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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Royal Commission into Insitutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
In Australia we are in the process of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
There was a recent speech from the Chair here.
It brings up a number of different issues which could be expounded upon but I suppose I was struck by the following:
1) quote:
Surprisingly, more than two thirds of abusers in an institutional context were children and young people.
Dafuq? What does that say?
2) quote:
The best available indicators, nationally produced, estimate that depending on the particular state or territory, between 3.3 percent and 6.6 percent of all reports of child sexual abuse made to police within the last five years occurred within an institutional context. The researchers concluded that this approximated to five percent of all cases of recently reported allegations of child sexual abuse and would equate to an annual total of between 400 to 600 allegations. The researchers emphasised that this was a conservative and maybe a very conservative estimate. However, it does suggest a significant continuing problem of sexual abuse in an institutional context. It confirms the view that a great deal of abuse occurs in families.
Things can theoretically be put in place in institutions to prevent abuse, but how do we stop abuse in families where it occurs most?
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
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Posted
fwiw
* encouraging all children to believe that their bodies are their own. (full stop)
* listening to children; that goes for all of us.
* training teachers to know the signs and encouraging them to act on that knowledge.
* having a helpline avilable to children so that the very delicate and tentative process of disclosure can maybe begin.
*
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
I don't think you can stop it. I know that is a horrifying prospect, but I think it's the truth. You can make preventative measures that will hopefully make it less easy to commit the crime or take children out of the danger to an extent, but you will never eliminate it.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
This research suggests children in non-traditional families are much more likely to suffer abuse.
quote:
children are much more at risk of sexual abuse from men who are not biologically related to them than from their own dads.
Time for some more conservative family values?
More help to lessen the divorce rate?
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a theological scrapbook
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
quote: Surprisingly, more than two thirds of abusers in an institutional context were children and young people.
Dafuq? What does that say?
Bluntly: a 14 year old in a children's home or boarding school is far more likely to be raped by a 17 year old in the same institution than by one of the adults working there.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
One reason it's not likely to reach the media is because of the confidentiality issues surrounding cases in which the perpetrators are minors. Another is that such cases don't fuel the public sense of enthralled outrage in quite the same way.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But why?
Should it be a surprise? A full-grown adult with a sexual interest in 14-year-olds is a paedophile (or I suppose technically an ephebophile) - a minority sexual perversion.
A 17-year-old with a sexual interest in 14-year-olds has an entirely normal sexual attraction to people only a couple of years younger than him (or her).
Take that perfectly normal sexual attraction, roll in stunted emotional growth, poor education in relationships and probably sexual-education-by-porn-video, and you get a rapist.
This isn't the wierdo lurking in the bushes, it's the common rapist - the older kid in the group home, the college athlete who won't take "no" for an answer, and so on.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I saw a talk show once about abuse in foster homes. Someone gave the statistic that 20% of children who have been in foster homes were physically or sexually abused.
The abusers were most frequently other foster children.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But why?
And why is this the first I've heard of it and it never reaches the media?
I first heard of abuse in institutions when I was a teenager in the context of older-teenager on younger-teenager in a foster home. Share a quiet cappuccino with any former inmate of juvie and you will hear some horrifying stories.
Media incline to a clearer narrative of abuse by a person in a position of trust. The illegality is also less ambiguous. However, I have noticed that most more-than-140-words media accounts of abusers does refer to their having undergone instance of abuse themselves. Foster homes, youth correctional facilities, and (we are now hearing) sports training camps, militia and cadet training.
To my disgust, there is a sentiment that anyone in a correctional of holding facility of any type gets what they deserve. I have been disconcerted by how widely-held this seems to be.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But why?
And why is this the first I've heard of it and it never reaches the media?
I don't know why you've not heard of it - it's as old as residential institutions and it's certainly well known in the context of British boarding schools. C S Lewis wrote about it, and he was far from being the only one. As far as the media goes it's worth recalling that their interest in these cases is prurient - they're after the scandal and the picking over of a corpse. Abuse of children by older children doesn't allow them to publicly pillory someone who is expected to behave better - it has a lot in common with prison rape in that respect.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
... C S Lewis wrote about it, and he was far from being the only one. ...
