Time to abandon prevalence studies of childhood sexual abuse?

CRFR Associate Researcher Dr Sarah Nelson reflects on the problematic issues around prevalence studies of childhood sexual abuse.

The wealth of prevalence studies of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) continue to display wildly differing results. Yet the impetus to carry out more studies continues, nationally and internationally. These studies are driven by the demands of commissioners and funders to ‘prove’ need before services are provided or expanded, but also by professional ambition among researchers to be the ones producing a definitive study.

Neither of these is a child-centred approach, especially when basic services – as for instance an NSPCC Scotland report recently demonstrated - remain inadequate for the minority of sexually abused children we do know about. I suggest that conventional prevalence studies are largely fruitless, and that greater accuracy about prevalence will come about as a by-product of ethical, child-centred practice against sexual abuse.

First of all, while factors like safety and confidentiality, follow-up, inclusion of stigmatised subgroups, and description of acts rather than terms like ‘abuse’ or ‘rape’ will produce more accurate survey findings, we will never approach anything like total accuracy about a secretive, often organised crime overlaid with coercion, shame and silencing.

Crucially, recent revelations, such as professional footballers in their 40s reporting abuse for the first time, support research findings that a majority of children do not tell, and sometimes never will. Officially recorded cases always understate: Stoltenborgh’s examination of hundreds of prevalence studies, for instance, found self-report rates 30 times higher than authorities’ reports. Another problem is that CSA and child sexual exploitation (CSE) overlap in their characteristics, and increasingly now in their official definitions. Do we count them together, or separately?

Even more to the point, there has never been any evidence that studies suggesting higher prevalence rates have led to any increase in services, nor to greater action against abuse. Unpalatable as this may be, public scandals exposing shameful practice have been far more likely to do so, just as they have been in other public services. For example, action against child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, Rochdale or Greater Manchester did not belatedly take place because someone conducted a prevalence study of CSE, but through exposure of disgraceful practice towards young victims.

Commissioners and funders are better directed to the results of good practice in investigation as a demonstration of significant prevalence figures. Many ‘searchlight’ or ‘snapshot’ investigations have uncovered that over decades. Back in 1984 for instance a single, active police investigation unit uncovered ten sex rings and 175 victims in one area of Leeds alone. Peter McKelvie’s proactive social work/police investigations between 1988 and 1995 closed several abusive schools and convicted dozens of perpetrators while Professor Alexis Jay’s Rotherham investigation, reported in 2014, found at least 1400 girls had been sexually exploited over 16 years.

However, ethical good practice in enabling abused children and young people to speak out may in future have the single greatest impact in uncovering a greater accuracy of prevalence. Again, it will do so as a by-product of that good practice.

 For example, the Barnahus Children’s Houses, now spreading across Europe from Scandinavia, provide a reassuring child-centred ‘one stop shop’ for enabling children to tell, for interviewing, for preparing court cases and for therapeutic work. They are being actively considered by the Scottish Government for adoption here. The Confidential Space model being piloted in several Scottish local authorities at present aims to slow the investigation process to an abused child’s pace, increase their support, and build knowledge and confidence among staff who work with young people.

There is another alternative way to persuade commissioners and funders to increase CSA/ CSE services and prevention work - to show them that while results of prevalence studies vary greatly and will continue doing so, a substantial, more consistent body of research on negative effects of abuse has demonstrated over decades that survivors are at higher risks than others of mental and physical ill health, addictions, homelessness, very young pregnancy, suicide, self-harm, offending, and distressed acting-out behaviour by young people.

 As a result of this, current costs and ‘revolving door’ usage continue to be high in many hard-pressed services - including mental and physical health, prisons, social work, addiction services and homelessness projects. Future resource savings, through investment in support and prevention projects, can thus be emphasised to funders and commissioners.

...And of course these negative effects, most of all the suffering survivors face, in themselves suggest the importance of a major investment in prevention.


This is a summary of Sarah Nelson’s presentation to the Connect 2018 conference in Cardiff, 3/5/18 (available on request). Prevalence and disclosure issues, and official statistics, are analysed in detail in Nelson, below:
Nelson (2016) Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Radical approaches to prevention, protection & support Bristol: Policy Press, Chapter 1

Stoltenborgh M, van Ijzendoorn MH, Euser EM, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ. (2011) ‘A global perspective on child sexual abuse: meta-analysis of prevalence around the world’, Child Maltreat. 16(2):79-101.

