Findings from administrative data

309 Pages·2017·3.09 MB·English

a

Child sexual abuse in Australian

inst itutional contexts 2008–13:
Find ings from administrative data
Copyright information
Bromfield, L., Hirte, C., Octoman, O., Katz, I. (2017). Child Sexual Abuse in Australian Institutional
Contexts 2008–13: Findings from Administrative Data. Sydney: Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The project
This project was funded and undertaken on behalf of the Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The views expressed in this report are the authors own and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual
Abuse.

It was undertaken by a consortium of researchers from the Australian Centre for Child Protection at
the University of South Australia (ACCP); the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New
South Wales (SPRC); and the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).

The project team comprised:
• Professor Leah Bromfield (ACCP): Chief Investigator; Project Manager; Author – Stage 1, 2
and Final reports
• Professor Ilan Katz (SPRC): Chief Investigator; Author – Stage 1 and Final reports
• Craig Hirte (ACCP): Data Analysis; Author – Final report
• Olivia Octoman (ACCP): Author – Stage 1, 2 and Final report; ethics; data analysis
• Matthew Willis (AIC): consultation coordination; Author – Stage 2 report
• Georgina Fuller (AIC): consultations; Author – Stage 2 report
• Ciara Smyth (SPRC): literature searches and summaries
• Catia Malvaso (ACCP): data analysis
• Professor Fiona Arney (ACCP): advisor scoping; internal review
• Professor Wendy Lacey (UniSA); advisor scoping
• Dr Adam Tomison (AIC); advisor scoping
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge Trish Malins (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to
Child Sexual Abuse) for her extensive input into project scoping and direction; Rouel Dayoan (Royal
Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse) for his support in coordinating data
extraction; Emma Koh and Claudia Pitts (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child
Sexual Abuse) for data checking; and the ACCP staff, who assisted in formatting and editing the
report. Finally, the authors acknowledge the departmental officers and data custodians in each state
and territory, who took part in consultations and extracted the specified data files from their records.
ISBN 978-1-925622-40-9
© Commonwealth of Australia 2017
All material presented in this publication is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Australia licence (www.creativecommons.org/licenses). For the avoidance of doubt, this means this
licence only applies to material as set out in this document.

The details of the relevant licence conditions are available on the Creative Commons website, as is
the full legal code for the CC BY 4.0 AU licence (www.creativecommons.org/licenses).
Addendum
This research was undertaken and completed during the period July 2013 to February 2014.
The data contained in this report was sought under notice by the Royal Commission into
Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in late 2013.

The Royal Commission is now aware that Queensland data are likely to be a significant
under-estimate compared to other jurisdictions. These data should be interpreted in light of
this and Queensland data should not be compared with data from other jurisdictions as
explained below.

Subsequent to the completion of this research, the Royal Commission learned that the data
extracted by Queensland and received by the Royal Commission did not include all reports
to police that were within scope of the Royal Commission’s initial notice to produce. In
particular, reports which were made to and investigated by police and where a
determination was made that the incident or offence did not occur were not included.

