Why Have All the Boys Gone? Gender Differences in Prosecution Acceptance of Child Sexual Abuse Cases

Abstract

Cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) referred to the District Attorney (DA) are not necessarily accepted for prosecution. Two pilot studies sought to investigate whether there were gender differences in whether cases of CSA referred to the DA's office were accepted by the DA and, if they existed, what might account for gender differences in decisions to accept cases and file charges. The results of the first study indicated that cases involving male victims were significantly less likely to be accepted for prosecution than cases involving female victims. Comparisons of acceptance rates were based on expected frequencies given CSA prevalence rates by gender in the literature and on the proportion of males and females seen at a Child Abuse Assessment Center (CAAC) from where the DA referrals were obtained. The second study assessed both disclosure-related variables (assessed by content analyses of disclosures made at a CAAC) and abuse-related variables (that occurred at or near the time of the abuse) that might explain these differences. Few variables were found to significantly differentiate males' and females' cases; these were the relationship of the child to the perpetrator, whether the child was offended by a juvenile, whether the child told someone of the abuse, pornography exposure, whether the child displayed concerning behaviors, and whether the child was questioned about possible abuse. Implications of these results are discussed.

Immaterial Boys? A Large-Scale Exploration of Gender-Based Differences in Child Sexual Exploitation Service Users

“…Recent years have seen a gradual expansion of the literature on male victims of child sexual abuse in general (see, e.g., Alaggia, 2005;Cashmore and Shackel, 2014;Edelson, 2012;Homma et al, 2012;Priebe and Svedin, 2009;Scrandis and Watt, 2014). Nonetheless, in a recent rapid evidence assessment around child sexual abuse/exploitation, most of the 184 studies covered were found to focus exclusively or overwhelmingly on female victims (Brayley, Cockbain & Gibson, 2014).…”

Effects of Child Interview Tactics on Prospective Jurors' Decisions

“…Compared with males, females are more often reported victims of CSA (e.g., Priebe & Svedin, 2008), make more CSA allegations (e.g., Hershkowitz, Lamb, & Katz, 2014), and are more likely to have their allegations sent to district attornies for prosecution (Edelson, 2013). Females are also more likely than males to be believed when reporting CSA histories (e.g., Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000).…”

“…Given that female CSA victim cases are more often prosecuted successfully than are male CSA cases (Edelson, 2013) and females are more often believed than males when they report CSA (e.g., Eisenberg, Owens, & Dewey, 1987;Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000), we predicted that female victims would match adults' expectations of a typical CSA victim, and, as a result, female victims would be rated as more credible than male victims (e.g., Nunez et al, 2011), and garner greater confidence in guilt ratings. However, victim gender, like victim age, was not associated with current perceptions of child credibility or guilt.…”

Advances in Psychology and Law

“…Although gender is unrelated to risk for most forms of maltreatment, girls are at much higher risk of sexual abuse than are boys (though certainly boys are not immune from this form of abuse). As such when considering children in criminal cases, more girls than boys have contact (Edelson, 2013 ;Finkelhor, 1994 ;Walker, Carey, Mohr, Stein, & Seedat, 2004 ). In the dependency system, gender is more evenly distributed.…”