Preventing Sexual Harm

Positive Criminology and Sexual Abuse

Stephanie Kewley, Sarah Pemberton, Mohammed Rahman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780815353669
• eBook ISBN: 9781351135771
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Clinical Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Preventing Sexual Harm provides an overview of current criminal justice strategies for tackling sexual violence, and highlights existing positive criminological approaches that could help prevent sexual abuse and harm.

Sexual violence is a complex, multi-faceted crime. Its causes and consequences are both multiple and enduring and our understanding of sexual violence is embedded within our social, cultural, and political constructs. As such, a response to sexual violence ought to be equally complex and multi-faceted. Alternative approaches might therefore be needed, such as positive criminology. This book explores positive criminology as a mechanism to reduce the risk of recidivism, eradicate harm, prevent reoffending as well as to help reintegrate those with histories of sexual abuse back into the community. In light of recent historic cases of sexual abuse and poor institutional response to these allegations, it opens with an overview of the current landscape of sexual offending. The book then reviews the current positive criminological approaches already in existence in the effort to prevent sexual abuse by outlining the approach of positive criminology and by demonstrating the many gaps in practice that might benefit from this new way of working to prevent sexual abuse.

By highlighting that an alternative response to sexual violence is needed, and by presenting the idea that a positive criminological paradigm is worthy of further examination, this book will be of great interest to scholars of criminology, criminal justice, and forensic psychology.

1 Definition, causes, and prevalence of sexual abuse

Definition

The concept of crime, including crimes that are sexual in nature, is socially constructed. They are crimes “not fixed but vary(ing) across time, culture and even from one situation to the next” (Burke, 2014, p. 194). As such, defining sexual abuse is dependent upon temporal and cultural contexts. To demonstrate recent definitional shifts, it is worth noting for example that in England and Wales, prior to 1991, it was not a criminal offence for a man to rape his wife (McGregor, 2011) and in many countries across the world, homosexuality is still deemed illegal (Beyrer, 2014). Definitions, therefore, reflect changing political, legal, cultural, and contextual perspectives and without a clear or stable definition, it becomes a challenge for policymakers, legislators, researchers, as well as well as clinicians and practitioners to work in a consistent manner to prevent abuse.

For sexual harm and abuse to be prevented, a greater understanding and clarity of the definition of what sexual abuse is, is needed. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines sexual violence as:

Any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic or otherwise directed against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work.

(Garcia-Moreno, Guedes, & Knerr, 2012, p. 2)

The current legal framework in which most of England and Wales operate when responding to sexual and violent abuse includes legislation under the Protection of Children Act, 1978, Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, 2008, the recently drafted Domestic Abuse Bill, 2019, and the most relevant, the Sexual Offences Act, 2003. The Sexual Offences Act, 2003 does not define sexual abuse or sexual harm in one succinct definition, as the World Health Organisation does; instead, it provides specific details of individual behaviours and the conditions under which these acts are illegal. These include the acts of:

Rape; Assault; Causing sexual activity without consent; Rape and other offences against children under 13; Child sex offences; Abuse of position of trust; Familial child sex offences; Offences against persons with a mental disorder impeding choice; Inducements etc. to persons with a mental disorder; Care workers for persons with a mental disorder; Indecent photographs of children; Abuse of children through prostitution and pornography; Prostitution; Trafficking; Preparatory offences; Sex with an adult relative; Other offences (exposure, voyeurism, intercourse with an animal etc.); and Offences outside the United Kingdom.

(Sexual Offences Act, 2003)

Whilst in a legal context, this type of definition provides greater clarity, in areas such as health, education, or social care, further elaboration of what constitutes abuse is still required. Without clarity of definition, people are vulnerable, as was highlighted in the publication of an independent inquiry commissioned by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (Jay, 2014), whereby approximately 1,400 children were sexually exploited over a 16-year period in the town of Rotherham alone. The inquiry into this case identified a significant failure to act in several child abuse situations by different statutory authorities. This was because of a lack of understanding concerning what constituted child sexual exploitation (CSE).

While many factors account for the scale of this case, one factor is the authorities’ lack of definitional agreement or understanding. A definition of what constitutes sexual abuse or CSE is therefore important for all stakeholders, but key for practitioners and professionals who might encounter victims or perpetrators of this crime.

