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Twelve points of focus for preventing child sexual abuse
Innovative Approaches to Crime Control Conference
9 July 2010
Stephen SmallboneProfessor, School of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Griffith University
Director, Griffith Youth Forensic ServiceAustralian Research Council Future Fellow
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Four prerequisites for preventing CSA1. Sound evidence-base
• What, who, where, when, how?• Offenders; victims; offence settings; the social ecology of CSA
2. Coherent theory• Joins the empirical dots; moves from description to explanation• Integrating levels of explanation (individual; situational; ecological)
3. Comprehensive prevention model• A conceptual framework for organising prevention strategies,
identifying prevention targets, and selecting ‘what works’
4. Commitment to knowledge-based, prevention-centred policy and practice• Local; regional; national; international
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Prevention modelsPublic health model
• Primary (or universal) prevention• Preventing potential victims from being victimised for the first time
• Preventing potential offenders from committing a first offence
• Secondary (or selected) prevention• Focused on ‘at-risk’ individuals, groups and places
• Relies on evidence of risk and protective factors associated with offending and victimisation
• Prediction error
• Tertiary (or indicated) prevention• Preventing recidivism and repeat/re-victimisation
• Prediction error
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Prevention modelsTonry & Farrington’s crime prevention model
• Developmental prevention• Targets developmental risk and protective factors associated with
offending (and victimisation?)
• Situational prevention• Targets criminogenic features of potential crime settings
• Community prevention• Local solutions to local problems (e.g. ‘Communities that Care’)
• Criminal justice interventions• Day to day activities of police, courts, corrections, youth justice, etc
• Detection; deterrence; incapacitation; rehabilitation
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Prevention modelsAn integrated model (Smallbone, Marshall & Wortley, 2008)
• Four essential targets• Offenders / potential offenders
• Victims / potential victims
• Specific situations in which abuse has occurred / is more likely to occur
• Communities
• Three levels of prevention• Primary prevention
• Secondary prevention
• Tertiary prevention
• Thus, 12 points of focus for prevention efforts (4 essential targets x 3 prevention levels)
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12 points of focus for preventing CSATargets
Primaryprevention
Secondaryprevention
Tertiary prevention
Offenders • General deterrence• Developmental prevention
• Engaging with at- risk adolescent and adult males
• Early detection• Specific deterrence• Offender treatment & risk management
Victims • ‘Resistance training’• Resilience building
• Support for at-risk children• Resilience building
• Ameliorating harm • Preventing repeat victimisation
Situations • Opportunity reduction• Extended guardianship
• Situational prevention in at- risk places
• Safety plans• Relapse prevention• Organisational interventions
Communities • Community education• Community capacity-building
• Interventions with at-risk communities
• Interventions with high-prevalence communities
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Offender-focused approachesOffenders/potential offenders
• Almost always male• Developmental adversity common (but not universal)
• Two main onset risk periods (adolescence and early middle-age)
• CSA offending often part of broader pattern of socially irresponsible conduct (but sometimes specialised)
• Typically know the victim before first abuse incident (but sometimes strangers)
• Abuse incidents typically occur in context of aggression or nurturance (or both)
• Different offence-related motivations for potential, novice, and persistent offenders
• e.g. planning/grooming more conscious and deliberate as offending progresses
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Offender-focused approachesOffender-focused prevention
• Developmental prevention• Reducing abuse-related dispositions/vulnerabilities in whole
populations (primary) or at-risk groups (secondary)• Reducing exposure to adverse developmental events• Minimising –ve outcomes for those who are exposed• Socialisation for responsible social and sexual behaviour• Promoting +ve attachments to family, community & its
institutions (schools; elders; +ve cultural activities & traditions)• ‘early in life’ and ‘early in the developmental pathway’
• Importance of life-phase transitions (perinatal; transition to school; transition to high school; transition to parenting)
• Formal interventions• Early detection; general and specific deterrence; incapacitation;
rehabilitation
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Victim-focused approachesVictims/potential victims
• Girls approx twice at risk• Peak risk at adolescence and pre-adolescence
• Boys somewhat older?