So did Evelyn Waugh's older brother Alec in Loom of Youth which scandalised the reading public as far back as 1917. He was expelled from the old boy's club of his school for spilling the beans and shaming them.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I recall the anecdotal observation that the only crime dwelt on in Victorian newspapers was that which crossed class divides.
Nothing much has changed it would seem.
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Love wins
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But why?
And why is this the first I've heard of it and it never reaches the media?
Perhaps a reason you have not heard of it is that there are real restrictions on the publication of names which would identify children as victims or as offenders. Another reason is that you don't look at the decisions of courts for the sentences passed on offenders. Time after time, there is reference to the accused having been abused as a child and turning from that to themselves being abusers, or using illegals drugs or excessive alcohol. The sting of the abuse lasts long, long after the act itself, with many victims who later offend reporting the low self-esteem they felt. These days, there may well be better support systems in place and that step may reduce the longer term effect.
[ 28. April 2014, 04:32: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Its one of the reasons I try desperately to keep the kids I work with out of care. In a lot of cases, keeping children in shit home situations can be safer. Group homes are particularly bad: usually have lowly paid, poorly trained staff, usually female, and not enough of them. They're not going to try and stop some hulking 16-17 year old from doing anything.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
Its one of the reasons I try desperately to keep the kids I work with out of care.
Could you please move to France immediately and take charge of Social Services here? Thank you.
[ 28. April 2014, 06:53: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Homeless and vulnerably housed young people (eg those in hostels*) are at huge risk of sexual abuse from other young people in those environments. Having personally been a homeless/vulnerably housed young person, IME it's much more common than being abused by an adult.
*edited to add that the hostels I mean are specialist housing, and not the kind of youth hostels people stay in while travelling
[ 28. April 2014, 17:20: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Thanks for your professional and personal contributions folks (both here and via PM).
My eyes have been opened.
Personally I think this issue is a game changer in how best to protect children in institutional settings. It should be a focus issue, not a quiet side issue.
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a theological scrapbook
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
You may want to look at the attempt by the Obama administration to pass laws to prevent prison rape in the United States. This includes youth at risk.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
You may want to look at the attempt by the Obama administration to pass laws to prevent prison rape in the United States. This includes youth at risk.
You don't deal with any sort of abuse by passing laws about it. It's an illusion that is hopelessly and completely ineffectual.
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
So what would you do instead?
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
So what would you do instead?
If you have no programme of action that will do something, don't pass laws about it. It will merely give you a flatulent illusion that you have dealt with something you haven't done anything about.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
I think that's a good point Enoch.
The article linked to above from Huff post is similarly unhopeful about the passing of laws but seems to think it has to do with the implementation of them by staff. The problem (it says) is power.
quote:
What's behind this apparently illogical obstruction? It is the same dynamic that informs so much of what goes on in any detention system; it is certainly the dynamic that is behind all prison sexual violence: the power grab. All lockups whether they be for adults, minors or immigrants awaiting deportation are run on a hierarchy of power: Who's got it, who wants it and what you'll do to get it. Within this structure there is the inevitable scramble for power and position in an environment where everyone feels impotent.
I'm thinking sexual violence probably is about power and perhaps it goes all the way to the top.
So how to deal with abuse of power?
The article seems to say its about restoring dignity to all levels.
How to do that?
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
So what would you do instead?
If you have no programme of action that will do something, don't pass laws about it. It will merely give you a flatulent illusion that you have dealt with something you haven't done anything about.
Not talking about the issue doesn't seem to have been very effective either. Passing Laws can be a useful first step. It isn't sufficient in itself, especially if, as discussed in the article, they aren't enforced. It is a step toward doing something.
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
And a law at least says that something isn't OK.