NSPCC (2017) The right to recover: Provision of therapeutic services in the West of Scotland for children and young people following sexual abuse  https://www.nspcc.org.uk/services-and-resources/research-and-resources/2017/right-to-recover-sexual-abuse-west-scotland/

 

 

When is it safe to disclose childhood sexual abuse?

Rusan Lateef, MSW, RSW is a social worker employed in the criminal justice system with adult male offenders in Ontario, Canada. She is a researcher on the “Make Resilience Matter” project examining childhood exposure to domestic violence at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, a project that involves collaboration with CRFR Co-Director Sarah Morton. 

Here, Rusan shares some of the findings from a recently published article on childhood sexual abuse disclosures, which she co-authored.

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There have been on-going efforts to improve the identification of children who have been sexually abused and to encourage disclosures. It is important to consider, however, if disclosing actually promotes well-being and resilience among survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). If it does, how can we promote disclosures, and with that resilience, with children who have been sexually abused? A previous CRFR blog post by Dr Sarah Nelson provided insight into child-centred ways to facilitate CSA disclosures: http://crfrblog.blogspot.ca/2016/11/silencing-and-disclosure-in-child.html

Disclosure is usually the first step toward a child being linked with supportive resources that could initiate their healing and prevent the adverse consequences of CSA. Unfortunately, disclosing can lead to anything but healing when the environment in which a disclosure takes place is not supportive. Some researchers have even found that it is risky to tell in childhood as unsuccessful disclosures may result in children experiencing further helplessness (Jonzon & Lindblad, 2004). The media provides multiple examples of individuals who have disclosed sexual abuse and have not received support from the general public or from family and friends – experiencing victim blaming and lack of validation for their experiences. It is easy to see how this could discourage survivors to disclose. Aside from negative media examples, the literature review by Alaggia, Collin-Vézina & Lateef (2017) identified various other barriers to CSA disclosure including, but not limited to:

Internal factors
• Internalized victim blaming
• Immature development at onset of abuse
• Gender
• Shame
• Self-blame
• Fear
• Perception that one will not be believed by people outside of their family

Family characteristics
• Rigidly fixed patriarchal based roles
• Power imbalances
• Domestic violence
• Chaotic family organization
• Dysfunctional communication
• Social isolation
• Preserving the family reputation
• Relationship of the perpetrator to the child victim

Sociocultural factors
• Negative labelling of sexual abuse victims
• Taboos surrounding sexuality and talking about sex
• Promotion of hyper-masculinity
• Patriarchal attitudes
• Views that boys and men cannot be victimized
• Homophobic attitudes
• Sexualization and objectification of girls and women
• Devaluation of women
• Lack of school involvement in providing a supportive environment

When encouraging CSA disclosures, it is important to be informing the public about the numerous barriers children experience, meanwhile creating awareness of the type of environment and factors that encourage disclosures, and how to properly support a child post-disclosure. Facilitators of CSA disclosures were also identified in the review and included:

Internal factors
• Symptoms that become unbearable
• Older age
• Increased developmental efficacy
• Realizing that an offence was committed

Environmental factors
• Child discloses after evidence provided or eye-witnessing has occurred
• Settings that provide opportunities for disclosure (ex. counselling, interviews); prevention programs
• Culturally sensitive probes and questions
• Creating openness in relational contexts; close relationships
• Supportive family members and individuals close to the child victim

Finally, it is important to recognize that there are CSA survivors who are resilient and function adaptively --both those who have and have not disclosed. Domhardt and colleagues (2015) in their review identified important factors associated with greater resilience among CSA survivors that include:

• Education
• Interpersonal and emotional competence
• Control beliefs
• Active coping
• Optimism
• Social attachment
• External attribution of blame
• Support from the family and the wider social environment

In summary, research has identified what factors encourage and discourage disclosures, as well as what factors promote resilience among CSA survivors. Taken together, these findings could help facilitate safe disclosures and positive post-disclosure outcomes.

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References

Alaggia, R., Collin-Vézina, D., Lateef, R. (2017). Facilitators and Barriers to Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Disclosures: A Research Update (2000-2016). Trauma, Violence & Abuse. DOI: 10.1177/1524838017697312

Domhardt, M., Münzer, A., Fegert, J., & Goldbeck, L. (2015). Resilience in survivors of CSA: A systematic review of the literature. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 16(4), 476-493.

Jonzon, E., & Lindblad, F. (2004). Disclosure, reactions, and social support: Findings from a sample of adult victims of CSA. Child Maltreatment, 9(2), 190-200.

Serious concerns for child protection?

