Children and Young People Who Sexually Abuse Others

Current Developments and Practice Responses

Marcus Erooga, Helen Masson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134258680
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Family Law
• Index: Law

Presenting a detailed and coherent analysis, exploring the key aspects of working with children and young people with sexually harmful behaviours, this revised and expanded volume includes fresh and updated chapters, which address context and systems issues, assessment and planning, as well as interventions and practitioner issues. The major topics covered include:

• policy, law, organizational contexts and service provision in the UK
• developing a comprehensive inter-agency system of response
• the management of sexual behaviour problems in schools and in placements
• assessment issues and resilience based approaches
• the abuse of information technologies such as mobile phones and the Internet
• methods of intervention with children and young people and their families
• unconscious processes in therapeutic work and practitioner support.

Written by well-respected contributors in this field and in an accessible manner, this textwill be a valuable resource to a number of readers, including students, experienced professionals at front-line and managerial levels, and academics with an interest in this area of work.

Part 1
Context and systems issues

1 Children and young people with sexually harmful or abusive behaviours

Underpinning knowledge, principles, approaches and service provision

Marcus Erooga and Helen Masson

Introduction

Sexually harmful or abusive behaviour by children and young people first emerged as a matter of concern in the United Kingdom during the early 1990s (see, for example, National Children’s Home 1992) and now, a decade or so later, is firmly established both within the professional community and with policy makers as a problem which requires a response (Masson and Hackett 2003). This introductory chapter provides an overview of the current state of knowledge about such children and young people and of the developing consensus about principles of work and preferred intervention approaches. A brief description of the state of service provision in the UK and the Republic of Ireland is also offered, based on the most recent research findings available (Hackett et al. 2003).

Incidence and prevalence of sexual harm and abuse by children and young people

The latest available criminal statistics for England and Wales, those for 2003/4 (Home Office 2004), give the recorded level of all sexual offences as 52,100, a 7 per cent increase on 2002/3 but still comprising less than 1 per cent of all recorded crime, a very similar picture to that in 1999, when the first edition of this book was published. Interestingly, 11 per cent fewer individuals (5,700) were subsequently cautioned, reprimanded or found guilty of sexual offences in 2003/4 than in 1999, when 6,400 were cautioned or found guilty. Of the 2003/4 total of 5,700, 1,300 (23 per cent) were cautioned or reprimanded, of whom (based on approximate figures contained in the Home Office statistics) up to 8 per cent (less than 100) were aged 10–11 years, up to 19 per cent (less than 250) were aged 12–14 years, up to 19 per cent (less than 250) were aged 15–17 years and up to 19 per cent (less than 250) were aged 18–20 years. The vast majority of these cautions and reprimands were of males. So, it would appear that children and young people aged between 10 and 20 years accounted for up to approximately 65 per cent of all cautions or reprimands for sexual offences in 2003/4. In the same year, 4,300 individuals (again almost all male) were found guilty in a court of a sexual offence, of whom up to 1 per cent (less than 50) were aged 10–11 years, up to 3.5 per cent (less than 150) were aged 12–14 years, up to 8 per cent (less than 350) were aged 15–17 years and up to 8 per cent (less than 350) were aged between 18 and 20. Thus a much smaller percentage of children and young people (up to 21 per cent) accounted for findings of guilt as a result of court process.

These statistics, which refer only to offenders over the age of criminal responsibility and only to recorded crimes, represent just a small proportion of sexual harm or abuse committed by children and young people, particularly as much abuse goes unreported or is not recognised or dealt with as such. Various other kinds of studies have, therefore, tried to estimate the prevalence of sexual abuse or harm by young people within a population.

