Child Sexual Abuse: Media Representation and Government Reactions (Contemporary Issues in Public Policy)

193 Pages·2008·2.03 MB·English

by  Julia Davidson

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3222 This book aims to critically evaluate the development of policy and
4 legislative measures to control sex offenders. The last 15 years has
5 seen increasing concern on the part of the government, criminal
6 justice agencies, the media and the public regarding child sexual
7 abuse. This concern has been prompted by a series of events including
8 cases inviting media attention and involving the abduction, sexual
9 abuse and murder of young children. The response to this wave of
20111 child sexual abuse revelation has been to introduce increasingly
1 punitive legislation regarding the punishment and control of sex
2 offenders – the only group of offenders in British legal history to have
3 their own act – both in custody and in the community. Against the
4 backdrop of a crisis in public confidence regarding the behaviour of
5222 child protection professionals, it is argued here that legislation has
6 developed in a reactionary way in response to media and public
7 anxiety regarding the punishment and control of sex offenders, and
8 the perceived threat of such offenders in the community.
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30111 Dr Julia C. Davidsonis based at the University of Westminster.
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Contemporary Issues in Public Policy
Series editors: David Downes and Paul Rock
London School of Economics
This series of books is intended to offer accessible, informed and
well-evidenced analyses of topical policy issues – from the national
health through women’s work to central issues of crime and criminal
justice – as a counterweight to the manner in which they tend
to be presented in political and public debates. The mass media can
be sensationalising and overly-simple. Many observers and com-
mentators are too engaged politically or professionally to take a
dispassionate stand. By contrast, what is offered here is considered
expert commentary laid out in a literate and helpful manner.
Moreover, in the wake of globalisation, the revolution in information
technology and new forms of regulation and audit, an immense
proliferation of data has occurred which can swamp all but the most
experienced and duly sceptical analyst. Providing an excellent core
for teaching in social policy, criminology, politics and the sociology
of contemporary Britain, the series is also intended for politicians,
policy-makers, journalists and other concerned people who wish to
know more about the world they live in today.
Other titles in the series:
The Police and Social Conflict
Nigel Fielding
Key Issues in Women’s Work
Catherine Hakim
UK Election Law
Bob Watt
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2 Media representations and
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government reactions
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Julia C. Davidson
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First published 2008
by Routledge-Cavendish
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 5RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge-Cavendish
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
A GlassHouse book
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge-Cavendish is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2008 Julia C. Davidson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Davidson, Julia
Child sexual abuse: media representations and government reactions/
Julia Davidson.
p. cm.
1. Child sexual abuse – Great Britain. 2. Child sexual abuse – Great
Britain – Government policy. 3. Mass media and crime – Great Britain.
I. Title.
HV6570.4.G7D38 2008
362.760941—dc22 2007040841
ISBN 0-203-92873-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 10: 1–904385–69–9 (hbk)
ISBN 10: 1–904385–68–0 (pbk)
ISBN 10: 0–203–92873–3 (ebk)
ISBN 13: 978–1–904385–69–1 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978–1–904385–68–4 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978–0–203–92873–8 (ebk)
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For Glenn, Rhys & my parents
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with love and gratitude
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1111 Contents
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3222 Foreword ix
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Abbreviations xi
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6 Acknowledgements xiii
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1 Definitions and images of childhood and abuse 1
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2 The crisis in child protection and child victims’
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access to justice 34
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4 3 Understanding child sexual abusers and the
5222 impact of key cases 58
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7 4 Sentencing child sexual abusers and the
8 legislative framework 102
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5 The management, control and treatment
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of child sexual abusers 126
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Conclusion 165
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Index 174
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1111 Foreword
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3222 In this book, Dr Julia C. Davidson confronts what is now probably
4 the single most emotive topic in the entire criminology field: sexual
5 offenders against children, how they get that way and what is to be
6 done with and about them. It was not always so. While it was the case
7 that the most heinous serial child murders with a sexual character
8 have long aroused the most intensely hostile public reaction – the
9 ‘Moors murders’ of children by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in the
20111 early 1960s being the most notorious – the spectrum of responses to
1 more common forms of child sex abusers shaded into an indifference
2 to, or even humorous cynicism about, libidinous scoutmasters, public
3 school sadism and ‘dirty old men’. Offenders who deviated too far
4 or victimised too often would be institutionally spared public
5222 disgrace by private sanctions. Though this relative license may have
6 risked too much, it allowed a ‘freedom of the streets’ for children
7 that has now been drastically curtailed. For example, in the 1940s
8 and 50s, many parents were content to allow their children to gain
9 entry to ‘A’ for ‘adult’ films – basically any film with even a mildly
30111 sexual and/or violent element was barred to unaccompanied children
1 under 16 – by asking total strangers to ‘take them in’. Such wide-
2 spread trust would now be unimaginable. Ironically, thanks to far
3 more explicit material now being available to children on home
4 videos, it is also unnecessary.
5 This example affords a glimpse of a transformation of attitude
6 to child sex offenders which has emerged at a time when the
7 sexualisation of our culture has coincided, and has itself provoked,
8 a heightened sense of risk in relation to sexual victimisation from the
9 extremes of rape to the dangers of child pornography. An aversion
40111 to sexual deviance, born in many respects of a deep ambivalence
11111 towards the commercialisation of sex, in some ways an unwanted