By CRFR associate researcher Dr Sarah Nelson

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Several points about the absolute discharge given in Scotland last week by Lady Scott to Daniel Cieslak, who was convicted of raping a 12 year old girl, will greatly concern child protection campaigners for their potentially far-reaching implications.

First, the sentence and the judge’s remarks could be seen as in effect lowering the age of consent. The reason Mr Cieslak was convicted of rape, rather than of an under-age sexual offence, was that consent (which must be informed consent) is legally impossible under any circumstances for children under 13.

However, despite this legal impossibility the judge, who accepted that the accused genuinely believed the girl was over 16, was reported to say "Here the victim willingly participated in the sexual intercourse and there was, in fact, consent.” So there could not be consent: and yet there was. That contradiction surely needs urgent clarification. Otherwise both the absolute discharge and the judge’s remarks risk giving a “green light” to anyone wishing to have sex with a child under 13, by saying that they looked over 16. The current law is also undermined.

Secondly, while mitigating factors may well exist in an accused’s individual case – which can be reflected in length of sentence – sentencing is always also a statement of how seriously a society takes particular acts. It also deters others. So for instance the increased sentences for domestic abuse, for drink driving or dangerous driving, and other offences now taken more seriously by modern society. The absolute discharge and the remarks made a very different form of public statement.

Thirdly, there are strongly suggestive indications that the victim may have already been a vulnerable child in need of extra protection. Two girls of 12 and 13 were wandering alone in Edinburgh city centre in the small hours of the morning. One of them, it was reported in some media, quickly showed sexualised behaviour with a stranger, Mr Cieslak, whom she had met in a taxi queue, then later had sex with him. These behaviours are very common reactions in some children and young people who have already been sexually abused or exploited, and would be recognised as such by anyone working with survivors of these crimes.

Was an investigation made before the trial into their circumstances, and were the girls already known to anyone who should have been protecting them? There had been more than time enough to find out between the incident in 2015 and the court case. If so, was this information passed to the court?

The reason those questions are especially important is twofold. It has now emerged that countless vulnerable girls of similar ages and behaviours to this girl were carefully groomed into agreeing to sex, then raped and brutalised by gangs in the child sexual exploitation scandals of Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Derby and elsewhere. The reason most were left unprotected for years by police and social services was because they were dismissed as willing partners, as “little slags”, or as “child prostitutes” by the authorities themselves. Many had been vulnerable children, already previously abused or neglected.

This knowledge, which we all possess now, makes it especially important for authorities and courts to protect children showing early sexualisation or “difficult” behaviours, not simply to accept as Lady Scott did of the girl in the case that she had “no concerns, and there was no suggestion of her being distressed". If we allow them to be dismissed as “willing” or “active” participants”, we surely contradict both Scotland’s child protection policies and its National Plan to counter child sexual exploitation.

Even where a young person is between 13 and 16 - and may indeed have limited consent, Scotland’s “National Guidance on Under-age Sexual Activity: Meeting the Needs of Children and Young People and Identifying Child Protection Concerns” recommends factors which must be considered in judging risk and the need for protection. They include informed choice, the circumstances of the sexual activity, a history of being in care, and a history of previous abuse.

In the (English) Neil Wilson case in 2013, appeal judges and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) strongly criticised a judge who leniently treated the abuser of a vulnerable 13 year old, and said the girl was a predator and “egging you on”. Appeal judges made the highly important statement: “An under-age person who encourages sexual relations with her needs more protection, not less. The Attorney General is therefore right to say that the victim's vulnerability was an aggravating, rather than a mitigating feature”.

Is it time for such unequivocal statements – and for a Crown appeal against this sentence – north of the Border?

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Student who admitted sex with 12-year-old cleared as judge calls girl ‘active participant’, Daily Record, 17-3-17. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/student-who-admitted-rape-12-10045698

Full details of English child sexual exploitation scandals in: Nelson, S (2016). Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Radical approaches to prevention, protection and support, Policy Press, Chapter 4.

Scottish Government (2010) National Guidance. Under-age sexual activity: Meeting the Needs of Children and Young People and Identifying Child Protection Concerns” [para 47]. Available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/333495/0108880.pdf

Barrister suspended from sex cases after court comments BBC News (online), 07/08/13; Attorney General's Reference (No 53 of 2013) [2013] EWCA Crim 2544 (para.20). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23605577

Silencing and disclosure in child sexual abuse

Ahead of her two seminar series on Childhood Sexual Abuse, CRFR Associate Researcher Dr Sarah Nelson writes for us about silencing and disclosure.