While definitions of sexual crime remain complex, so too do the descriptions of the actors involved in a sexual crime. The labels society place and construct around these actors can serve to both help – and at times hinder – the justice system. For decades, people behaving outside of social norms are often perceived to be threatening the fabric of society, and as such are labelled and stigmatised. Cohen’s work on “folk devils” and “moral panics” provides great insight into this phenomenon (Cohen, 1972) and people with criminal convictions are a good example of this labelling process. The label associated with ‘criminal’ is problematic in that it tends to be permanent and pathological. Likewise, the label ‘sex offender’ produces perhaps a greater threat to social stability, and it is thus emotionally charged and laden with fearful and frightening connotations. Labels of those convicted of sexual offences include, for example, predator, paedophile, pervert, very high risk, mentally disturbed, monster; indeed, media narratives often present family members and people working with this group as gullible do-gooders (Hanvey, Wilson, & Philpot, 2011). From the perspective of prevention, this type of language raises two key issues. First, such social constructions are often ill-informed and driven by the popular media following the detection, sentencing, or the release of a high-profile case. While motivations to publish such stories are claimed to be in public interest, and perhaps serve as a warning of the risks children potentially face, stories are very rarely produced as an educational or informative notice of sexual abuse. Instead, one of the common consequences is moral panic. A good example of this was the tabloid News of the World’s “naming and shaming” campaign in response to the abduction and murder of Sarah Payne in 2000 in West Sussex. Sarah was eight years old when in July 2000 she was abducted while playing outside her grandparents’ house. Her body was found several days later. Roy Whiting was convicted of her abduction and murder. During the investigation, it emerged that he was already on the sex offender register, having previously abducted and indecently assaulted another young girl (Lipscombe, 2012). In response to this, the News of the World printed names, addresses, and photographs of alleged sex offenders, claiming that this was an effort to protect the public. However, vigilante groups emerged, and many people’s homes and lives were ruined after these groups wrongly targeted innocent people in what became a modern-day witch hunt (Cross, 2005). Arguably, such media discourse defeats the objective of raising public awareness in the first place, as the general public fixates on inaccurate information. Second, governments and policymakers tend to respond to such labels with the greatest of force in order to satisfy public demands, resulting in criminal justice systems being dominated by controlling and punitive policy and practice (Harrison, 2011). While it is important, therefore, when developing definitions of sexual crime, use of labels that define perpetrators of such crimes is equally important. Accurate and factual labels are far more helpful to tackle and prevent sexual violence. Demonising and ‘othering’ people who commit an offence provides distance from lawful citizens (Spencer, 2009). Thus, the problem becomes external to society, and the solution is to displace people from the society. This approach is problematic for two reasons. First, society is encouraged to reject and fear those who are labelled, creating isolated ‘others’; second, people given such labels carry the stigma of said labels, accepting social rejection, or perhaps worse, internalising labels, thus jeopardising opportunities to desist from future crime (Maruna, Lebel, Mitchell, & Naples, 2004).

Having a shared definition of the behaviour and the person perpetrating the harm further helps us understand and define the nature of sexual abuse as well as the scale and scope of the problem. This is because understanding the nature and prevalence of abuse enables policy makers to develop strategies and policies that incorporate all stakeholders exposed to the issue. Indeed, applying varying and inconsistent definitions makes evaluation and identification of the problem extremely complex. Furthermore, without it, designing, implementing, and evaluating strategies to prevent sexual abuse from occurring in the first place becomes meaningless and perhaps impossible.

Causes of sexual abuse

To understand how to prevent sexual abuse, an understanding of the causes of abuse is first needed. While it is not our aim to give a comprehensive review of the literature explaining the aetiology of sexual offending, as this is of course beyond the scope of this chapter and indeed this text, a brief overview is needed. Readers interested in exploring the theory of sexual violence are directed to the numerous excellent texts dedicated to just this purpose, for example, Beech, Craig, and Browne (2009a), Craig, Browne, and Beech (2008), Harrison (2011), Laws and Ward (2011), Marshall, Marshall, Serran, and O’Brien (2011), Ward, Polaschek, and Beech (2006), Wilcox, Garrett, and Harkins (2015).

As we do not intend on providing an in-depth review of existing theory, we turn to one of the most current and comprehensive edited collections of theory to date to support this chapter. Ward, Beech and colleagues (2017) discuss a broad range of theoretical explanations of sexual offending. They include theories that are multi-factorial; single factor; process models; theory for special populations; and practice theories. Rather than discuss each in turn, they are briefly summarised in Table 1.1.

Nature of sexual abuse

Consequences

The nature of sexual abuse is diverse and broad. Abuse is perpetrated by men, women, and children; likewise, victims of abuse include men, women, and children. Abuse can be carried out by one perpetrator; however, it can also be organised and facilitated by pairs or groups of people. Abuse occurs in people’s homes, places of work, educational institutions, public areas, and in many of our institutions such as health care or prison environments. Abuse takes place in the virtual world through the World Wide Web where many victims are likely to be unaware of the reach abusive images may have. Some may be unaware that illegal images of them have even been published and shared through the Internet. Images of sexual abuse can be produced and distributed throughout the Internet with ease. Indeed, sexual abuse and the distribution of images can take place via social applications such as chat rooms and networking platforms; images of abuse can be (re)produced and (re)distributed through websites, emails, messaging apps, as well as the more recent phenomena of live streaming abuse via the Internet. Thus, the nature of abuse is diverse and broad in its scope.

The impact that sexual abuse has on individuals and on society is equally vast. In their 1986 review of the literature, Browne and Finkelhor found the short- and long-term consequences of being a victim of sexual abuse to include impaired emotional, physical, sexual, and social functioning. They reported initial effects of abuse to include feelings of fear, anger, guilt, and shame, with physical effects such as disruption to sleep and eating habits, as well as unwanted pregnancy. Their review also found y...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Definition, causes, and prevalence of sexual abuse
• 2 Current approaches to sentencing and management
• 3 Current approaches to the assessment of sexual offending
• 4 Current approaches to the treatment of sexual offending
• 5 Prevention strategies of sexual harm
• 6 Positive criminology as an alternative
• 7 Current positive criminology applications in terms of assessment
• 8 Current positive criminology applications in terms of treatment and management
• 9 Religion, spirituality, and positive criminology
• Conclusion
• Index