The literature on prevention

Abstract

Virtually all that is written about child abuse is in some way concerned with prevention, though the literature specifically described as prevention mostly concerns the avoidance of the initial occurrence of abuse. Reviews of the possibilities and limitations of such prevention can be found in Browne and Herbert (1995), Gough (1 993a), Holman (1 988), Willis, Holden and Rosenberg (1 992) and Wolfe (1993). Detailed descriptions and discussion of preventive intervention studies can be found in Gough (1 993b), Mac-Millan et al. (1 994) and Wekerle and Wolfe (1 995).

Determinants of abuse and social policy

“…Despite all this work arguing for societal analysis the majority of research and writing is on the individual nature of abuse. Maybe this is because much of the content of everyday professional work is on the individual level or maybe it is because we feel less able to make any impact on the societal level of action (Gough 1994). In this context, Itzin's work on sex offender classifications is important in moving forward the debate on how we understand the sexual abuse of children in our societies and is an example of the type of research that should be used to inform policy makers.…”