There is a great disparity between cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) which are known to the authorities, and its prevalence in society.

For instance, a major report (Children’s Commissioner, 2015) estimated that only one in eight sexually abused children is identified. A meta-analysis of more than 200 international studies of prevalence across 28 years, with 10 million participants, revealed self-reported prevalence figures (18.0% of women, 7.6% of men) which were 30 times higher than prevalence rates reported by authorities (Stoltenborgh et al, 2011). In my own study with abused young people (Nelson, 2008), they gave me fourteen reasons why they had stayed silent in their childhood and teens. These included:

• fear
• violence and intimidation
• shame
• embarrassment and humiliation, especially with their peers
• mixed loyalties towards their abuser
• self-blame and guilt
• worry about the effect on their non-abusing parent(s)
• uncertainty about what would happen
• fear of being in trouble
• a conviction that they would not be believed

Additionally, in boys there is often a pervasive fear of being thought gay, or somehow unmasculine.

In my book Tackling Child Sexual Abuse (Nelson, 2016), I also chart in detail a worrying and continuing decline in identified cases of CSA by child protection authorities throughout Britain, despite the high publicity for the subject. A considerable fall in CSA registrations and child protection plans has coexisted with considerable growth in those for emotional abuse and neglect. That suggests not genuine declines in CSA, but changed priorities in policy and practice.

For all these reasons, it is important that we renew efforts to find child-centred ways of enabling sexually abused young people to tell what is happening to them. While the new emphasis on, and national strategy towards, child sexual exploitation is very welcome, a failure to address the earlier CSA which makes so many children and teenagers vulnerable to CSE means that such exploitation can never be fully addressed.

In my CRFR seminar this week (Wednesday 16 November) I outline some thought-provoking research findings by Rosaleen MacElvaney and colleagues on disclosure and non-disclosure of sexual abuse among young people. They identify first an active withholding of the secret, which gives some sense of control in an unsafe world. Secondly there is the pressure- cooker effect created by wanting to tell, yet simultaneously not wanting to.

That means the secret is often blurted out without either prior planning or support. Thirdly, there is confiding: few children tell the people they’re meant to tell (teachers, police, social workers and so on). If they tell, it is usually to a friend or to their mother, neither of whom has a support system of their own.

Thus, say McElvaney and colleagues, “in supporting children to tell, the need for the secret to be contained and controlled must be respected”.

That doesn’t mean - nor should it mean - that we can offer them complete confidentiality. It can mean slowing down the process to the child’s pace, offering them more choice and control, creating genuinely child-centred environments, and switching the emphasis from relying so heavily on children’s testimony to a perpetrator-focused strategy.

In my presentation this week I give examples, among others, of Scotland’s innovative “Stop to Listen” (formerly Confidential Space) project being pioneered by four local authorities; of the successful Barnahus children’s houses from Scandinavia, now being actively explored by the Scottish government; of possible statutory sector alliances with confidential children’s services; and of imaginative perpetrator-focused strategies. These include both successful ones from the past which were closed down, and inspiring examples of perpetrator-focused models, which have been used in the fight against child sexual exploitation.

McElvaney, R., Greene, S. and Hogan, D. (2012) ‘Containing the secret of child sexual abuse’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27(6): 1155–75.

McElvaney, R. (2013) ‘Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse: Delays, Nondisclosure and Partial Disclosure. What the Research Tells Us and Implications for Practice’, Child Abuse Review, DOI: 0.1002/car.2280

Nelson, S. (ed) (2008) See us – Hear us! Schools working with sexually abused young people, Dundee: Violence is Preventable, 18 and Under, www. violenceispreventable.org.uk/see%20us%20hear%20us.pdf

Nelson, S. (2016) Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Radical approaches to Prevention, Protection and Support, Bristol: Policy Press.

Stoltenborgh, M., van Ijzendoorn, M., Euser, E. and BakermansKranenburg, M. (2011) ‘A Global Perspective on Child Sexual Abuse: Meta-Analysis of Prevalence Around the World’, Child Maltreatment, 16(2): 79–101.

Children’s Commissioner (2015) Protecting children from harm: A critical assessment of child sexual abuse in the family network in England and priorities for action, London: Children’s Commissioner for England.

The strange disappearance of child sexual abuse: New book charts decline

Sarah Nelson, CRFR Associate

Has child sexual abuse been steadily falling off the child protection ‘radar’? That sounds a very strange question, given the current - almost daily - publicity and concern about ‘celebrity’ perpetrators, about clergy abuse, child sexual exploitation, and historic abuse in care.

