NCJ Number
207964
Date Published
2004
Length
148 pages
Annotation
This literature review provides an overview of major academic works on child sexual abuse in the general population, with one aim being to compare the prevalence of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church with its prevalence in other institutions and organizations.
Abstract
The authors advise that although this literature review is not a meta-analysis (a synthesis of research results from various statistical methods to retrieve, select, and combine results from previous studies), it is a comprehensive review of the available literature. The review found that there is little or no empirical data on the prevalence of sexual abuse within organizations other than the Catholic church, thus making it difficult to compare child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church with its occurrence in other groups, including the general population; however, this review does contain an overview of published newspaper articles on child sexual abuse in specific organizations. In addition to the Catholic Church, child sexual abuse is discussed for the following organizations: Boy Scouts, Big Brother, Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), athletic organizations, and child caregivers. A section on the theories and etiology of child sexual abuse addresses biological, psychodynamic, behavioral, attachment, cognitive-behavioral, and integrated theory, as well as theories of offending by Catholic priests, the offense cycle, and perpetrator techniques of "grooming" victims. A section that describes various typologies of child sexual abusers is followed by a review of procedures for evaluating sex offenders. Other sections review models of treatment for child sexual abusers and victim profiles for children sexually abused by priests. 3 figures, 4 tables, and an extensive bibliography