This report already notes that Queensland Police data were extracted based on accusations
of child sexual abuse that commenced in the period rather than accusations reported in this
period. As a result of this it concluded that the Queensland data were not comparable to
other jurisdictions.
In addition, the Royal Commission is now aware of a minor coding error affecting the South
Australian data analysis. In all other jurisdictions, data for recent allegations excluded
possession and dissemination of child pornography. Due to a coding error, South Australian
data only excluded allegations relating to the dissemination of child pornography and
included allegations relating to the possession of child pornography (N=37, 0.9%). Given the
very small number of these allegations, it is not anticipated that this coding error would
have influenced the findings.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
GLOSSARY .......................................................................................................................................... 7
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................... 9
PURPOSE ................................................................................................................................................. 9
METHODS ............................................................................................................................................... 9
LITERATURE REVIEW FINDINGS ..................................................................................................................... 9
SCOPING AND CONSULTATION OUTCOME ..................................................................................................... 10
EXPLAINING THE INDICATORS ..................................................................................................................... 11
DATA AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES .......................................................................................................... 12
KEY SUMMARY FINDINGS FROM DATA .......................................................................................................... 14
IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ....................................................................................................... 16
SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 17
BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................................................ 17
THE PROJECT .......................................................................................................................................... 17
PROJECT REPORTS ................................................................................................................................... 18
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ........................................................................................................................ 18
SECTION 2 LITERATURE REVIEW: THE USE OF ADMINISTRATIVE DATA TO ESTIMATE THE
PREVALENCE OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS ............................................. 20
THE PREVALENCE OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN AUSTRALIA ................................................................................. 20
LITERATURE SEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 21
FINDINGS OF THE LITERATURE SEARCH ......................................................................................................... 22
CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 25
SECTION 3 CONCEPTUAL SCOPING AND DESKTOP ANALYSIS ........................................................... 26
CONCEPTUAL SCOPING ............................................................................................................................. 26
POTENTIAL DATA SOURCES ........................................................................................................................ 28
DESKTOP ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................................. 30
DECISION: DATA SOURCES WARRANTING FURTHER ASSESSMENT ....................................................................... 31
SECTION 4 CONSULTATIONS WITH DATA CUSTODIANS AND NATURE OF THE DATA EXTRACTED..... 32
POLICE .................................................................................................................................................. 34
CHILD PROTECTION INTAKE DATA ................................................................................................................ 37
WORKING WITH CHILDREN CHECKS ............................................................................................................ 40
SAFETY IN CARE DATA ............................................................................................................................... 44
EDUCATION ........................................................................................................................................... 47
DECISION: DATA RECOMMENDED FOR EXTRACTION ........................................................................................ 51
SECTION 5 DATA ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................. 52
LIMITATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY ............................................................................................................... 55
SECTION 6 FINDINGS FROM DATA – AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY ........................................... 57
KEY MESSAGES........................................................................................................................................ 57
THE DATA .............................................................................................................................................. 59
RESULTS ................................................................................................................................................ 60
POLICE DATA .......................................................................................................................................... 60
INDICATORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ............................................................................. 68
SECTION 7 FINDINGS FROM DATA – NEW SOUTH WALES ................................................................ 72
KEY MESSAGES........................................................................................................................................ 72
THE DATA .............................................................................................................................................. 75
RESULTS ................................................................................................................................................ 75
POLICE DATA .......................................................................................................................................... 75
INDICATORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ............................................................................. 91
SECTION 8 FINDINGS FROM DATA – NORTHERN TERRITORY ............................................................ 97
KEY MESSAGES........................................................................................................................................ 97
THE DATA .............................................................................................................................................. 99
RESULTS .............................................................................................................................................. 100
POLICE DATA ........................................................................................................................................ 100
INDICATORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ........................................................................... 109
SECTION 9 FINDINGS FROM DATA – QUEENSLAND ........................................................................ 113
KEY MESSAGES...................................................................................................................................... 113
THE DATA ............................................................................................................................................ 116
RESULTS .............................................................................................................................................. 116
POLICE DATA ........................................................................................................................................ 116
INDICATORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ........................................................................... 127
SECTION 10 FINDINGS FROM DATA – SOUTH AUSTRALIA .............................................................. 131
KEY MESSAGES...................................................................................................................................... 131
THE DATA ............................................................................................................................................ 133
RESULTS .............................................................................................................................................. 134
POLICE DATA ........................................................................................................................................ 134
INDICATORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ........................................................................... 143
SECTION 11 FINDINGS FROM DATA – TASMANIA ........................................................................... 149
KEY MESSAGES...................................................................................................................................... 149
THE DATA ............................................................................................................................................ 151
RESULTS .............................................................................................................................................. 151
POLICE DATA ........................................................................................................................................ 151
INDICATORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ........................................................................... 157
SECTION 12 FINDINGS FROM DATA – VICTORIA ............................................................................. 162
KEY MESSAGES...................................................................................................................................... 162
THE DATA ............................................................................................................................................ 165
RESULTS .............................................................................................................................................. 165
POLICE DATA ........................................................................................................................................ 165
INDICATORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ........................................................................... 177
SECTION 13 FINDINGS FROM DATA – WESTERN AUSTRALIA .......................................................... 184
KEY MESSAGES...................................................................................................................................... 184
THE DATA ............................................................................................................................................ 185
RESULTS .............................................................................................................................................. 186
POLICE DATA ........................................................................................................................................ 186
INDICATORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ........................................................................... 191
SECTION 14 OVERALL FINDINGS ..................................................................................................... 195
HOW INFORMATIVE WERE THE DIFFERENT DATA SOURCES? ........................................................................... 195
RECENT AND PAST ALLEGATIONS ............................................................................................................... 195
TOTAL ALLEGATIONS – A POTENTIAL COMPARISON POINT .............................................................................. 199
WHO ABUSES CHILDREN AND WHERE DOES IT OCCUR? .................................................................................. 200
POTENTIAL INDICATORS FOR CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN AN INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT .............................................. 201
KEY FINDINGS ....................................................................................................................................... 205
VICTIM AND PERPETRATOR CHARACTERISTICS .............................................................................................. 207
TIME TO DISCLOSURE: RECENT AND PAST ALLEGATIONS ................................................................................. 211
CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN SPECIFIC CONTEXTS ................................................................................................ 212
DATA ISSUES ........................................................................................................................................ 215
FURTHER RECOMMENDED RESEARCH......................................................................................................... 215
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................... 217
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APPENDIX 1.1 UNISA HUMAN RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE (HREC) ASSESSMENT OF PROJECT . 221
APPENDIX 1.2 POLICE IDEAL EXTRACTION PARAMETERS ............................................................... 222
APPENDIX 1.3 CHILD PROTECTION INTAKE IDEAL EXTRACTION PARAMETERS ............................... 224
APPENDIX 1.4 WORKING WITH CHILDREN CHECK IDEAL EXTRACTION PARAMETERS ..................... 225
APPENDIX 1.5 CHILD PROTECTION SAFETY IN CARE IDEAL EXTRACTION PARAMETERS .................. 226
APPENDIX 1.6 EDUCATION IDEAL EXTRACTION PARAMETERS ....................................................... 227