Yet statistics and professional feedback paint a different, worrying picture, as my new book details. ‘Tackling child sexual abuse: radical approaches to prevention, protection and support’ is launched on Monday 13 June at the CRFR International Conference: Unequal Families & Relationships.

Throughout the UK, a continuing fall in officially known sexual abuse cases and concerns has occurred alongside considerable growth in those about emotional abuse, neglect and parental substance misuse. That suggests not genuine declines or increases in these social problems, but altered priorities among policymakers and practitioners.

For example highly-publicised child deaths, such as that of ‘Baby Peter’ Connelly in 2007, brought large increases in UK care orders involving young children, where there were concerns about neglect or physical abuse. Thus, after the case, numbers in England subject to a child protection plan increased by 47% between 2008 and 2012; numbers on child protection registers increased in Scotland by 23%. In 2007–08, registrations in Scotland for sexual abuse were down by 33% on the previous year alone. From 2012 onwards in Scotland, multiple concerns could be recorded at each case conference. Most common were parental substance misuse (39%), emotional abuse (39%) and domestic abuse (37%). Sexual abuse was ninth in a list of 11 concerns, at just over 3%.

Overall, only 5% of all the children on child protection registers or subject to child protection plans in the UK were under a category that included sexual abuse in 2013.

Accepting that child protection registers and child protection plans only form one way of addressing sexual abuse, such figures do not even begin to reflect the most conservative estimates of child sexual abuse (CSA) prevalence. Police figures themselves hint at greater problems. In Scotland in 2013–14 there were 3,742 recorded sexual offences against children under 18. A major study by the Children’s Commissioner for England (2015) estimated that only one in eight sexually abused children is identified by professionals. This was largely, they found, because protective services were geared to children self-reporting, yet children rarely do this. An analysis of more than 200 international studies of prevalence, from 1980 to 2008, with a total of nearly 10 million participants, revealed wider disparities still: prevalence figures of self-reported sexual assault (18.0% of women, 7.6% of men), 30 times higher than the prevalence rates reported by authorities (Stoltenborgh et al, 2011).

Again, when in 2014 Professor Alexis Jay, after extensive study of records, calculated that at least 1,400 children, some as young as 11, had been sexually exploited in Rotherham over 16 years, it became clear that these cases had been neither classified nor recorded as sexual abuse. This was because the stigmatised girls were viewed by most authorities as freely choosing prostitution. Thus, only now will these cases count in official records as ‘substantiated’.

Researchers and trainers in the CSA field have been told in conferences, seminars and discussions with child protection professionals (including social workers, children’s panel members and safeguarding board members) that the priority for CSA has gradually diminished. Some gave feedback that it was regarded as “yesterday’s issue”. Concern was such that in 2013 Scottish specialists working with CSA wrote to the media and met the Association of Directors of Social Work about their deep concern that “sexual abuse is being allowed to disappear off the statutory radar”. They said different types of abuse “should not be in competition with each other for resources, but approached on the basis of need”.

Could the shocking abuse and killing of the toddler Liam Fee further skew child protection priority towards physical harm to very young children, at the expense of vulnerable older children and teenagers, especially with reference to CSA and CSE (child sexual exploitation)?

We cannot hope to meet today’s multiple online and offline challenges from sexual violence against children and young people - and at times by young people themselves upon others -without honestly and carefully examining why this decline in priority has been happening. Many committed professionals believe the situation must change, and currently four Scottish local authorities are pioneering the Stop to Listen project, a Children 1st initiative overseen by a senior multidisciplinary, statutory/voluntary steering group. This and other imaginative initiatives, designed to help abused young people tell without fear and to ensure whole communities are genuinely involved in protecting children in their neighbourhood, are described in my book.

It also includes chapters on major issues which adult survivors face, including mental health and – for some - involvement in the penal system, after offending born from anger and despair. I hope the book will enable the findings of those research projects, carried out at CRFR, to reach an even wider and more diverse audience.  

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Delegates of CRFR's International Conference are invited to attend the launch of Sarah Nelson's new book Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Radical Approaches to Prevention, Protection and Support, Bristol: Policy Press at the conference drinks reception on Monday 13 June, 5.30pm.

You can follow live tweets from the conference using the hashtag #CRFR2016 on Twitter.


References

Dempster, H., Henry, M., Houston, A., Matthew, L., McCrae, R., Nelson, S., Rennie, J. and Stark, R. (2013) ‘Listening Watch’, Letters, Scotsman, 24 January.

