Youth sexual violence and abuse

1. Youth sexual violence and abuse Toward an evidence-based, prevention-centred policy and practice framework Research-Policy-Practice Symposium April 2010 Stephen Smallbone Professor, School of Criminology & Criminal Justice Australian Research Council Future Fellow Director, Griffith Youth Forensic Service S.Smallbone@griffith.edu.au YSVA Seminar

2. Four prerequisites • Sound evidence-base • What, who, where, when, how? • Offenders; victims; offence settings • Coherent theory • Joins the empirical dots; moves from description to explanation • Integrating levels of explanation (individual; ecological; situational) • Comprehensive prevention model • A conceptual framework for organising prevention strategies and identifying prevention targets • Commitment to knowledge-based, prevention-centred policy and practice YSVA Seminar

3. Prevention models Public health model • Primary (or universal) prevention • Preventing potential victims from being victimised for the first time • Preventing potential offenders from committing a first offence • Secondary (or selected) prevention • Focused on ‘at-risk’ individuals, groups and places • Relies on evidence of risk and protective factors associated with offending and victimisation • Prediction error • Tertiary (or indicated) prevention • Preventing recidivism and repeat/re-victimisation • Prediction error YSVA Seminar

4. Prevention models Tonry & Farrington’s crime prevention model • Developmental prevention • Targets developmental risk and protective factors associated with offending (and victimisation?) • Situational prevention • Targets criminogenic features of potential crime settings • Community prevention • Local solutions to local problems (e.g. ‘Communities that Care’) • Criminal justice interventions • Day to day activities of police, courts, youth justice, etc • Detection; deterrence; incapacitation; rehabilitation YSVA Seminar

5. Prevention models An integrated model(Smallbone, Marshall & Wortley, 2008) • Four essential targets • Offenders / potential offenders • Victims / potential victims • Specific situations in which abuse has occurred / is more likely to occur • Communities • Three levels of prevention • Primary prevention • Secondary prevention • Tertiary prevention • Thus, 12 points of focus for preventive action (4 essential targets x 3 prevention levels) YSVA Seminar

6. 12 points of focus for preventing YSVA YSVA Seminar

7. Offender-focused approaches Offenders/potential offenders • Almost always male • Developmental adversity common (but not universal) • Adolescence first of two main onset risk periods (+ early middle-age) • Sexual offending often part of broader pattern of socially irresponsible conduct (but sometimes specialised) • Typically know the victim before first abuse incident (but sometimes strangers) • Abuse incidents typically occur in context of aggression or nurturance (or both) • Different offence-related motivations for potential, novice, and persistent offenders • Low official sexual recidivism (high nonsexual recidivism) YSVA Seminar

8. Offender-focused approaches Offender-focused prevention • Developmental prevention • Reducing abuse-related dispositions/vulnerabilities in whole populations (primary) or at-risk groups (secondary) • Reducing exposure to adverse developmental events • Minimising –ve outcomes for those who are exposed • Socialisation for responsible social and sexual behaviour • Promoting +ve attachments to family, community & its institutions (schools; elders; cultural activities & traditions) • ‘early in life’ and ‘early in the developmental pathway’ • Importance of life-phase transitions (perinatal; transition to school; transition to high school; transition to parenting) • Formal interventions • Early detection; general and specific deterrence; incapacitation; rehabilitation YSVA Seminar

9. Victim-focused approaches Victims/potential victims • Girls approx twice at risk • Wide range of victim ages (GYFS: 2-90 yrs) • Concentrated in pre-adolescence • Typically know the offender • General individual & family vulnerabilities • Increase risk of being abused; increase negative outcomes following abuse • Poly-victimisation • Co-incidence of emotional, physical, sexual abuse and neglect • Re-victimisation and repeat victimisation YSVA Seminar

10. Victim-focused approaches Victim-focused prevention • Developmental prevention • Similar risk & protective factors for offending and victimisation • Universal developmental interventions may therefore reduce both • ‘Resistance training’ • Protective behaviours training • Resilience building • Secure personal & social attachments; building confidence/self-esteem • Capable guardianship & creating safe environments • Early detection • Creating conditions that promote discovery & disclosure, and that promote +ve outcomes • Preventing repeat/re-victimisation YSVA Seminar

11. Situation-focused approaches Abuse/potential abuse settings • Place characteristics • Domestic, institutional and public settings (also ‘virtual’ settings) • Routine activities • Situations as opportunity • Assumes presence of motivated offender • Risk, effort, reward • Situations may also evoke abuse-related motivations • Cues, prompts, temptations, social pressures, perceived provocations • Three types of ‘controllers’ • Capable guardians, handlers, & place managers YSVA Seminar

12. Situation-focused approaches Situational prevention • Situational prevention principles have wide application, but prevention strategies likely to vary widely from setting to setting • Begins with micro-level situational analysis • It’s the detail that counts • Principles • Creating / strengthening natural situational barriers • Increasing (perceived) risk; increasing effort; reducing permissibility • Strengthening formal & informal child protection systems • Enabling guardians, handlers & place managers • Extended guardianship YSVA Seminar

13. Community-focused approaches The social ecology of sexual abuse • Abuse influenced by multiple ecological systems within which the offender and victim are socially embedded • Individual (biological/psychological systems) • Family • Peers • Work/school • Neighbourhood • Service agencies/systems • Broader socio-cultural environment • More proximal systems exert more direct, and therefore more powerful, influence YSVA Seminar

14. Community-focused approaches Community-focused prevention • Child maltreatment prevention models • Local/neighbourhood family support services • Parenting education • Home visitation services • Crime prevention models • Mobilisation of collective interests (e.g. in child protection) • e.g. ‘Communities that Care’ • Local projects overseen by local management board (usually with paid co-ordinator) • External training & support services • Risk & resource audits undertaken by local board • Prioritise 2-5 specific problems • Select from menu of evidence-based interventions • Sexual abuse prevention models • Community awareness and education YSVA Seminar

15. YSVA Seminar

16. Moving forward Strengthening commitment to knowledge-based, prevention-centred policy & practice • Sexual violence and abuse, especially child sexual abuse, seen as a distinct, inexplicable, ‘unnatural’ phenomenon • unlike other forms of crime or other forms of child maltreatment • requires special explanation and unique solutions • explanation focused on limited number of deviant individuals • Political, media & public focus on punishing and incapacitating offenders • driven by powerful stereotypes • SVA occupies central position in ‘law & order’ debates • soft vs hard, rather than effective vs ineffective • Confusion / slippage between retribution and prevention YSVA Seminar

17. Moving forward Developing the evidence- and theory-base • Need for prevention-focused research • e.g. focus on offence/abuse onset critical for primary prevention; identifying risk/protective factors specific to sexual offending/victimisation important for secondary prevention • need to develop and integrate knowledge on offenders, victims, their social ecologies, & abuse situations • specialised knowledge + wider knowledge-base • need to develop and test interventions • Need to integrate theoretical ‘threads’ • e.g. evolutionary, developmental, ecological, situational YSVA Seminar