ADDITIONAL DATA TABLES BY JURISDICTION ...........................................................................................
APPENDIX 6.1 ACT DATA TABLES .......................................................................................................... 229
APPENDIX 7.1 NSW DATA TABLES ........................................................................................................ 236
APPENDIX 8.1 NT DATA TABLES............................................................................................................ 258
APPENDIX 9.1 QLD DATA TABLES ......................................................................................................... 265
APPENDIX 10.1 SA DATA TABLES .......................................................................................................... 280
APPENDIX 11.1 TAS DATA TABLES ........................................................................................................ 290
APPENDIX 12.1 VIC DATA TABLES ......................................................................................................... 295
APPENDIX 13.1 WA DATA TABLES ........................................................................................................ 306
Note: Appendices are numbered consecutively within sections

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Glossary
Accusation: The subject matter brought to the attention of the police
Aggregate data: ‘Aggregate data’ and ‘data aggregates’ describe high-level data that is
composed from a multitude or combination of other more individual data. For example, the
total number of allegations of child sexual abuse in any given year.
Allegation: An accusation of child sexual abuse pertaining to a single victim, which may
involve an event that occurred on a single day or multiple events over a period of time, and
which was recorded by police as a report of child sexual abuse. Note that as the definition of
‘allegation’ relies on what was recorded by police in each jurisdiction as a report, differences
in recording practices across jurisdictions may affect the comparability of allegations
nationally.
Child sexual abuse in institutional contexts: Abuse where the perpetrator’s access to
children was facilitated through the organisation. The abuse may occur on the premises of
the organisation or elsewhere. It includes, but is not limited to, sexual abuse perpetrated by:
• institutional staff or volunteers who work directly with children, that is, ‘a person in
authority’ such as a teacher or scout leader
• institutional staff members, volunteers and contractors in an ancillary role (such as a
cleaner or bus driver
• other minors in circumstances where the institution is in loco parentis, such as a
classmate during a school camp, or a child in a residential care facility.
Event: Sexually abusive behaviour directed towards a child within a single time period.
Incidence: The number of new cases occurring over a specified period of time (normally a
year) – for example, the number of Australian children aged zero to 17 years for whom there
was a report of abuse or neglect during the period 2008 to 2013.
Institutional location: An indicator of child sexual abuse in an institutional context, where
the location of the offence is in an institution.
Institutional location AND extrafamilial (other known): An indicator for child sexual abuse
in an institutional context, where the location of the offence is in an institution, and the
offender’s relationship to the victim is extrafamilial (other known).
Institutional location AND extrafamilial (other known) PLUS person in authority: An
indicator of child sexual abuse in an institutional context where the location of the offence is
in an institution, and the offender’s relationship to the victim is extrafamilial (other known)
and/or the offender is a ‘person in authority’ at the location where the offence was
committed.
Institutions with responsibility for children: ‘Any public or private body, agency, association,
club, institution, organisation or other entity or group of entities of any kind … that provides,
or has at any time provided, activities, facilities, programs or services of any kind that
provide the means through which adults have contact with children” (Royal Commission into
Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, 2013).
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Offence: A category used by police to describe sexually abusive behaviours that reflect
individual offences set out in the Crimes Act.
Offender: A person alleged to have perpetrated – or believed to be responsible for
perpetrating – child sexual abuse. Can be used interchangeably with the term ‘perpetrator’.
Past allegation: An allegation that was reported more than five years after the abuse began
(that is, 2007 or earlier).
Perpetrator: A person alleged to have perpetrated – or believed to be responsible for
perpetrating – child sexual abuse. Can be used interchangeably with the term ‘offender’.
Present-day sexual abuse: Incidents occurring in the past five years.
Prevalence: The proportion of a population that has experienced a phenomenon – for
