Primary Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse: Applications, Effectiveness, and International Innovations

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Cale, J
Burton, M
Leclerc, B
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2017
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Abstract

One of the key debates in the sex offending literature involves the notion that incarcerated sex offenders/those in treatment for sexual offenses possibly represent only a minority of actual sex offenders. The basis for this argument is the fact that the vast majority of sex crimes go undetected for various reasons. The dark figure for sex crimes is possibly quite more substantial than for certain other types of violent crimes. For example, it is fairly well established that many sex offenders commit a single sex offence in their criminal career and never reoffend sexually. Others, however, commit offenses against different victims over the course of their criminal career, some of which may not come to the attention of authorities. Similarly, some sex offenders may abuse the same victim repeatedly, over the course of months or years without the crimes ever being reported and the offender being caught (e.g., see Lussier and Cale 2013, for a review of the criminal careers of sex offenders). Critically, there are many reasons that victims may not disclose sexual abuse experiences, particularly child victims. For example, research evidence suggests that in a vast majority of child sexual abuse (CSA) cases, the perpetrator and victim are known to one another (Finkelhor et al. 2005). Therefore, children may find it difficult to report abuse experiences perpetrated by someone known to them, particularly a relative, for fear of not being believed, or even out of a sense of not wanting the perpetrator to get into trouble, for example. At the same time, perpetrators often use a variety of tactics to maintian a victim's silence ranging from buying the victim gifts to using threats to ensure their silence. These dynamics in addition to the severe consequences of CSA on victims, families, and even the broader community make it all the more important to try and prevent these types of offenses from ever occurring in the first place. Therefore, in this chapter, we discuss some of the main primary prevention strategies for CSA, review the evidence of their application and effectiveness, and discuss new international innovations in the primary prevention of CSA.

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Crime Prevention: International Perspectives, Issues, and Trends

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Other law and legal studies not elsewhere classified

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