Department of Psychology,, Willamette University, Salem, OR 97301, USA.
Sex Abuse. 2013 Oct;25(5):461-81. doi: 10.1177/1079063212465900. Epub 2012 Nov 27.
Cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) referred to the District Attorney (DA) are not necessarily accepted for prosecution. Two pilot studies sought to investigate whether there were gender differences in whether cases of CSA referred to the DA's office were accepted by the DA and, if they existed, what might account for gender differences in decisions to accept cases and file charges. The results of the first study indicated that cases involving male victims were significantly less likely to be accepted for prosecution than cases involving female victims. Comparisons of acceptance rates were based on expected frequencies given CSA prevalence rates by gender in the literature and on the proportion of males and females seen at a Child Abuse Assessment Center (CAAC) from where the DA referrals were obtained. The second study assessed both disclosure-related variables (assessed by content analyses of disclosures made at a CAAC) and abuse-related variables (that occurred at or near the time of the abuse) that might explain these differences. Few variables were found to significantly differentiate males' and females' cases; these were the relationship of the child to the perpetrator, whether the child was offended by a juvenile, whether the child told someone of the abuse, pornography exposure, whether the child displayed concerning behaviors, and whether the child was questioned about possible abuse. Implications of these results are discussed.
儿童性虐待（CSA）案件提交地区检察官（DA）并不一定被接受起诉。两项试点研究旨在调查 CSA 案件提交 DA 办公室是否存在性别差异，以及如果存在差异，哪些因素可能导致对案件的接受和指控决定存在性别差异。第一项研究的结果表明，涉及男性受害者的案件被接受起诉的可能性明显低于涉及女性受害者的案件。接受率的比较是基于文献中按性别划分的 CSA 流行率以及从 DA 转介来源的儿童虐待评估中心（CAAC）看到的男性和女性的比例得出的预期频率。第二项研究评估了可能解释这些差异的与披露相关的变量（通过对 CAAC 进行的披露进行内容分析评估）和与虐待相关的变量（发生在虐待时或附近）。很少有变量被发现能够显著区分男性和女性的案件；这些变量是儿童与施虐者的关系、儿童是否被未成年人冒犯、儿童是否告诉过别人虐待、色情暴露、儿童是否表现出令人担忧的行为以及儿童是否被询问过可能的虐待。讨论了这些结果的含义。