I've noticed a huge change in NZ since the change to the Crimes Act that outlawed hitting kids. Families say to me that they don't know how to discipline their kids because they aren't allowed to hit them. They take it as read that they aren't allowed to hit any more. There was no specific program to implement the change, but it was highly publicised.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
So what would you do instead?
If you have no programme of action that will do something, don't pass laws about it. It will merely give you a flatulent illusion that you have dealt with something you haven't done anything about.
While this is always a temptation, I think that the simple assent to a law will substantially form public opinion. In most places, people will look to the law to define what should happen even more than what will happen. If (for example), smoking is forbidden in restaurants, in a surprisingly short time, they will be smoke-free.
Will prisons then become automatically rape-free? Will inmates become models of restraint, self-control and respect of others? No, but guards will stop looking the other way, prison doctors and nurses will begin to document with a view to supporting legal action, prison officials will do their best to make sure that such offences stop if only to protect their careers and enhance their promotion prospects, and inmates will be more likely to complain.
While Enoch is correct in that legislation by itself is insufficient, without it, not much will happen.
[ 30. April 2014, 01:16: Message edited by: Augustine the Aleut ]
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
The conduct now being disclosed at the Royal Commission was an offence at the time, and still is. Gaol rapes are just as much an offence as those committed out of gaol.
What sort of legislation do you propose? It is not like the introduction of laws banning smoking in public places, or having to conceal tobacco products in stores, both of which are entirely new offences.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
You can widen the net of culpability - for example you can make it a legal requirement that people report allegations of abuse and pass on any concerns. This is already the case ("mandated reporting") in many jurisdictions for child abuse.
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
That has been the law in NSW for quite a while. I'm fairly sure that there is similar legislation in other states.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I assume it's already illegal to rape people in prisons. It is outside prison. The remedy is effective enforcement of the laws that are. Thinking that passing new laws will somehow solve the problem, is as good a demonstration as one can get that nobody has any real intention of doing anything about it.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Every sex offender I have ever met has been a survivor of abuse themselves. (And owing to my line of work, that is quite a few.)
Typical fictional profile: neglect and abuse in family home, fostered age five, displays difficult behaviour, thereby bouncing through a few foster placements. So in displaying that behaviour maybe hitting others. Gets sent to residential school for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties age 11ish - now surrounded by similar children. Hits puberty, starts to display 'inappropriate sexual behaviour' masturbating in communal area, seen with peer in shower, also showing explosive physical aggression from time to time. Safety measures taken within the institution but not perfectly effective. Diagnoses start to be bandied about, ? Adhd, ? Reactive attachment disorder ? Emerging mental illness.
Some more major incident occurs, maybe they try to kill themselves, or a sustained physical assault on staff member requiring physical intervention, allegation of a sexual offence. Get diverted into hospital, slight improvement.
Hit 18, social care decide there have been no. Incidents for a year - they don't have a formal diagnosis of mental illness of developmental disability so they can be placed in a single person flat with an hours visit per week.
By this time you have a disturbed young man, who has been both victim and perpetrator, they are impulsive, they don't know how to self sooth and calm themselves down when upset, they have an emerging personality disorder they have little experience of managing their own home, they are crap at relationships and they see the world as a hostile place. We would describe them as vulnerable.
And then they discover alcohol and drugs - if they haven't already. And anyone they know is as fucked up as they are.
Then society acts surprised when they offend. For a worse outcome add in the effects of abuse by peers like themselves whilst in care.
If they haven't already got a conviction, the government is not going to fund the scores of thousands of pounds a year a specialist care team would cost to support this person in a way that would improve matters.
[ 01. May 2014, 20:31: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Alas Doublethink, that's all too common here as well - just read the sentencing comments online and the decisions in the Court of Criminal Appeal.
The interesting part though is that it is not a 2 way street. Abusers have themselves gone through the history you describe. But not all with that history turn out to be abusers themselves We need to find out why this difference is there and the lessons we learn from that may help. For example, I know a man who was the subject of sexual abuse by a family member over many years starting before his teens. He struggled with that but only disclosed it to his wife when he was in his mid-thirties. Yet he is an intelligent man who by then had completed post-graduate degrees, had a good employment record into middle management positions (and has since progressed to senior ones) and was a staunch member of his local church. What made the difference?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Thanks for that Doublethink. Makes sense.