Haringey Local Children Safeguarding Board (LCSB) (2010) Serious Case Review: Baby Peter, 2nd Review. London: Haringey LSCB, October

HM Government (2014) The Fifth Periodic Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: United Kingdom, May, www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/upload/Pdfs/The%20UK’s%20Fifth%20Periodic%20Review%20Report%20on%20the%20UNCRC.pdf

Jay, A. (2014) Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997–2013), Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.

McLeod, S., Hart, R., Jeffes, J. and Wilkin, A. (2010) The Impact of the Baby Peter Case on Applications for Care Orders, Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research.

Norfolk, A. (2012) ‘Police files reveal vast child protection scandal – Confidential papers show a decade of abuse in south Yorkshire’, The Times, 24 September.

NSPCC (2015) How safe are our children? 2015, Indicator 4, London: NSPCC.

Stoltenborgh, M., van Ijzendoorn, M., Euser, E. and Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. (2011) ‘A Global Perspective on Child Sexual Abuse: Meta-Analysis of Prevalence Around the World’, Child Maltreatment, 16(2): 79–101.

Scottish Government (2014a) Children’s social work statistics Scotland, 2013–14, Chart 8.

Scottish Government (2014b) Child protection key trends: Last update, March 2014, www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Children/TrendChildProtection

Understanding paedophilia: Back to Victorian answers?

CRFR Associate Researcher Sarah Nelson blogs in response to last week’s programme on BBC2 ‘The Truth About Child Sex Abuse’

Last week, a major study by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in England into intra-familial childhood sexual abuse estimated that only one in eight children who are sexually abused are identified by professionals. There is no reason to suppose Scottish statistics will be significantly different. This study calls for a range of urgent actions to improve prevention and early identification of child sexual abuse (CSA) and the support given to victims. Its recommendations merit close reading by everyone, including policymakers, who is concerned about tackling and reducing CSA.

Yet its findings were overshadowed by the largely uncritical popularisation in broadcast, print and online media, by Professor Tanya Byron and others, of a theory on the causes of paedophilia which does not feature in that report. The report became a “peg” on which to hang a theory which, it turns out, has a noticeable lack of promotion in peer-reviewed journals.

Are child abusers short, left-handed, dim and cross-wired?

Dr James Cantor’s study with, and about, child sex offenders found from his 2008 study using MRI imaging that a sample of paedophiles (convicted of offences with pre-adolescents) had less white matter - the connective tissue that carries messages to other parts of the brain - than other types of criminal offenders. He believes a range of evidence suggests that paedophilia results from atypical wiring in the brain. Using other collected data he finds they are more likely to be left handed, shorter in stature and lower in measured intelligence than average in the population. He believes paedophilic sexual orientation is hard-wired into the brain, and may be a fixed sexuality at birth- “core to our being”.

There are many problems about such a theory and its popularisation. Only a small percentage of child sex offenders is identified and even fewer convicted, thus these will be doubtfully representative. Many crimes of convicted sex offenders will remain unrevealed. The MRI scan study was reported as done before the huge numbers of educated, often intelligent middle class men viewing child abuse images online were fully realised. Some broader findings on paedophiles’ characteristics appeared to include research from as far back as the 1930s, when overwhelmingly those convicted of sex crimes would be the poor and stigmatised - likely to appear lower on IQ tests, and smaller in growth than average.

The greatest problem about this theory is that it divorces the behaviour of child sex abusers from the impact of beliefs, values, institutions and power relations throughout the wider society. Hence it appealingly divorces governments, institutions and public from the impetus critically to examine and change those features of society which allow, or encourage, CSA. Nor does it provide any explanation of why the perpetration of child sexual abuse and exploitation is so heavily gendered. Instead it reverts back towards Victorian phrenology. Finally, there may be very different reasons why the brains of a sample of convicted child sex offenders have shown certain abnormalities.

Widespread abusive practices

Is child sexual abuse really about individual deviancy? Consider for instance widespread, prolonged abuses of children as young as 11, in Britain in this 21st century - including multiple rapes and extreme physical brutality, as the Jay Report demonstrated - in towns such as Rochdale, Rotherham and Oxford. Those towns may have been home to concentrations of left-handed men with odd brain-wiring. Alternatively, abuse may have happened and continued for many years because disparaging, contemptuous beliefs about vulnerable girls by their perpetrators were shared by protective agencies, who considered the girls delinquents, “slags” and freely-choosing child prostitutes.

