Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse

Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse fills a gap for an authoritative and considered text focused on false accusations of recent or historical abuse, both as a miscarriage of justice and as an ordeal which impairs lives even when it does not result in criminal charges. It brings together experts from different disciplinary backgrounds and relevant specialisms to explicate the context, causes, and processes that foster erroneous or fabricated allegations and to consider ways of reducing their incidence and the injustices that follow them.

While there has been a welcome increase in policies which address child abuse, rape and other sexual offences, these tend to neglect or disavow the diametrical problem of false allegations of such offences. It is inherent in the, typically, unwitnessed and physically uncorroborated nature of these 'hidden' crimes that they are difficult to prosecute; but also to disprove if no crime has been committed. It is right that all allegations of abuse are treated as believable and are rigorously investigated, but it is not in the interest of any progressive and robust system of justice to convict or malign innocent people. Approached from this more controversial perspective, the five parts of this volume chart the life-course of an untrue allegation. Beginning with the nature, extent and harm of false abuse allegations, the cultural and political context giving rise to false allegations, and then the causal and motivational factors for making them, are explored, before addressing the role and impact of the criminal justice system when handling such cases. The final part looks at the ways such concerns might be addressed whilst remaining mindful of victims of abuse and their suffering.

Tackling an under-researched and under-discussed area, Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse offers thoughtful and thought-provoking discourses around an understandably difficult and sensitive area. It will be essential reading for academics and students of criminology, sociology, criminal justice, criminal law, socio-legal studies, and psychology, as well as those working with victims of false allegations, and police and specialist practitioners dealing with sexual offences and child abuse.

List of contents

• PART I: THE REALITY OF WRONGFUL ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE What kind of allegations and why do they matter?


• 1: Ros Burnett: Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse: A Neglected and Growing Category of Injustice


• 2: Edited by Ros Burnett: Experiencing False Allegations of Abuse: First-hand Accounts


• PART II: CULTURE, IDEOLOGY, POLITICS What is the terrain that gives rise to false allegations?


• 3: Mary deYoung: Demons, Devils and Ritual Abuse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives


• 4: Frank Furedi: Moral Crusades, Child Protection, Celebrities and the Duty to Believe


• 5: Mark Smith: Telling Stories? Adults' Retrospective Narratives of Abuse in Residential Child Care


• 6: John Brigham: 'Rape Culture' Narrative, State Feminism and the Presumption of Guilt


• 7: Bill Hebenton and Toby Seddon: Making Accusations: Precautionary Logic and Embedded Suspicion in an Insecure and Uncertain World


• PART III: THE ALLEGATION: CAUSES, MOTIVATIONS, CASE-STUDIES Why would anyone make a false accusation?


• 8: Felicity Goodyear-Smith: Why and How False Allegations of Abuse Occur: An Overview


• 9: Barbara Hewson: The Compensations of Being a Victim


• 10: J. Guillermo Villalobos, Deborah Davis and Richard A. Leo: His Story, Her Story: Sexual Miscommunication, Motivated Remembering, and Intoxication as Pathways to Honest False Testimony Regarding Sexual Consent


• 11: Christopher C French and James Ost: Beliefs about Memory, Childhood Abuse and Hypnosis Amongst Clinicians, Legal Professionals and the General Public


• 12: David Rose: To Catch a Sex Offender: Police, Trawls and Personal Injury Solicitors


• PART IV: INTERROGATION, PROSECUTION, CONVICTION, APPEAL How could the justice system get it so wrong?


• 13: Deborah Davis and Richard A. Leo: When Exoneration Seems Hopeless: The Special Vulnerability of Sexual Abuse Suspects to False Confession


• 14: Luke Gittos: Complaints of Sexual Abuse and the Decline of Objective Prosecuting


• 15: Daniel Medwed: 'In denial': the Hazards of Maintaining Innocence After Conviction


• 16: Michael Zander: When Juries Find Innocent People Guilty: Strengths and Limitations of the Appellate System in England and Wales


• PART V: FINDING WAYS FORWARD What's to be done?


