to expose the problems with current approaches to cross-examination of vulnerable victims and recent reforms of the rules on disclosure of victims’ counselling records. Finally, the article explores the possibilities of trauma discourse in thinking anew about how to address the suffering of victims of historical child sexual abuse.

The discursive production of public inquiries: The case of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

2020 ◽  
pp. 174165902095345
Author(s):  
Matthew Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
News Media ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The State ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
The Right ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The Church

Since the turn of the century, public inquiries into the perpetration and concealment of child sexual abuse within religious institutions have proliferated throughout Europe, North America and Australasia. This article examines the role that news media discourses might play in supporting this trend. Taking Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse as a case study, I compare how news media constructed its precipitating issue of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church at two different points in time: the period surrounding the announcement of the Royal Commission and a period 10 years earlier when calls were made for a Royal Commission that were not actualised. I find that in the decade before the Royal Commission’s establishment news media deemed the Church capable of and responsible for delivering justice, and as such licensed it to respond to allegations of abuse internally. In the period surrounding the Royal Commission’s establishment, however, the Church was rendered complicit and had lost its authority to manage the issue internally, while the State had become marked as responsible for recourse instead. This suggests that the emergence of the Royal Commission was imbricated in broader discursive shifts regarding which institution was attributed the right and responsibility to respond. These findings both indicate that news media discourses may play a role in facilitating or inhibiting the emergence of public inquiries and also raise critical questions about the consequences of a discursive shift that centres the State as responsible for and capable of delivering justice in the aftermath of institutional child sexual abuse.

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