Consider for instance the international practice of child marriage which remains widespread, particularly in parts of Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. There are worldwide campaigns against this practice, on behalf of girls. Are men sexually attracted to very young girls because in some countries far more of them than in neighbouring countries are short and unintelligent with oddly-wired brains: or through factors such as powerful religious and cultural beliefs, the inferior position of women and girls in that society, dowry and bride-price issues, pressures of family poverty, violent abuses in war and forced migration?

Supporters of the Cantor theory may reply that most “child brides” are post-pubertal (although a high percentage are under 15) while they refer to abusers of prepubertal children. However, not only are many prepubertal girls indeed forced into child marriage, but the rigid distinctions and classifications attempted of sex offenders, e.g. as paedophiles, hebephiles, intra- or extra-familial offenders and so on, are only maintained by ignoring the experience provided over decades to researchers and support services by abuse survivors themselves. They reveal an extremely common pattern of being abused well before puberty and continuing to be in the teenage years, by perpetrators who also abused others, and who continued to have sexual relations with adults.

A different reason for brain changes? 

If the sample of paedophiles (apparently only about 65 men) showed slight changes in “brain-wiring” from non-paedophiles through modern MRI imaging techniques, perhaps the reason lies in a very different place from the womb. It may lie in neurobiological advances in understanding effects of prolonged early childhood trauma, on parts of the developing brain and central nervous system.

While it cannot be stressed strongly enough that most sexually abused men and women do not go on to abuse others (despite damaging myths to the contrary) a few do. Research and practice repeatedly find victim-perpetrators in the most prolific forms, such as repetitive predation on numerous young boys, and particularly violent, hostile or unusual forms of abuse against women and children: including assault of babies and toddlers, with its own industry of online abuse images. For instance Hilton and Mezey (1996) found the severity of secure hospital patients’ abusive behaviour was linked to rates of past assault. They also found, with Cohen et al. (2002) and Briggs (2003) that such perpetrators tended to abuse victims in ways and at ages which replicated and acted out their own abuse trauma.

Such findings do not mean the effects are unchangeable. Far less are they handy excuses for sexual assault. Rather, skilled trauma work within sex offender programmes might reduce the dangerousness to women and children of some survivor-offenders.

For modern neurobiological research suggests severe abuse and neglect in early life produces post-traumatic neurological influences which can, for a minority of victims, include emotional numbing and loss of ability to empathise with self or others (Creeden, 2004, Van der Kolk et al., 2005, de Zulueta, 2006). Stein (2006) challenges sex offender treatment programmes to address serious childhood trauma: contending that severe trauma has created dissociated moral feeling in certain offenders. This undermines moral integration, by perpetuating the illusion that one is not morally implicated in what one does. She argues for integration of dissociated memories and emotions as the first goal of therapy.

I believe we need to search for explanations for child sexual abuse in the wider values of societies and institutions, and in the way we bring up our young people of both genders, as well as through pursuing these positive challenges to sex offender programmes for survivor –offenders. Such wider approaches are likely to offer far more promise than divorcing child sex abusers’ behaviour from influences within their own societies; or (through focusing on events in the womb) holding the pregnancy behaviour of disadvantaged mothers responsible, yet again, for major problems in our society.

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Sarah Nelson is a CRFR Associate Researcher. She is a specialist on child sexual abuse issues and the effects of CSA throughout life. She is a frequent commentator in the media on these issues and her forthcoming book 'Rethinking Childhood Sexual Abuse: Radical Approaches to Prevention, Protection and Support (Policy Press)' will include chapters on two research projects with women and men, carried out collaboratively with CRFR.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06qs7k7/the-truth-about-child-sex-abuse

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Mandatory reporting is no panacea

CRFR research associate, Sarah Nelson, follows up her comment in the Herald, with this longer piece on mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.

Shocking child abuse scandals and cover-ups have encouraged campaigns throughout Britain for legislation which makes failure to report child abuse a criminal offence. Now a petition calling for “mandatory reporting” in Scotland has been lodged with the Scottish Parliament, by campaigner Scott Pattinson.

These campaigns – supported by many abuse survivors’ organisations - reflect understandable dismay that there’s no legal obligation to report child abuse concerns, allegations or witnessed events, to social services and/or police. Campaigners say that there must be, for staff in faith settings, schools, sports clubs, other institutions and childcare settings.

Who could possibly object to that? Yet many people with long experience of working against child abuse and sexual violence have serious worries about whether a crusade which is turning into a juggernaut, and which no-one, including politicians, likes to question, will actually be effective. They fear it will be seen as a panacea, encouraging complacency and ignoring more urgent changes needed before mandatory reporting could make any major difference – at least in sexual abuse, the main form of abuse in recent scandals, which I discuss here.

