Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Trials (Child sexual abuse) Australia'

Past research has illustrated that communily attitudes tend not to be reflected in crime legislation particularly when considering the victim-offender relationship and perceived seriousness of child sexual abuse. This study examined the effects of 4 different victimoffender relationships and the degree of trust within these relationships on perceptions of offence seriousness and emotional and physical harm, for the offence of indecently dealing with a 14-year old girl. One hundred and sixty community members used a 7- point scale to rate the degree of trust within these relationships, the seriousness of the offence and the emotional and physical harm suffered by the victim. Four two-way ANOVAs and one correlation were perfonned. Results showed that the victim-offender relationship failed to influence perceptions of offence seriousness, emotional and physical harm. Although the ratings of trust differed across the 4 relationship types, trust failed to significantly influence perceptions of offence seriousness, emotional and physical harm. Women were found to rate the offence as more serious and harmful than men. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Department of Anthropology, 2006.
"December 2005".
Bibliography: leaves 327-357.
Characteristics of ritual abuse discourse -- A plethora of theorists (and of differences between them) -- Defining ritual abuse: differences, disputes and bad faith -- Allegations, investigations and trials -- Abuse accomodation and recovered memories -- Moral panic and witch hunt -- Witch craze -- Outsiders, accusations and obligations -- Accusations of ritual abuse in Australia -- Witches and pedophiles -- Conclusion.
Allegations of "ritual abuse" were first made in North America in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was claimed that an extremely severe form of sexual and physical child abuse was being perpetrated by Satanists or the devotees of comparably unorthodox religions. Perpetrators were often supposed to be invloved in other serious criminal activities. Allegations were subsequently made in Britain, Holland, Australia and New Zealand. The thesis examines the bitter debates that these claims provoked, including the dispute about whether ritual abuse "really happens". -- The thesis also contributes to the debate by providing some anthropological insights into why these strange and incredible claims were made and why they were accepted by certain therapists, officials, journalists and members of the public. It is argued that the panic over ritual abuse was a panic about what anthropologists know as "witchcraft" and the thesis makes this argument through an analysis of the events (mainly discursive events) of the panic. The thesis in particular takes up Jean La Fontaine's argument about the similarities between accusations of ritual abuse and those made against "witches" in early modern Europe and in non-Western societies. The similarities between the kinds of people typically accused of perpetrating ritual abuse and those accused of practising witchcraft are considered, with a special emphasis on those cases where accusations were made by adult "survivors" and where alleged perpetrators were affluent and of relatively high social status. The thesis examines how supposed perpetrators of ritual abuse were denied the social support properly due to them and how accusations--and the persecution that followed--achieved certain political, professional and personal ends for survivors and their supporters. -- The thesis also considers similarities between "crazed" witch hunting and the recent spread of the panic about ritual abuse throughout much of the English-speaking West. The peculiar panic about witch-like figures that occurred in Australia -- especially in NSW--is examined. The thesis shows how, at a time when Australians had become very sceptical about claims of ritual abuse, activists were able to incite and affect the latest of a succession of homophobic panics in Australia.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
357 leaves ill

Since the early 1980s the Church and society have been shocked and scandalised by incidents of child sexual abuse perpetrated by clerics and religious. During the past twenty years knowledge of sexual abuse has grown. With increased knowledge has come increased understanding of factors that affect offenders, that impact on the healing of victims. Church leaders in the church have not always responded well, to victims, to offenders and to communities. The Church has grown in understanding of how to respond to all who are affected by sexual abuse of children. Church and society continue to learn. In 1996, the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference and the Australian Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes published Towards Healing, Principles and Procedures in Responding to Complaints of Sexual Abuse against Personnel of the Catholic Church in Australia. The following year, they published Integrity in Ministry: A Document of Ethical Standards for Catholic Clergy and Religious in Australia. The former document presents the principles and procedures for responding to complaints of misconduct and sexual abuse. The latter document presents standards for life and ministry for clergy and religious. The Catholic Church in Australia responded to sexual abuse within the context of the Australian society, as did the church in each country. In presenting an overview of the response to child sexual abuse of both society and church in several countries besides Australia, the possibility exists not only for identifying similarities and differences, but also for understanding the reasons behind them. In the 1980s knowledge of the complexities of sexual abuse and its impact on victims was very limited. Likewise familiarity with the church's penal law and related procedures was limited because it had not been used to any great extent. Increased and new usage of both penal law and procedural law identified areas that caused problems. At the heart of the church's response to sexual abuse is the goal of responding to the dignity of the human person. Hopefully, identifying differences and problem areas will result in increased understanding and the upholding of the dignity of all people affected by sexual abuse.

