NCJ Number
217335
Journal
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Dated: 2006 Pages: 97-103
Date Published
2006
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article presents results from an exploration into the factors CPS investigators rely on to make decisions on the substantiation of mothers for failure to protect their children from child sexual abuse.
Abstract
The findings from the authors’ research as well as previous research indicated that while the supportiveness of the nonoffending caregiver is important to the child, it is unclear that the best reaction to an unsupportive caregiver is removal of the child from the home. The authors suggest that if the caregivers can be convinced the abuse occurred and if they can be helped to end their dependence on the perpetrator, they may provide their child with the needed support. In 90.9 percent of the cases under investigation, the nonoffending caregiver was the biological mother and in order to be categorized as unsupportive, they had to meet at least one of the following criteria: (1) they initially expressed disbelief or skepticism about the allegations; (2) they exerted direct verbal pressure on the child to recant; (3) they blamed the child for the abuse; (4) they remained romantically or interpersonally involved with the perpetrator after the discovery of the abuse; and (5) they otherwise behaved in an unsupportive manner. Multivariate analyses also revealed that a lack of support from the nonoffending caregiver was a significant predictor of whether a child recanted during the investigation. Other factors that influenced recantation of the abuse were younger child age and abuse by a parent figure. The findings reported in this article were drawn from the authors’ recently conducted research of recantation in a sample of 257 substantiated CSA cases resulting in a dependency court filing. Note, references