• Typically know the offender (often for long periods)
• Girls more likely to be abused in familial settings; boys in nonfamilial settings
• Individual & family vulnerabilities• Increase risk of being abused; increase negative outcomes following
abuse
• Poly-victimisation• Co-incidence of emotional, physical, sexual abuse and neglect
• Re-victimisation and repeat victimisation
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Victim-focused approachesVictim-focused prevention
• Developmental prevention• Similar risk & protective factors for offending and victimisation
• Universal developmental interventions may therefore reduce both
• ‘Resistance training’• Protective behaviours / personal safety programs
• Resilience building• Secure personal & social attachments; building confidence/self-esteem
• Capable guardianship & creating safe environments• Early detection
• Creating conditions that promote discovery & disclosure, and that promote +ve outcomes
• Preventing repeat/re-victimisation
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Situation-focused approachesAbuse/potential abuse settings
• Place characteristics• Domestic, institutional and public settings (also ‘virtual’ settings)
• Routine activities
• Situations as opportunity• Assumes presence of motivated offender
• Risk, effort, reward
• Situations may also evoke abuse-related motivations• Cues, prompts, temptations, social pressures, perceived
provocations
• Three types of ‘controllers’• Capable guardians, handlers, & place managers
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Situation-focused approachesSituational prevention
• Situational prevention principles have wide application; specific prevention strategies designed for specific settings
• Begins with micro-level situational analysis• It’s the detail that counts
• Principles• Creating / strengthening natural situational barriers
• Increasing (perceived) risk; increasing effort; reducing permissibility
• Strengthening formal & informal child protection systems
• Enabling guardians, handlers & place managers
• Extended guardianship
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Community-focused approachesThe social ecology of sexual abuse
• Abuse influenced by multiple ecological systems within which the offender and victim are socially embedded
• Individual (biological/psychological systems)
• Family
• Peers
• Work/school
• Neighbourhood
• Service agencies/systems
• Broader socio-cultural environment
• More proximal systems exert more direct, and therefore more powerful, influence
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Community-focused approachesCommunity-focused prevention
• Community-level child maltreatment prevention models• Parenting education• Local/neighbourhood family support services• Home visitation services
• Community-level crime prevention models• Mobilisation of collective interests (e.g. in child protection)• e.g. ‘Communities that Care’
• Local projects overseen by local management board (usually with paid co-ordinator)
• External training & support services• Risk & resource audits undertaken by local board• Prioritise 2-5 specific problems• Select from menu of evidence-based interventions• Process & outcome evaluations built in
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Targets
Primaryprevention
Secondaryprevention
Tertiary prevention
Offenders • General deterrence• Developmental prevention
• Engaging with at- risk adolescent and adult males
• Early detection• Specific deterrence• Offender treatment & risk management
Victims • ‘Resistance training’• Resilience building
• Support for at-risk children• Resilience building
• Ameliorating harm • Preventing repeat victimisation
Situations • Opportunity reduction• Extended guardianship
• Situational prevention in at- risk places
• Safety plans• Relapse prevention• Organisational interventions
Communities
• Community education• Community capacity-building
• Interventions with at-risk communities
• Interventions with high-prevalence communities
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Moving forwardDeveloping the evidence- and theory-base
• Need for prevention-focused research• focus on offence/abuse onset (the most important incident to
prevent)
• identifying risk/protective factors specific to sexual offending/victimisation
• need to develop and integrate knowledge on offenders, victims, their social ecologies, & abuse situations
• specialised knowledge + wider knowledge-base
• need to develop and test interventions
• Need to integrate theoretical ‘threads’• evolutionary, developmental, ecological, situational (Smallbone,
Marshall & Wortley, 2008)
Moving forward
Strengthening commitment to knowledge-based, prevention-centred policy & practice• Child sexual abuse seen as a distinct, inexplicable, ‘unnatural’
phenomenon• unlike other forms of crime or other forms of child maltreatment?
• requires special explanation and unique solutions?
• explanation focused on limited number of deviant individuals
• Political, media & public focus on punishing and incapacitating offenders
• driven by powerful stereotypes, based on most extreme cases
• CSA occupies central position in ‘law & order’ debates
• hard vs soft, rather than effective vs ineffective
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