This thesis focuses on interagency coordination and collaboration in the management of child sexual abuse in Australia and in England. The impetus for the research arose from the experience of the author as manager and practitioner in the area of child sexual abuse, while working in these two countries. Problems regarding the management of interagency cooperation had become apparent in child protection practice and were also recognized in the literature. Personal experience, as well as a review of the literature, revealed that there was a need for the identification and validation of the key mechanisms and processes underlying effective interagency coordination and collaboration. This review of the literature also indicated that although existing models of operation had been identified, their value to practitioners had not been evaluated. The research underpinning the thesis set out to identify and validate key components contributing to effective interagency cooperation in the management of child sexual abuse that could be of international significance. This research is placed in the context of the evolving social construction of child abuse and child sexual abuse that is reflected in the rise in the incidence of the phenomena as well as in its expanding definitions. The nature of adult/child relationships are explored in terms of the sociological constructions of childhood and their periodisation. Specific attention is given to the rights of children and the professional regulation of child abuse and child sexual abuse in relation to the periodisation of modernity and postmodernity. Child abuse management operated mainly within the medical paradigm between the 1960s and the late 1980s. In England, child abuse tragedies occurred during the 1980s that resulted in official inquiries and culminated in various governmental reports that made recommendations for the improvement in services. The child sexual abuse scandal that occurred in Cleveland in 1986 was accompanied by a moral panic and a backlash in society against social workers and existing methods of professional regulation. As a consequence of Governmental efforts to remedy this situation, the medical paradigm that had dominated child abuse management' was shifted towards a socio-legal paradigm accompanied by the emergence of the discourse of `child protectionism'. However, challenges to the child protection discourse continued and these appear to be centred mainly upon the need for the adoption of a more subjectivist paradigm in the management of these phenomena. The debates and issues arising from these shifts in paradigm, particularly in relation to the operation of the interagency, multidisciplinary approach to the management of the problem, are discussed in the context of the self-referential, closed social systems involved in child protection network. Amidst these changes to service delivery paradigms concerning child welfare, the underlying multiagency interagency method of operation continued to be advocated. Existing research had pointed to the central role of this method of working in the management of child sexual abuse. An eclectically designed study was undertaken to validate the key mechanisms and processes underlying interagency coordination and collaboration. After their identification, it was found that they could be categorised into coordinating mechanisms, collaborative procedures and personal perspectives. These key components were then operationalised to form a questionnaire that was administered to a random sample of four-hundred and seven social worker practitioners and managers in both Australia and England. This was followed up with twenty in-depth interviews with a randomly selected sample of social work managers and practitioners from Australia and England chosen from those who had participated in the original survey. The major finding from a statistical analysis of the results of the survey, and discourse analysis of the in-depth interviews, indicated that the operationalised components were key mechanisms and procedures in the management of child sexual abuse in both Australia and England. A significant outcome from these findings has been the development and integration of the key mechanisms into a model of interagency coordination and collaboration. The model has been termed, the Interagency Model for the Management of Child Sexual Abuse (IAAC). The Model's functions are outlined, together with recommendations for its practical application for the planning of child protection services as well as the training of child protection teams. The final chapter contains specific recommendations for child protection practice, in the light of the research findings, together with their possible implications for the contemporary child protection discourse. Suggestions are made regarding future directions for child protection practice, also based on the research results, together with proposals for future research.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) and its consequences constitute a serious social issue in Aboriginal and other communities throughout the world. As a result, a number of influential psychological theories about sexual offending have been developed. These theories suggest that the early socialisation and developmental experiences of offenders are implicated in the onset, development and maintenance of sexual offending behaviour. While these theories suggest that culture is important for understanding such behaviour, their specific role has largely been ignored in the literature. Given the paucity of research in this area the aim of this study was to understand the perspectives of an Aboriginal community in Western Australia about the role of culture in CSA in their community, how this could inform the cultural dimension in existing psychological theories of sexual offending, and the implications of this for applying these theories with such sex offenders. During the first stage the researcher undertook semi-structured, in-depth interviews to collect data from 11 Aboriginal adult female and four adult male members from the community. A thematic analysis of the transcribed interview data identified five primary themes: Misusing Power; Surviving the System; Evolving Culture; Fear of Repercussions; and Avoiding Exposure. During the second stage the researcher presented her results to six people at a local Aboriginal community forum for their feedback, insights and refinement of the results. The same, but refined, themes were then presented to a group of five non-Aboriginal people who work with Aboriginal people in child protection and family counselling, for their feedback and insights. On the basis of all the feedback a sixth theme, Holding Aboriginal Law, was added. Aboriginal Law provides specific information, and sets out rules and expectations about Aboriginal people’s lives, kinship structures, cultural traditions, spiritual beliefs, and restricted ceremonial practices, traditional medicine, education and specialised training. Taken together the results of this study suggest the themes Misusing Power; Surviving the System and Holding Aboriginal Law are relevant to understanding the onset, development, maintenance and response to CSA, that Evolving Culture is relevant to understanding the development and maintenance of CSA, and Fear of Repercussions and Avoiding Exposure make an important contribution to understanding factors that maintain the commission of CSA in this community. An important finding of this study is that, whilst the misinterpretation of Aboriginal Law plays a role in the onset, development and maintenance of CSA, a sound knowledge of Aboriginal Law can be used to prevent CSA and to respond to it. Policy developers should therefore have a sound knowledge of Aboriginal Law and take it into account when developing policies. They should also consider developing policies that will create opportunities for Aboriginal people to connect with and enhance their understanding of Aboriginal Law. Assessors and professionals working with Aboriginal CSA offenders should likewise have a solid understanding of Aboriginal Law, and consider developing treatment modalities which will challenge Aboriginal offenders’ misconceptions about Aboriginal Law, and provide them with opportunities to develop a sound understanding of its values, principles and practices.

