This article describes a clinical sample of 40 women who sexually abused 63 children. Sixty percent of the female perpetrators victimized two or more children. Almost three-fourths of these women sexually maltreated children in polyincestuous family situations. More than four-fifths were mothers to at least one of their victims. The most common form of sexual activity was group sex; the next most common was fondling. The mean age of these women was a little over 26; they were poor and poorly educated. Their victims were also young, having a mean age of 6.4 years at the time the case was identified. About two-thirds of the victims were female and one-third were male. Female perpetrators evidenced marked difficulties in psychological and social functioning. About half had mental problems, both retardation and psychotic illness. More than half had chemical dependency problems, and close to three-fourths had maltreated their victims in other ways in addition to the sexual abuse.

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Seventy-six children (5 to 10 years old), who were referred because of concerns about sexual abuse, were interviewed as part of a larger study testing the efficacy of a computerassisted interview in sexual abuse evaluations. Data from initial interviews were coded according to the presence of disclosure and the details revealed about sexual abuse. The presence and amount of corroboration were coded through case review. Although 56 children were coded as having disclosed prior to evaluation, only 44 subjects disclosed during the initial interview. Only 1 child disclosed spontaneously. An additional 8 children (11%) disclosed possible sexual abuse in a second or later interview. Although girls disclosed at a higher rate than boys, children did not differ in the amount or types of information they provided about alleged sexual abuse. Findings are discussed in terms of the conceptualization of disclosure as a process. Implications for interviewing strategies are addressed.

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The article describes a clinical sample of 87 boy victims of child sexual abuse and compares them to 226 girl victims. Boys were on average 6.3 years of age at onset of the sexual abuse; girls were 5.5 years. Boys were more likely to be victimized by someone outside the family than girls, but about two-thirds of the boys were abused by someone within the family. Male victims were more often abused by someone who sexually abused other children than were female victims. The majority of perpetrators were men; however girls were more likely than boys to be abused by men, and boys by both men and women. Only a small percentage of the offenders were women acting alone, but boys were more likely to be abused by women than girls. In addition, data on the role relationship between victim and offender and how these relationships differ for boy and girl victims are presented.

Research is lacking on differing perspectives regarding custody cases involving domestic violence (DV). In a survey of judges, legal aid attorneys, private attorneys, DV program workers, and child custody evaluators (n = 1,187), judges, private attorneys, and evaluators were more likely to believe that mothers make false DV allegations and alienate their children. In response to a vignette, evaluators and private attorneys were most likely to recommend joint custody and least likely to recommend sole custody to the survivor. Legal aid attorneys and DV workers were similar on many variables. Gender, DV knowledge, and knowing victims explained many group differences.

This article describes the parental alienation syndrome, its proposed characteristics and dynamics, and the methods used to document its presence. Research related to various tenets of the parental alienation syndrome is then reviewed. Finally, the syndrome's utility for mental health professionals and courts in explaining allegations of sexual abuse in situations of divorce is evaluated.

This study examines correlates of offender confession in criminal sexual conduct cases involving children. The cases consist of all closed court files (N=318), spanning the last 10 years from a single jurisdiction. This jurisdiction has a community-wide protocol for handling child sexual abuse cases, a high rate of charging (69%), a high rate of confession (64%), and high rates of pleas to sex crimes (77%). To determine what factors were associated with suspect confession before adjudication, we examined characteristics of the suspect, the child, the abuse, and the system using bi-variate and multi-variate analysis. The following four variables are associated with suspect confession: (1) having the state police conducting the law enforcement part of the investigation, (2) more serious abuse, (3) younger age of the suspect, and (4) having a court appointed (as opposed to a retained) attorney.