In an early major retrospective study of adults concerning their experiences of abuse in childhood, for example, Finkelhor (1979) found that 34 per cent of women and 39 per cent of men who recalled having a sexual encounter during their childhood with someone five or more years older than themselves reported that the older partner was aged between 10 and 19 years. Twenty years later, in a prevalence study of child maltreatment in the UK, Cawson et al.(2000) surveyed a representative sample of 2,869 young people aged 18–24 years and found that 11 per cent (three-quarters of them female) had been sexually abused, this involving contact either against their will by parents/carers or by other people when they were 12 or under and the other person was five or more years older. Ninety per cent of this abuse had been unreported. Interestingly, in relation to intra-familial sexual abuse (which comprised only a very small proportion of the total sexual abuse reported), the most likely relative to abuse was a brother (mentioned in 31 per cent of cases where relatives were involved, compared to a prevalence rate of father/daughter incest of 0.3 per cent). As regards the much larger category of extra-familial sexual abuse, the perpetrators were usually people known to the respondents and were often their peers: boy or girlfriends, friends of brothers or sisters or fellow pupils or students. In another study, in Scotland, Wightet al.(2000) surveyed 7,395 14-year-olds. Eighteen per cent of the boys and 15 per cent of the girls reported having had sexual intercourse – in 20 per cent of these cases the respondents indicated that there had been some level of coercion. Considering the findings of these and other studies over the years (see, for example, Ageton 1983; Fromuthet al. 1991; Glasgow et al. 1994) overview reports (for example, National Children’s Home 1992; Openshaw et al. 1993; Lovell 2002) conclude that there appears to be a consistent finding that between about one-quarter and one-third of all alleged sexual abuse or sexual harm involves children and young people.

Groups within the population – attending to diversity

In the early 1990s pioneering literature (see, for example, Ryan and Lane 1991) tended to focus on the white, male adolescent aged between 14 and 17 years as the modal type of juvenile sexual offender. Whilst criminal statistics continue to demonstrate that reported young sexual offenders are predominately males in their middle to late teenage years, what we have come to appreciate is that sexually harmful and/or abusive behaviour is not only exhibited by this sub-group of young people.

In their survey of 186 service providers in the UK and Republic of Ireland Hackett et al. (2003) found that approximately 27 per cent of services were working with children who were under 10 years of age, although most of the young people worked with were either in the age range 10–13 years or, in the case of English and Welsh youth offending teams, in the 14–18-year age range. In terms of gender, 76 or 41 per cent of the 186 services had worked solely with males. The remaining 110 services (59 per cent) had some experience of working with female service users but only four services (2 per cent) across the five nations worked only with females.

Focusing on ethnicity, only one service out of all of Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland had worked with service users from a minority ethnic background. However, in England and Wales, 31 or 28 per cent of youth offending teams and 23 or 40 per cent of the other services surveyed reported having worked with young people with sexual behaviour problems who were from an African-Caribbean, Asian or other ethnic background. It would appear that most young adolescent male sexual abusers in treatment are white but this finding may, as with black adult sex offenders (Cowburn 1996), reflect the racist bias inherent in the criminal justice and other systems which result in young black offenders being dealt with more punitively and having less access to treatment facilities. Research by Feilzer and Hood (Youth Justice Board 2004a) into the operation of the criminal justice system, for example, found that a young person of mixed parentage was three times more likely to be prosecuted than a young white offender and that young men from minority ethnic groups tended to receive more restrictive community sentences or longer terms of custody than their white counterparts.

What was of particular interest in the Hackett et al.study (2003) was that, with the exception of Northern Ireland, over half of the services in the various nations studied reported working with significant proportions of children and young people with sexually problematic behaviours whom they considered to be learning disabled. However, it appeared that few such young people had been formally assessed as such. Other studies of young people with sexually harmful behaviour have found similar over-representation of people with learning disabilities (Dolan et al.1996; Hawkes et al.1997). Lane with Lobanov-Rostovsky (in Ryan and Lane 1997) have commented in relation to this group:

Clinical observation indicates numerous similarities but also some unique differences between sexually abusive behaviour of disabled and non-disabled youth. The range of behaviours, the types of sexually abusive behaviours, and the elements of the behaviour appear similar, while the associated cognitive processes, the context of the behaviours and the level of sophistication exhibit some differences.