Excellent question Gee D. What does make the difference? I think it would be a good question to put to such people themselves.
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a theological scrapbook
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Alas Doublethink, that's all too common here as well - just read the sentencing comments online and the decisions in the Court of Criminal Appeal.
The interesting part though is that it is not a 2 way street. Abusers have themselves gone through the history you describe. But not all with that history turn out to be abusers themselves We need to find out why this difference is there and the lessons we learn from that may help. For example, I know a man who was the subject of sexual abuse by a family member over many years starting before his teens. He struggled with that but only disclosed it to his wife when he was in his mid-thirties. Yet he is an intelligent man who by then had completed post-graduate degrees, had a good employment record into middle management positions (and has since progressed to senior ones) and was a staunch member of his local church. What made the difference?
There is limited research on this hugely sensitive topic. There is a study that gives an approximate figure of one in thirteen survivors becoming abusers. However, abuse is so under-reported that I don't think such estimates can be relied upon.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
There is limited research on this hugely sensitive topic. There is a study that gives an approximate figure of one in thirteen survivors becoming abusers. However, abuse is so under-reported that I don't think such estimates can be relied upon.
That's not actually a very high figure. It certainly sufficiently low that it doesn't justify the argument, 'I can't help it because I was abused myself'.
How valid anyway are these sort of statements? 100% of the victims of murder do not then go on to murder someone else.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Enoch, a couple of comments. The first is that my post was not limited to abusers saying that they had been abused themselves; I also included those who say that the abuse helped them turn to drugs and alcohol at an early age. As Doublethink points out, this tends to be the start of a descending spiral.
The second picks up on what's inherent in your post: why do some not follow the pattern of abused/abuser? I gave an example of a man who had neither turned to drugs/alcohol as a teenager, nor was he (AFAIK) himself an abuser. In his case, I think that the reason for the first is that he had a strongly supportive family, albeit one which did not know of the abuse. As would have happened in any event, he was encouraged in his studies, and raised in a warm and loving environment. He did not feel a need to use drugs as a means of escaping the abuse. I don't know why he is not himself and abuser. Both of these are of course speculations and I do not know him anywhere near well enough to presume to ask him for his comments.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
There is limited research on this hugely sensitive topic. There is a study that gives an approximate figure of one in thirteen survivors becoming abusers. However, abuse is so under-reported that I don't think such estimates can be relied upon.
That's not actually a very high figure. It certainly sufficiently low that it doesn't justify the argument, 'I can't help it because I was abused myself'.
How valid anyway are these sort of statements? 100% of the victims of murder do not then go on to murder someone else.
It may be linked to the severity and chronicity of the abuse, but basically we don't know. I would say that, in my experience, having been abused in some way oneself is necessary but not sufficient to become an sex offender oneself. (Though there are a small number of people with very significant developmental disabilities, who fall outside this. Though sadly the chance they have been abused is often higher than for the mainstream population.)
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
How valid anyway are these sort of statements? 100% of the victims of murder do not then go on to murder someone else.
A high proportion of people who go on to be violent have had violent upbringings.
Basically, anti-social behaviour is learned.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Wasn't there some work looking at resilience? Certainly I heard it being highlighted a few years back; the most recent journals mentioning it that came up were all 2007 or 2008, so I'm not sure that it's an idea that is still followed through.
There were discussions about teaching resilience and to that end I have resources that look at factors leading to resilience to try to help young people find ways to make the support when it doesn't exist - eg reframing, mentoring, family support.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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DangerousDeacon
Shipmate
# 10582
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Posted
Are all these problems peculiarly Western problems? Is there any research on the incidence of sexual abuse of children in non-Western cultures, where the extended family dominates?