example, the percentage of Australians aged 18 and over in 2013 who were ever sexually
abused in an institution as a child.
Recent allegation: An allegation where the offence took place no more than five years
before the report, and the offence was reported between 1 July 2008 and 30 June 2013.
Sexual abuse: Any act that exposes a child to or involves a child in sexual processes beyond
his or her understanding or contrary to accepted standards. It is useful to think about three
factors – the degrees of equality, consent and coercion – and the extent to which they are
present in the relationship between the people involved in the sexual interaction. For
example, an age difference of more than two years or where one person is in a position of
authority over the other is generally considered unequal (Bromfield & Boyd, 2006). For this
research, the operational definition of ‘child sexual abuse’ was predetermined by the
institutions from which the data was extracted; data extraction requests specified cases of
‘child sexual abuse’ as recorded within the different data systems (see Appendices 4.1–4.6
for examples). For this study, ‘sexual abuse’ was operationally defined by organisational
policy or legislation; researchers were restricted by what was recorded as child sexual abuse
and was provided in the data they requested. For example, police allegations of child sexual
abuse would need to fall within the relevant Crimes Act, and child protection allegations
would need to comply with the legislative definition of a child in need of protection from
child sexual abuse. In comparison, departments of education tended to have non-prescribed
definitions of sexual abuse, including sexual misconduct, which may not have fallen within
the relevant Criminal Code.
Sexually abusive behaviours: These behaviours can include touching genitals; masturbation;
oral sex; vaginal or anal penetration by a penis, finger or any other object; touching breasts;
voyeurism; exhibitionism; and exposing the child to or involving the child in pornography
(Bromfield, 2005). It includes child grooming, which refers to actions deliberately
undertaken with the aim of befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a
child to lower the child’s inhibitions in preparation for sexual activity with the child
(McAlinden, 2006; Staller, 2012).
Unit record data: Data where each line represents a ‘unit’ of analysis, in this case a ‘new
allegation’ or ‘unique child’. In a database of this kind, more detailed analyses may be
possible – for example it may be possible to identify where a child has been the subject of
multiple allegations, or the sample may be split in different ways such as by the age of the
victim or time between the incident and the report.
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Executive summary
Purpose
The purpose of this project was to:
• identify the data holdings that currently exist on contemporary (within the past five
years) incidents of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts in Australia
• determine the accessibility of any such data for research purposes
• identify what, if anything, the data reveals about the extent of child sexual abuse in
institutional contexts in Australia.
Methods
The project comprised four stages:
1. a literature review of the relevant Australian and international research and ‘grey’
literature (including previous commissions of inquiry into institutional abuse),
focusing on the methodologies for using administrative data to estimate the extent
of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts
2. conceptual scoping and desktop analysis of promising data sources – including
information provided to the Royal Commission by jurisdictions and institutions
regarding data holdings
3. phone-based consultations with data custodians regarding the relevance of their
data holdings, specific fields of interest and challenges for data extraction
4. issuing formal notices for data extraction, and data analysis to guide conclusions –
to the extent the data allows – about the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in
institutional contexts in Australia.
Literature review findings
The review found a small number of studies that attempt to estimate the prevalence of child
sexual abuse in various institutional contexts. The majority of these studies focus on abuse
in the Roman Catholic Church in different jurisdictions, some of them associated with
enquiries into child sexual abuse in particular dioceses. A smaller body of research focused
on other church denominations and other institutional contexts – such as out-of-home care.
No study covers the full range of institutional contexts. The majority of these studies use
surveys or file audits as their methodology, and none analysed administrative datasets.
None of the studies attempted to gauge current prevalence except for a small number of
studies on abuse in out-of-home care in the early 1990s. Based on this, the review
concluded that this is the first and only study that attempts to estimate the current extent of
abuse across institutional contexts, and that uses administrative data to form its estimates.

