How victim age affects the context and timing of child sexual abuse: applying the routine activities approach to the first sexual abuse incident

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine from the routine activities approach how victim age might help to explain the timing, context and nature of offenders' first known contact sexual abuse incident. One-hundred adult male child sexual abusers (M = 45.8 years, SD = 12.2; range = 20-84) were surveyed about the first time they had sexual contact with a child. Afternoon and early evening (between 3 pm and 9 pm) was the most common time in which sexual contact first occurred. Most incidents occurred in a home. Two-thirds of incidents occurred when another person was in close proximity, usually elsewhere in the home. Older victims were more likely to be sexually abused by someone outside their families and in the later hours of the day compared to younger victims. Proximity of another person (adult and/or child) appeared to have little effect on offenders' decisions to abuse, although it had some impact on the level of intrusion and duration of these incidents. Overall, the findings lend support to the application of the routine activities approach for considering how contextual risk factors (i.e., the timing and relationship context) change as children age, and raise questions about how to best conceptualize guardianship in the context of child sexual abuse. These factors should be key considerations when devising and implementing sexual abuse prevention strategies and for informing theory development.

Introduction to the special edition ‘Child sexual abuse: analysis and intervention’

“…Using a sample of 350 Canadian sexual homicide cases, the authors examine victim selection from a routine activity perspective using CRAVED. McKillop et al (2015) also apply the routine activity approach to investigate contextual risk factors in offenders' first known child sexual abuse incident. Focusing particularly on how victim age influences the timing, context and nature of the first abuse incident, they surveyed 100 adult males convicted of contact sexual offences with children about situational characteristics of these incidents.…”

Same-sex child molestation within the Boy Scouts of America initiation and termination in victim narratives.

“…As previously mentioned, the majority of sex crime studies have been conducted to develop effective and practical prevention models. As a part of the preventative models, increasing guardianship and/or target hardening have been suggested (McKillop, Brown, Wortley, & Smallbone, 2015;Terry & Freilich, 2012). By implementing such strategies, motivated offenders are supposed to be discouraged to continually carry out their sexual behaviors against children.…”

“…Hence, child molesters can take advantage of opportunities arising in the context of daily activities while performing caregiver duties (McKillop et al, 2015), and they often intentionally place themselves in a position where they can meet children and have opportunity to interact with children in an unsupervised way (Bagley, Wood, & Young, 1994;Finkelhor & Williams, 1988;Quayle & Taylor, 2001). Tewksbury and Mustaine (2003) revealed that lifestyle behaviors and characteristics could serve better as predictors of crime-commission and target selection processes than the demographics of the involved in sex crimes among college students.…”

“…In this sense, routine-based settings of children in each age group provide offenders more frequent access to victims by presenting the most suitable environment with the least amount of effort and risk to obtain their goals (McKillop et al, 2015). For instance, children between age nine and eleven and their lifestyle activities create greater opportunities than other age group children of being a target of child molestation during daytime (McKillop et al, 2015).…”

“…For instance, children between age nine and eleven and their lifestyle activities create greater opportunities than other age group children of being a target of child molestation during daytime (McKillop et al, 2015). Furthermore, children are more likely to be sexually victimized by those who can easily gain access to and interact with children on a regular basis (Sullivan & Beech, 2002;Sullivan, Beech, Craig, & Gannon, 2011).…”