Changing institutional culture in the wake of clerical abuse – the essentials of restorative and legal regulation

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse completed its final report in December 2017 after five years of hearings. The Royal Commission was the culmination of pressure from a series of public inquiries about institutional sexual abuse and sustained advocacy from victims and survivor support groups. The Commission made recommendations designed to change institutional leadership, governance and culture. The challenge is to have that change embedded in institutional culture. This paper considers how this might be done in a specific institution, the Catholic Church given that more than two-thirds of reported abuse in faith-based institutions occurred within its ranks. Regulatory theory suggests effective regulation must be responsive to past institutional behaviour. In the case of the Church, the task is profound given its strong self-protective culture which has long shielded abusers. The form of regulation must provide a balance where criminal sanctions loom large in the background while redress processes proceed in the foreground to repair both the harm suffered by survivors and renew Church culture.     

Evaluation of usefulness of further Y-STR analysis in sexual assault cases on PSA positive samples resulting in female autosomal STR profiling

Samples from male to female sexual assault cases that are positive for the presumptive prostate specific antigen (PSA) test often do not result in a male autosomal STR profile. Due to highly unequal proportions of female and male DNA in typical sexual assault samples, routine autosomal STR analysis often fails to detect the DNA of the assailant, even after differential extraction of the samples. Previous studies have already shown the value of Y-STR analysis in such cases [1]. In Belgium, forensic DNA laboratories are only allowed to perform Y-STR profiling on sexual assault samples by a specific requisition, after routine autosomal STR analysis has been performed. However, a request for additional Y-STR analysis is rather exceptional.In this study, we evaluated the usefulness of further Y-STR analysis. For 100 PSA positive rinses and swabs from male to female sexual assault cases resulting in female autosomal STR profiling, 7% resulted in a full or partial Y-STR profile useful for comparison, using the 23-loci Y-STR PowerPlex Y23 System (Promega). The success rate raised to 12.5% with a higher DNA input in the PCR mix. In conclusion, these results support the usefulness of performing Y-STRs analysis on the sperm DNA extracts to identify the alleged assailant in sexual assault cases.     

What has the ‘first sexual revolution’ to do with kinship transition? ‘Kin marriages’ and illicit sexuality in nineteenth-century Alpine Switzerland

This paper questions the link between two major transformations observed in eighteenth century Europe: the reorganization of kinship structures and kinship solidarities on the one hand and the so-called ‘sexual revolution’ of the eighteenth century on the other, i.e. the spectacular rise of illegitimacy throughout Europe. Raising the question of this link has far-reaching theoretical implications, since the fundamental changes in kinship and sexuality have been treated so far as two independent phenomena in separate domains. The results presented in this paper refer to mountain villages of the Swiss Alps and base on genealogical data extracted from a large dynamic database called the Registre historique de la population du Valais. They suggest that the remarkable increase of close kin marriages was closely connected with changes in sexual habits and with the building of different sexual milieus. The ‘sexual revolution’ in the Entremont region was largely the issue of a few families and kin groups tending to build tightly knitted networks. In this perspective, the increase of kin marriages reflected the diversification of political and sexual milieus, characterized by different values, ideologies and attitudes. This profound diversification of life styles shows that social change did not affect local societies as a whole, but was supported by particular milieus made cohesive by privileged alliances within kin groups and by particular network patterns.     

Comparing persons found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder for sexual offences versus nonsexual violent offences

Using data from the National Trajectory Project, we compared 50 individuals found Not Criminally Responsible on account of Mental Disorder (NCRMD) for sexual offences with 50 age- and gender-matched individuals found NCRMD for nonsexually violent offences. We also described the concurrent offenses, the symptoms at the time of the offense and the characteristics of the victims of offenders found NCRMD for sexual offences. Persons found NCRMD for sexual offences were less likely to be employed and were significantly younger at time of first psychiatric contact, but did not differ in other sociodemographic characteristics, other aspects of their psychiatric histories or in criminal history. Despite no differences in recidivism and no differences in behaviours between Review Board hearings when adjusting for unequal time at risk, persons found NCRMD for sexual offences had longer tenures under a Review Board mandate than persons found NCRMD for nonsexually violent offences. Given the many similarities between the two groups, this finding suggests that Review Boards may be unnecessarily conservative in how they manage sexual offenders.     