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Scoping and consultation outcome
Based on the desktop scoping, it was determined that the data held by the following data
custodians held the most theoretical promise, and that these data custodians should be
consulted regarding their data holdings. The identified data custodians were:
• police, regarding allegations of child sexual abuse of a minor by a person in authority
in any institutional context, and regarding the broader population of child sexual
abuse offences against a minor (all categories of perpetrator)
• bodies that administer Working with Children Checks and/or state ombudsmen
(where relevant), regarding registered persons for whom there has been a complaint
and/or clearance revoked, and regarding the broader population of persons who
have a valid Working with Children Check
• child protection services, regarding (a) intake data on allegations of abuse in an
institutional context, and allegations against carers or persons in authority within
the institution; (b) allegations of abuse/safety of children in care by other children
residing in the same household or residential care facility; and (c) the broader
population for each of these categories
• education departments, regarding data on allegations against teachers or persons in
authority; allegations of abuse of minors by minors when a school is in loco parentis;
and the broader population for each of these categories
• victims of crime services, which provide services and support to victims of crime and
their family members, and to witnesses of crime. Victims of crime records are likely
to contain details about the applicant, offender, incident and legal representation.
There is a need for further information about the extent to which these services
hold records of relevance, the nature and form of these records, and degree to
which they are extractable.
Based on the outcome of these consultations, a judgment was made in consultation with
representatives from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual
Abuse, regarding which data sources were suitable for extraction. Tailored extraction notices
were prepared for each data custodian, using ideal model extraction parameters. The data
sources from which data was extracted are summarised in Table 0.1 below.
Data from victims of crime services was not recommended for extraction because the data
would relate to a small self-selected subset of sexually abused children, and could not easily
be identified and extracted.

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