Thesis (M.J.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2006.
"May 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-174). Online version available on the World Wide Web. Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2006]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
科技法律研究所
99
In August and September, 2010, two child sexual abuse cases were reported by the mass media and incurred admonishment and criticism from the public in Taiwan. One of the cases, that of a six-year-old child who was sexually assaulted, was heard by the Kaohsiung District Court in Taiwan. The Supreme Court of the Republic of China heard another case in which a three-year-old child was sexually abused. To determine whether the existing legal system needs to be amended, this study discusses the practice and the procedures of the trials involving child sexual abuse cases. The first part of this study demonstrates a basic analysis of child sexual abuse crimes to learn the crime trends, crime characteristics, and general misunderstandings of sexual assault. This study then further analyzes the evolution of criminal legislation of child sexual abuse in Taiwan; the protection of legal interest; the definition of “sexual intercourse”; and how criminals change their behavior according to the legal changes being discussed. To better understand the practice of child sexual abuse trails, the study also evaluates the suit conducted, the convictions, and the sentences of the trials. In chapter four, we discuss controversial issues in substantive criminal law; for example, how the existing criminal child sexual abuse law decides on the nature of guilt. Furthermore, we analyze and criticize how the age of children and their desires are considered in the criminal law. Chapter five demonstrates how to evaluate the admissibility and the probative force of a child’s testimony in the procedural law. Also, we make a suggestion for the appraisal system in Taiwan by comparing it with the expert witness system in the US. In the conclusion, we provide suggestions for the practice and procedure dimensions of the existing legal system. In the practice dimension, we suggest that the child sexual abuse law should be amended. People who have sexual intercourse with children under age 12 should receive an aggravated penalty due to committing the crimes of sexual intercourse with, and indecent assaults against children. Because child victims are not fully sexually developed and autonomous, their desires do not need to be considered when deciding on the nature of guilt. The purpose of the protection norm is to make children mentally and physically well-developed. For the procedure dimension, we suggest that an appropriate interrogation process should be constructed for children and the appraisal system should be modified. By providing these suggestions, we expect the law to be better able to protect the child victims, and execute the prosecution and trials in a just manner.