• 17: Steve Herman: Reducing Harm Due to False Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse: The Importance of Corroboration


• 18: Galit Nahari: Advances in Lie Detection: Limitations and Potential for Investigating Allegations of Abuse


• 19: Robert F. Belli: Toward Reconciliation of the True and False Recovered Memory Debate


• 20: Timothy Bakken: The Defendant's Plea of Innocent in Sexual Abuse Cases


• 21: Ros Burnett: Reducing the Incidence and Harms of Wrongful Allegations of Abuse

About the author

Ros Burnett is a Senior Research Associate, formerly Reader in Criminology, at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, which she joined in 1990 after gaining a DPhil in social psychology at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford. Her research areas include interpersonal relationships; rehabilitation of offenders and desistance from crime; and wrongful allegations of sexual and child abuse. Her most recent book was Where Next for Criminal Justice? (co-authored with David Faulkner) published by The Policy Press, 2011. Recent voluntary work includes research and information consultant to FACT, the support group for falsely accused, and she is an associate editor of the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology.

Summary

Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse fills a gap for an authoritative and considered text focused on false accusations of recent or historical abuse, both as a miscarriage of justice and as an ordeal which impairs lives even when it does not result in criminal charges. It brings together experts from different disciplinary backgrounds and relevant specialisms to explicate the context, causes, and processes that foster erroneous or fabricated allegations and to consider ways of reducing their incidence and the injustices that follow them.

While there has been a welcome increase in policies which address child abuse, rape and other sexual offences, these tend to neglect or disavow the diametrical problem of false allegations of such offences. It is inherent in the, typically, unwitnessed and physically uncorroborated nature of these 'hidden' crimes that they are difficult to prosecute; but also to disprove if no crime has been committed. It is right that all allegations of abuse are treated as believable and are rigorously investigated, but it is not in the interest of any progressive and robust system of justice to convict or malign innocent people. Approached from this more controversial perspective, the five parts of this volume chart the life-course of an untrue allegation. Beginning with the nature, extent and harm of false abuse allegations, the cultural and political context giving rise to false allegations, and then the causal and motivational factors for making them, are explored, before addressing the role and impact of the criminal justice system when handling such cases. The final part looks at the ways such concerns might be addressed whilst remaining mindful of victims of abuse and their suffering.

Tackling an under-researched and under-discussed area, Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse offers thoughtful and thought-provoking discourses around an understandably difficult and sensitive area. It will be essential reading for academics and students of criminology, sociology, criminal justice, criminal law, socio-legal studies, and psychology, as well as those working with victims of false allegations, and police and specialist practitioners dealing with sexual offences and child abuse.

Additional text

The one thing this book isn't, most emphatically isn't, is a demolition of any particular claims of sexual abuse. It is far, far, cleverer than that. It is a careful analysis, expert by expert, of the psychological pressures that might lead to a wrongful allegation; of the ways in which policing methods may contribute towards this; the economic pressures on therapists and personal injury lawyers; how judicial thinking is formulated and best of all, several chapters on how we could move forward in the future, in the best interests of both complainants and defendants ... I hope that people, particularly journalists and activists, from both sides of the great divide as the issue of historic allegations of abuse has become, will read this book, cover to cover. If you are going to argue, debate, or be an activist on the subject - then you should be in possession of all the facts.

Report

Ros Burnett has brought together a fantastic collection of contributors that cover almost every area of false accusations. Dr Denis Jones, FACT

Product details

• Authors: Ros Burnett, Ros (Senior Research Associate Burnett
• Assisted by: Ros Burnett (Editor)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.09.2016
• EAN: 9780198723301
• ISBN: 978-0-19-872330-1
• No. of pages: 328
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Psychology, esoterics, spirituality, anthroposophy > Applied psychology; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); SOCIAL SCIENCE / Criminology, LAW / Criminal Procedure, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Violence in Society, Legal aspects of criminology, Violence in society, Crime and criminology, Crime & criminology, Criminal procedure, Violence and abuse in society, Criminology: legal aspects