There may be a point on which almost everyone can agree. This is that the most senior layers of management in these settings should indeed be mandated to report: so that scandals where Church bishops, children’s home heads or school heads kept information about paedophiles to themselves over decades will end. Reporting to senior management should also be a professional responsibility written into contracts, so that staff cannot be penalised nor sacked for such reporting. But junior staff should not be threatened and intimidated with criminal sanction. Other reforms also need greater priority before mandatory reporting will be effective.

What are some of the problems, and what would actually do much more to increase the pitifully-low charging and conviction rates for child sexual abuse and exploitation?

· Unfortunately, reporting does not mean the report will be acted upon nor the children protected.

The UK campaign urges mandatory reporting “so that experienced and independent assessment is introduced immediately, to ensure perpetrators are stopped as soon as possible.” This is currently a pipe-dream.

Over many years, hundreds of reports were made by outraged staff to police and social services of girls raped and brutalised by child sexual exploitation (CSE) gangs, and children abused in care homes, yet they did nothing. This will continue until child protection agencies and criminal justice interpret these acts as abuse, instead of deciding they made lifestyle choices, or demeaning the young people as prostitutes, troublemakers, delinquents, or liars to be disbelieved.

Changes of attitude in these key agencies towards abuse victims, especially to stigmatised ones, need to be enforced through compulsory training which is backed with the sanction of disciplinary action.

Even if reports are acted upon, children and young people will continue being traumatised and discredited in court (and often returned to their abusers) so long as they’re used as the main source of evidence, and so long as there are no further curbs on defence conduct. Continued improvements in criminal justice and court processes are vital. Why not pilot in Scotland one of the “Children’s Houses”, which have been so successful in preparing cases sensitively for court in Scandinavia?

 · Most children still feel unable to tell adults if they are being sexually abused.

This is a huge problem everywhere, and in my own research alone, young people gave 14 different reasons why they did not tell. Imaginative means of anonymous reporting are needed, while the whole climate for “instant action” in mandatory reporting is likely to deter young people further from confiding in staff. They value time to develop trust, and more control over the speed of investigation. This is why three Scottish local authorities aim to pilot Scottish “Confidential Space” projects for sexually abused young people, a scheme originally initiated by Children 1st and other interested individuals and groups. These will gather evidence thoroughly at the young person’s pace, with emphasis on making them safe, so that reporting leads to some positive outcome.

In successful CSE investigations police have slowly and painstakingly built trust with very stigmatised, distrustful young people. How would such child- centred practice coexist with mandatory reporting, and how would such reporting improve young people’s sense of control and involvement?

· Most of the worrying behaviour seen or heard is not clearcut, but full of doubts and uncertainties.

This is one of the greatest problems. Mandatory reporting assumes that people will clearly recognise sexual abuse (and indeed other forms of child abuse). But most do not, as any role-playing exercise during child protection training reveals. What am I seeing/hearing? Did I imagine it? Am I exaggerating or mistaken? Are they just young people experimenting? What if I ruin his career?

More “worry ‘phonelines” or secure internet advice services, staffed by child protection specialists, and which allow adults with care of children to talk through a worrying scenario, would help greatly to overcome this problem.

· Most adults responsible for children think they’re not allowed to ask them if they’re being sexually abused.

“Backlash” arguments about the alleged coaching of children, after failed sex abuse cases like Orkney, have made school and youth staff fear to ask even open-ended (and absolutely permitted) questions of children, even when they strongly suspect sexual abuse. Yet they would not hesitate to ask children about bruises. Disclosures and reports remain tiny in most schools. Simply making quite clear to teachers that it is perfectly permissible to ask would make a big difference to the amount of child abuse reporting.

· Most adults find sexual abuse a difficult and upsetting subject which they prefer to avoid. Threats of prison increase fear and panic: support builds confidence and courage to address sexual abuse.

Regular confidence- building and reflective discussion for staff groups in organisations will do this - not the big stick.

· Reductions in substantiated cases of sexual abuse in some other countries do not necessarily mean that mandatory reporting is working.

With such a secretive, heavily under-reported crime, it is increases in reports, charges and convictions which would suggest that it is working. Research on the merits of MR in various countries remains inconclusive.

We need to campaign for the changes suggested above; so that if mandatory reporting is fully implemented in future, it only takes place in a climate of informed awareness and confidence, lack of prejudice against children, and a legal and criminal justice system which gives them better hope of protection.