(Note: I hate the definition of the traditional family as the nuclear family of man, woman and children - this has only been "traditional" in the West for about two hundred years).
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'All the same, it may be that I am wrong; what I take for gold and diamonds may be only a little copper and glass.'
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
It seems to extend to many Moslem countries if The Kite Runner is to be believed, and also to Aust Aborigines. There have been some very nasty cases of abuse in those communities in the law reports. One was so bad that an appeal judge said that had he been sentencing he would have given the 20 year maximum and that the sentence actually given and being appealed against was too lenient.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
There is some extant research showing one in five people show some level of arousal to sexualised images of pubescent and post-pubescent children. So a huge amount of what people actually do, and what is constructed and experienced as abuse, will be about cultural norms.
John Peel married a 15 yr old in America in the latter part of the twentieth century - was he more or less abusive than Roman Polanski ? In Mexico, the age of consent is 12 ...
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
There is no 1 correct age across the world and some allowance for differing standards is needed. The correct position that it all depends on the individual is unworkable.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
There's a row, I think, about an island somewhere in the Pacific a long way from anywhere else, which comes technically under New Zealand sovereignty. A police person was stationed there a few years ago - I think up until then, they had managed without - and was horrified to find that the local inhabitants took it for granted that girls were married off more or less immediately on puberty, i.e. well below the legal age of consent or for marriage as they are in New Zealand.
Part of the mix, was that the inhabitants were not pure Polynesian tribes-persons, who could be expected to have different customs, but were descended from part european ancestors who had been there for some centuries. One suspects part of the shock was a notion that they were supposed to know better.
I believe several key local citizens, leaders in the community, were arrested and taken off to imprisonment in New Zealand, amid arguments that this was either remedying a terrible abuse or destroying a community that had managed all right in its own way before meddling outsiders started to interfere.
Does anybody know anything about this? Am I imagining this story?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Enoch, are you remembering the Pitcairn Island trial?
There's article on adolescent experience across the world. (I was looking for something a social worker talked about at one of the child protection training sessions I attended - familial sexual initiation in certain communities, but couldn't find it)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Enoch, are you remembering the Pitcairn Island trial?
There's article on adolescent experience across the world. (I was looking for something a social worker talked about at one of the child protection training sessions I attended - familial sexual initiation in certain communities, but couldn't find it)
That looks like it, yes.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by DangerousDeacon:
Are all these problems peculiarly Western problems? Is there any research on the incidence of sexual abuse of children in non-Western cultures, where the extended family dominates?
Another good question. I don't know.
If children are married at an early age, that does not constitute abuse unless the sex is forced. But the same could be said of any forced sex.
As for Aborigines, plenty of sexual abuse of minors - but I'm not aware of early marriages - just abuse. Whether this is a "traditional" thing or just part of "westernisation" is another I don't know.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
It begs the question how we understand grooming, or how able a Mexican 12 yr old is to say no etc
However, one of the things that sets apart the behaviour of sex offenders and the experience of victims - is the fact the social norm is violated. If you are compiling a risk profile in the UK, to assess future risk, you would include in that history acts that were illegal at the time they were committed but are not illegal now. Because the willingness to violate the social norm continues to have predictive value.
We also know that telling people who do not believe they are victims, that they have been exploited, can have a poorer psychological outcome. (Though that probably depends at least partly on other factors too.)
Peel's marriage (John Peel is deceased by the way) may have been legal, but, it doesn't like it was in the lass's best interests .
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
It begs the question how we understand grooming, or how able a Mexican 12 yr old is to say no etc
However, one of the things that sets apart the behaviour of sex offenders and the experience of victims - is the fact the social norm is violated. If you are compiling a risk profile in the UK, to assess future risk, you would include in that history acts that were illegal at the time they were committed but are not illegal now. Because the willingness to violate the social norm continues to have predictive value.
We also know that telling people who do not believe they are victims, that they have been exploited, can have a poorer psychological outcome. (Though that probably depends at least partly on other factors too.)
Remind me to talk to you if I have any further questions about this stuff.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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