Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse Cases Involving Preschool-Aged Children: A Study of Swedish Cases from 2010 to 2014

Abstract

Alleged child sexual abuse against preschool-aged children is often considered one of the most challenging cases for a prosecutor to handle. The aim of the current study was to examine differences between prosecuted and discontinued cases of alleged sexual abuse of preschool-aged children. Data from Swedish criminal cases of alleged sexual abuse of children ages 2-6 issued from 2010 to 2014 were analyzed (N = 130). Prosecuted cases were more likely to contain forensic evidence (documentation of abuse, corroborative DNA evidence, or a corroborative medical examination), or a confession from the suspect, while such evidence was not available in any discontinued case. Furthermore, cases where the child was older, where the prosecutor had decided to conduct an interview with the child, and where there was more than one alleged victim were more likely to be prosecuted. Factors that were associated with a decreased likelihood of prosecution were ongoing custody disputes between parents, foster care placements prior to the abuse, and if the report concerned a boy. Boys and younger children were also less likely to be interviewed. The results suggest that prosecution of sexual abuse cases involving preschool-aged children remains difficult and that there is room for improvements in these investigations.

The Relevance of Certain Case Characteristics in the Successful Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse Cases in Indonesia

“…Our findings regarding the prosecuted CSA case features are in line with previous studies in jurisdictions from Western countries, such as the United States (Cross et al, 2003;Stolzenberg, & Lyon, 2015), Sweden (Diesen & Diesen, 2013;Ernberg et al, 2018), and Australia (Bunting, 2008;Christensen et al, 2016;Fitzgerald, 2006). First, cases in which there was a medicolegal report with a positive result were more likely to be prosecuted than those without a medicolegal report or with a negative medicolegal result.…”

“…Bunting (2008) found that cases with younger children were more likely to be dropped than cases with older children because they were considered too young to be a credible witness. Ernberg et al (2018) also noted in their study of pre-school aged children (range = 2-6 years, M= 4.52, SD = 1.25) that CSA cases with older pre-school children as alleged victims were more likely to be prosecuted than cases with younger pre-school children.…”

“…Rumble et al (2018) showed that CSA research in Indonesia is scarce. Comparable studies have been conducted in Sweden (Ernberg et al, 2018), Northern Ireland (Bunting, 2008), United States (T. P. Cross et al, 1994), and Australia (Christensen et al, 2016). We assumed that the cultural differences between Western and Asian countries such as Indonesia might influence the CSA cases prosecution outcome.…”

“…Based on previous studies, we hypothesized that cases including a suspect confession, an older alleged victim, a higher level of abuse severity (penetrative, forced, and/or repeated sexual abuse), and the availability of corroborating evidence would be significantly more likely prosecuted compared to cases without these features (W. A. Walsh et al, 2010;Ernberg et al, 2018).…”

“…They also found that when cases were lacking strong pieces of evidence (no physical evidence and no confession from the probable suspect), cases with a corroborating witness were nearly twice as likely to result in prosecution compared to cases without a corroborating witness. Ernberg et al (2018) examined differences between prosecuted and nonprosecuted cases of 2-to 6-year old alleged CSA victims in Sweden. They found that the presence of forensic evidence (documentation of abuse: either photo or video-documentation, corroborating DNA evidence, corroborating medical examination) and a confession from the suspect increased the likelihood of prosecution.…”