Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.
AbstractThe individual, family and abuse characteristics of 700 children and young people referred to nine UK services over a nine-year period between 1992 and 2000 as a result of their sexually abusive behaviours were examined. The most common age at referral was 15 years, though a third of all referrals related to children aged 13 or under. Thirty-eight per cent of the sample was identified as learning disabled. Surprisingly high rates of sexual and nonsexual victimisation were present in the backgrounds of the children and young people referred. A wide range of abusive behaviour was perpetrated with just over half of the sample having penetrated or having attempted to penetrate another individual. Victims were usually known to the abuser but in 75 per cent of cases were not related. Fifty-one per cent of the sample abused females only, though 49 per cent had at least one male victim. The implications for policy and practice with children and young people with harmful sexual behaviours are discussed.
Key Practitioner Messages• Children and young people who sexually abuse others are a diverse group with a complex set of motivations, background experiences and varying types of abusive behaviour;• Children and young people with learning disabilities who sexually abuse comprise a particularly vulnerable group with specific intervention needs;• A one-size-fits-all intervention approach is not appropriate, but childcentred services that focus on both care and control aspects are warranted.
KeywordsAdolescent sex offender, sexual abuse, sexual offending, characteristics
MethodThe study formed part of a larger programme of work to examine long-term are more likely to be subject to bias when they are based upon one source and when they are written at some temporal distance from the primary event that are describing (Hayes and Devaney, 2004).A data collection tool was designed specifically for the purpose of the study.Three members of the research team conducted a preliminary analysis of a small sample of files in order to test the ability of the tool to collect reliable and consistent data. Once the tool had been agreed, it was used to capture the required data from the files on all 700 individuals across the various sites. In each site, two researchers took responsibility for reading files and completing the data collection. This meant that where there were ambiguities in the recorded information, there was an opportunity for discussion between researchers.The data were gathered p...
This article presents the findings of a study exploring current levels of consensus among practitioners in the United Kingdom (UK) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) about good practice in relation to youth who are sexually abusive. A three-stage Delphi procedure was used to survey the views of 78 practitioners, experienced in this field, on a range of matters relating to preferred responses to this population. The exercise indicated high levels of agreement that youth who are sexually abusive should be seen as a group clinically distinct from adult sex offenders and that all of their developmental needs, and their problematic behavior, should be targeted in intervention. A strong level of consensus was found among respondents about the goals and content of ideal practice with this user group, although there was less consensus about the theoretical models that should underpin practice.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.