Reciprocal Effects between the Perceived Environment and Heterosexual Intercourse Among Adolescents

This study proposes a transactional model for the reciprocal relationship between increased likelihood of adolescent sexual intercourse and decreased connection with the perceived environment. Connection with the perceived environment is operationalized as higher problem-focused interactions with parents, lower religious attendance, and lower school belonging. Relationship with the perceived environment is further hypothesized to explain the increase in depressive symptoms associated with initiating sexual intercourse in adolescence. Data from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (one year apart; valid N=10,873) were analyzed using survey-adjusted multiple and logistic regression and path analysis. Hypothesized relationships were confirmed, with an additional finding that relationships with the perceived environment do not improve with the cessation of sexual intercourse. Implications of a possible explanation for this, that this finding indicates sexually active youth earn a stigmatized “non-virgin” label that they cannot easily remove, are discussed.Assistant Professor at the Adelphi University School of Social Work. He received his Ph.D. in 2005 from Cornell University in Human Development and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Behavioral Sciences Training in Drug Abuse Research program sponsored by Medical and Health Association of New York City, Inc. (MHRA) and the National Development and Research Institutes (NDRI) with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (5T32 DA07233). His major research interests include psychological and social determinants of adolescent and young adult health and risk behaviors, religion as a context of youth development, positive development of sexuality and avoidance of sexual risk behaviors in youth, and young adults, and sexual minority youths’ issues with religion.     

Correlates of Joining a Sexual Harassment Class Action

Researchers have proposed a variety of factors that influence the decision to seek legal relief in response to sexual harassment, but have generally failed to test these proposals empirically. The present study aims to address this gap by investigating the decision to join a class-action lawsuit. Participants were female professionals at a nationally based financial services firm, who either participated in or opted out of a sexual harassment class-action proceeding against the company. Five variables emerged as significant correlates of joining the class: organizational climate, turnover, financial dependence, PTSD, and primary appraisal. Dominance analysis identified contextual factors as the most important correlate. Theoretical and practical implications for the role of these factors in joining a class action are discussed.

男子性功能障碍的婚姻家庭因素(附45例分析)

<正> 男子性功能障碍可以影响婚姻和家庭稳固,严重者可能酿成民事纠纷以至离婚。究其缘由,有些是因男子生殖器官的器质性病变所致,但为数较少;而多数是功能性异常,其中缘于婚姻和家庭方面的种种不良因素是主要的诱因之一。本文总结了45例临床资料,进行分析和讨论。     

Speaking the Unspeakable,Naming the Unnameable: The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

ABSTRACT

The establishment of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse followed years of lobbying by survivor groups, damning findings from previous inquiries, and increasing societal recognition of the often lifelong and intergenerational damage caused by child sexual abuse. Through extensive media coverage, the Royal Commission brought into public view the reality that the sexual abuse of children was widespread, and its recommendations are prompting organisational, policy, and legislative reform. This article explores the background to the Royal Commission, situating it within the history of previous inquiries and growing community outrage at the failure of institutions to adequately protect children and respond appropriately when abuse occurs. The article explores the ways in which the Royal Commission, more so than previous inquiries, brought child sexual abuse into public discourse. It also serves as an introduction to this special issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, which illustrates how the Royal Commission has fostered new scholarship across a range of disciplines as researchers engage with complex issues related to institutional child sexual abuse, its history, causes, impacts, and the important role of inquiries in confronting it.     

What Does Feminism Want?

This conference confirms the loss of a singular, unified women's movement under the pressures of race, sexuality and class and asks for new directions. The need to rethink collectivity suggests that identification is a priority for feminism rather than desire , which has been the dominant discourse of the psychoanalytical wing of the movement. There are psychoanalytical accounts of the group, but they will have to withstand New Labour's punitive address to the superego by its conservative personalizing of social issues. Thus the relation between psychoanalysis and politics is now a major issue, revealing as it does the problems of coercion in an environment where collective accountability has ceased to exist. Our models of the feminine can be neither Thatcher nor Diana both of whom occlude social accountability. Though the question of sexual difference has not gone away, we need to reformulate the problems, finding new forms of language and of public speech to address a wider constituency, and a radical politics that will reach beyond the academic world. Finally, arising from this, two questions need to be asked. What does feminism want a subject to be? Does feminism want something to serve in the place of some kind of truth?     

Beyond Traditional Definitions of Assault: Expanding Our Focus to Include Sexually Coercive Experiences

Traditionally, studies examining sexual assault have not considered experiences of coerced consensual sex. This study sought to compare women who endorsed experiences of coerced sexual intercourse with women who reported more traditionally defined experiences of sexual assault and with a group of women who had experienced neither sexual assault nor coercion. The authors hypothesized that women who had experienced sexual coercion would show symptom elevations on a measure of interpersonal trauma-related symptoms that were more consistent with sexual assault victims than with non-victims. Among a sample of undergraduate college women (N=300), women who endorsed coerced sexual intercourse (8.7%) were compared to women endorsing experiences meeting the legal definition of rape (21%), women endorsing childhood sexual abuse (11.7%), women reporting both rape and childhood sexual abuse (6.0%), and women reporting no victimization experiences (52.7%). Analysis of the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI; Briere, 1995) clinical subscales confirmed that women who reported coerced sexual intercourse endorsed symptoms levels more consistent with the adult rape group than with the non-victim group.