(p. 342)

What little research has been undertaken seems to suggest that there may be a more repetitive, habitual quality to the behaviour of these youngsters in terms of victim choice, location and frequency of behaviour, they may have greater difficulty understanding the abusive nature of their activities and may justify what they have done against what they perceive to be normal male behaviour. They may also exhibit more impulsivity and a more childlike need for immediate gratification. Stermac and Sheridan (1993) suggest that they are significantly more likely to display inappropriate, non-contact ‘nuisance’ behaviours such as public masturbation, exhibitionism and voyeurism and that they are less discriminating in their choice of victim, choosing male and female victims equally. Their behaviour also has to be understood in the context of societal prejudice towards such disability, a general lack of attention paid to issues of sexuality in relation to this group and their increased vulnerability to being the victims of sexual abuse themselves. Clearly management and treatment of these young people have to be planned in the light of careful assessment of their cognitive and social functioning so that, for example, treatment delivery attends to issues such as shortened attention spans, more experiential styles of learning and the need for careful use of language and repetition of messages (O’Callaghan 1999).

Given what has been outlined already in this chapter about incidence and prevalence, it is unsurprising that the survey by Hackett et al. (2003) also found that 105 or 56 per cent of services across all five nations, including Youth Offending Teams (YOTs), had worked with children and young people with sexual behaviour problems who had not been charged with any offence. On the other hand, all 186 services had also worked with young people charged with a range of offences, right through to small minorities of young people who had been charged with the most serious sexual offences, involving physical contact and violence.

What emerges is that the total population of children and young people with sexually harmful or abusive behaviours is a very heterogeneous group, not only in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and disability, but also in terms of the levels of personal and social vulnerabilities they experience and demonstrate and in terms of the risks they present to others. In this regard, they are no different from other children and young people in trouble, some of whom may have relatively modest needs (for education, support and more acceptable outlets for their energies) whilst a few exhibit serious deficits in personal functioning and social skills and present a serious risk to others’ wellbeing. Childhood Lost (The Bridge Child Care Development Service 2001), the report of a serious case review into the death of an 11- year-old boy, WN, is a tragic account of the life and circumstances of DM, an 18-year-old who murdered WN. It catalogues the long history of DM’s sexually harmful and then abusive behaviours, culminating in his conviction at the age of 14 on 12 specimen charges of sexual abuse against a number of children and his removal from his highly problematic family circumstances into local authority accommodation.¹ DM represents the extreme end of risk (to self and others), at the other end of which are the majority of children and young people whose problematic behaviours are not evidence of deep-seated and intransigent difficulties.

Issues of recidivism

Understanding has developed across time about the likelihood of children and young people with sexually harmful or abusive behaviour continuing with their problematic behaviour into adulthood, whether or not they are ever the focus of professional interventions. Early thinking, as reported in the National Children’s Home inquiry report (1992) and implicit in the central government guidance Working Together (Department of Health 1991b) was that, unlike other juvenile delinquents who typically grow out their offending, young sexual abusers were more likely to continue in their abusive behaviour unless treated, preferably under some kind of civil or criminal legal mandate. Thus the notion developed that young sexual abusers were likely to become the adult sex offenders of the future unless subject to early, and often substantial, intervention.

Since the mid-1990s, studies and associated literature have cast doubt on the NCH Committee conclusions (for example, Will 1994; Glasgow et al.1994; Weinrott 1996; Becker 1998b) and it would appear that such views might have, in part at least, resulted from misinterpretations of studies of the development of offending careers in adult sex offenders. Nevertheless, Working Together (Department of Health 1999) still reflects this earlier thinking:

Work with adult abusers has shown that many of them began committing abusing acts during childhood or adolescence, and that significant numbers have been subjected to abuse themselves. Early intervention with children and young people who abuse others, may therefore, play an important part in protecting the public by preventing the continuation or escalation of abusive behaviour.

(p. 70)

Their survey of experienced practitioners by Hackett et al. (2003) indicates, however, a very different attitude to the issue of recidivism and the likely continuation of youthful sexually abusive behaviours into adulthood, with 90 per cent of respondents strongly agreeing that:

. . . the vast majority of young people do not go on to become adult sex offenders, but that an identifiable, small sub-group are at high risk of so doing.

(p. 14)

However, the survey revealed respondents’ concerns about a continuing uncertainty around this issue at the local, inter-professional level and Hackett et al. (2003) reported that it was noticeable how often a version of the paragraph from Working Together (Department of Health 1999) or something like it was included in inter-agency documentation. As Masson and Hackett comment (2003):

This is, of...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part 1 Context and systems issues
• Part 2 Assessment and planning
• Part 3 Interventions
• Part 4 Practitioner issues
• References