This thesis focuses on disclosure of sexual abuse by men who were sexually abused either as children or adolescents. The research questions that it set out to answer were 'why and how do males in Australia disclose to another person that they have been sexually abused?' Aims were to understand disclosure from the perspective of male survivors in Australia, identify the factors that inhibit, trigger and facilitate disclosure, and develop a theory of disclosure reflecting the processes involved.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Psychology.
Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-65). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR19685

The centrepoint of this thesis is an action research project, the Maternal Alienation Project (MAP), implemented during 2002 and 2003 in Adelaide, South Australia. Resourced by two government-funded community health services, it was established to improve organisations’ (health, welfare and legal) and systems’ responses to the newly termed ‘maternal alienation’. MAP was situated within a tradition of feminist participatory and action research. It was designed to work on three levels: practice, systems and policy-making, and research. The outcomes, processes and events of MAP at the different levels of its operation are examined in the thesis through the employment of a gendered analysis drawn mainly from materialist feminism and standpoint theories. Post-project interviews and focus groups provided further data to the fieldnotes written throughout MAP, and the project’s formal and informal documents. A recent example of a contested gendered concept, “maternal alienation” was first identified and named in 1999 as a component of gender violence (Morris 1999). It forms part of a spectrum of violence perpetrated in households, and had been identified within domestic violence and child sexual abuse. It is a term for the range of tactics used by mainly male perpetrators, predominantly the mothers’ intimate partners and the children’s fathers or step-fathers, to deliberately undermine the relationship between mothers and their children. The mother-blaming discourses and degrading constructions of mothers conveyed to children and those in the family’s orbit are strongly related to wider socio-cultural constructions of women and mothers. The thesis examines theories of gender, gendered organisations and gender violence. It develops the concept of an abusive household gender regime, characterised by perpetrators’ imposition of a coercive and abusive regime on household members, and particular patternings of gendered relations. Comparisons are made between household and organisational gender regimes, which are also viewed in relation to the local gender order at the time of MAP. It was found that services that lack an analysis of gender are likely to re-inscribe the dynamics of maternal alienation in their responses to families. Language was found to play a significant part in addressing maternal alienation, particularly in developing congruence between language and women’s and children’s “lived” experiences. The principles that were developed were founded on supporting mothers and rebuilding their relationships with children, and making visible the tactics employed by perpetrators, thereby reducing their power to coerce and increasing their accountability. The concept of maternal alienation and MAP itself were attacked by a coalition of men’s rights and Christian Right lobbyists. This compromised the operations of MAP, and of its key supporters, managers of feminist and gender-aware organisations. In many ways these attacks, played out at a macro level, reflected the techniques and dynamics of maternal alienation at a micro level. This thesis raises questions about the strategies that feminist organisations need to develop to more effectively pursue feminist agendas, and to re-invigorate a women’s movement.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2008

The crime of incest is rendered invisible in the 1990's under the all-embracing label of "child abuse", where the public eye is alerted to grave cases of physical abuse, by a media hungry for sensationalism. Likewise, incest is effaced amid the current outrage over the deviant outsider - typically perceived as the paedophile. It is the very nature of the sphere in which incest is committed, which makes the crime 'hermetic'. The view that the patriarchal family is somehow sacrosanct, and the debate over the public/private dichotomy relating to child protection, adjoin to further obscure this iniquity. In addition to this, the perpetrators of incest frequently deny, minimise or rationalise their crime, hence making the legal sphere the only legitimate area of redress for victims. However, the law attempts to deal with these private moral perplexities in the objective and constrained manner representative of the court system. This may not be reconcilable with just outcomes. Social policy's footing in this arena appears to be equivocal, due to the inherent confines of the legal system. But the legal system, and in particular the court arena, can be made more equitable, by being flexible and amenable to innovation, through the embodiment of other areas of expertise. Instead of being self-referential, the legal system should be more accommodating of other esteemed knowledges, in the name of justice.

The researcher identified in her work as a social worker that sexually abused adolescents experience difficulties with testifying in court. The goal of this research was directed at developing guidelines to assist adolescents who have to testify in court. The researcher utilised the qualitative research approach with an exploratory and descriptive nature. Semi-structured interviews were done with a sample of adolescents who have testified in court, a sample of parents or caregivers of adolescents who have testified in court and social workers working with adolescents who testify in court. These interviews were conducted to gain insight into how the research participants experienced the court process in order to formulate guidelines for adolescents who have to testify in court. The researcher concluded that adolescents experience testifying in court as negative. Guidelines were developed from the information obtained from the research participants to support adolescents who has to testify in court.
Social work
M.Diac. (Play therapy)