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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

S.Smallbone@griffith.edu.au

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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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