Child sexual abuse is a serious and treacherous offence. The World Health Organization defines child sexual abuse as any sexual activity which the child does not comprehend and so, is unable to give informed consent. The Canadian Family Violence Law’s definition of child sexual abuse is any activity in which an offender uses a child for sexual purposes. The child maltreatment section under Health Canada states that child sexual abuse activities include fondling, intercourse, incest, sodomy, exhibitionism, and commercial exploitation through prostitution. It is no doubt that child sexual abuse is a crime throughout the world. However, slight emphasis is given to the causes of this crime. The goal of this essay is to give an intricate understanding …show more content…
Cohen views crime in relation to space and time and emphasizes on the ecological nature of crime. (Miro, F. 2014, pg.1). The theory states that a crime can occur when the individuals are going about their daily activities along with three elements. These include, a motivated offender, a suitable target and lack of guardianship. A motivated offender defined by the Routine Activities Theory is any person who has a motive and physical ability to commit a crime, such offenders are usually young men. The second aspect of this theory is a suitable target. A suitable target is any individual who is vulnerable and feels threatened by the offender. What the offender perceives as a suitable target is “made through the understanding of the purposes and capacities of the aggressor in relation to intrinsic characteristics of the potential targets of crime.” (Miro, F. 2014, pg.2) Four attributes determine the suitability of the target. They are, value, inertia, visibility, and access. Value is from the perspective of the offender, that is what the offender perceives to be a suitable target. Inertia refers to the physical features of the target such shape, size and weight, visibility is the amount of exposure between the target and the offender and access is the design of the place and how the target fits in it which increase the likelihood of the offence to take place. (Miro, F. 2014, pg.3) Lastly, lack of guardianship is the final criteria that determine the occurrence of a crime. A guardian is an individual close to the target or the offender, someone who can protect himself and others and whose presence can deter the crime from happening. Thus, the three elements of routine activities theory can be applied to explain child sexual abuse. When a motivated offender sees an attractive child, who lacks guardianship, is vulnerable and whom the offender can easily threaten, then, under such circumstances the
There are many definitions to theory. According to Akers (2009) “theories are tentative answers to the commonly asked questions about events and behavior” (Akers, (2009, p. 1). Theory is a set of interconnect statements that explain how two or more things are related in two casual fashions, based upon a confirmed hypotheses and established multiple times by disconnected groups of researchers.
According to RAINN, (2009) approximately 10 per cent of all victims of sexual assault and abuse are adult and juvenile males. In terms of the nature of assault, real figures include a compendium of reported incidents ranging from unwanted sexual touching to forced penetration. To qualify this statement, it must be understood that the percentage does not reflect a vast number of crimes that go unreported due to issues that will be discussed in the present paper.
more problems with the police, more use of force used by the police, and police misconduct. Because the citizens feel they can’t rely on the police, they often turn to informal ways of handling issues in their community.
Researchers can utilize routine activities theory as a general theory of crime to study child sexual abuse crimes. As long as routine activities theory has both macro and micro level scope, then we can utilize it to explain crimes committed by strangers and relatives in a similar fashion. Commonly, researchers utilize theories such as cycle of violence, economic/social structure model, and sociocultural explanation, ecological model, and exchange theory of child abuse when examining child sexual abuse crimes and they are now trying to apply other criminological theories (Andrews,
In the single year of 2009, there were 460,000 reported incidents of sexual assault against women in Canada (“Criminal Victimization in Canada” 1). Amnesty International once stated that aggression against women “is so deeply embedded in society that it often fails to garner public censure and outrage.” This is evidenced by the fact that only roughly 10% of all sexual assaults are revealed, and to exacerbate the circumstances, women are frequently repudiated, blamed, and dispensed apathetic or cruel manipulation (“Violence Against Women Information” 1). Women’s rights are constantly defiled through domestic violence, and yet it is still abounding and ubiquitous in developed countries. Indeed, every six days, a woman in Canada is brutally killed by the one whom she considered her loving male partner. With every year that passes, approximately 362,000 children are witness to violent parental episodes in Canada. Witnessing violence can disturb the development of children and can eventuate in
Man charged with the rape of 31 women in New York! Ever caught the headline of a crime that occurred and wondered how a person could possibly commit such a heinous act against another person? This is the job of a criminologist. To study crimes, criminals, victims, environmental and social factors, etc. in order to come up with theories and reasons as to why people commit acts against others (Brotherton). Criminology is not a new concept, but it is an evolving one. For this reason many theories have derived from sociologist and psychologist as to why crimes are committed, who commits them, and other the factors that played a role. Take for instance the crime rape. Rape is an unwanted sexual act performed upon another individual by force, deception or while under the influence of a substance. While most rape victims are known to be women, this crime has been expanded to include rape against a man or a person of the same sex. Rape is not an easy concept to deal with, nor is dealing with a rapist. For the purpose of this paper, rape will be explained by three theories, biological, psychological and rational choice theory, all of which criminologist have deemed are fitting of the crime.
Having a capable guardian, according to routine activity theory, “is sufficient to prevent the successful completion” of a crime (Cohen & Felson, 1979,
Ronald V Clarke originally developed the idea of situational crime prevention in the 1980’s (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005). This particular crime prevention theory addresses techniques that increase the effort required to commit the crime, increase the risks involved with committing the crime, reducing the reward gained by the offender after committing the crime, reducing the provocation between the offender and others and remove excuses (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005). Majority of crime is believed to be committed because there are no high risks of being caught and the rewards outweigh the risks (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005). Increasing the effort by controlling access to locations and target hardening can deflect many offenders, as more effort is needed to commit the crime (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005). Another main technique would be to increase the risks; this may be achieved by extending guardianship, creating natural surveillance or artificial surveillance such as CCTV (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005).
The "routine activities theory" is a theory that explains why crime occurs on a daily basis. According to the approach, crime occurs in the presence of three different elements. These elements include, a suitable target, lack of a guardian, and a motivated offender. If one of these elements is no longer in the picture, then chances for crime drops. (Argun, U. 2016)
This paper outlines the consequences of child sexual abuse (CSA) based on the examination of results from multiple researches previously fulfilled concerning the psychological and physical impact of this crime, information of statistics, warning signs detected, victims’ performances, and emotional state. Sexual abuse causes severe trauma on child victims that will last for the course of their lives, therefore it is critical to identify and improve the therapeutic methods utilized to treat CSA survivors.
In my compare and contrast essay I chose to do it on Routine Activities Theory and Social Learning Theory. I will start by briefly summarizing in my own words what each theory means. Routine activities theory founded by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson and is a “recurrent and prevalent activities which provide for basic population of individual needs” pg 122. It is defined as a victimization theory that states that there are certain lifestyles that expose people to high risk for victimization and to me this means basically day to day activities and their effects on people. Routine activities theory looks at crime from the point s of view of both the offender and crime prevention.
2015). From the way a person talks, to how they view the world around them, this is all individually constructed, and therefore so is crime. Research has proved a strong relationship between whether a child has been abused, and their likeliness for criminal behavior at some point in their life. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 15% of all Male inmates in prison experienced some form of abuse as a child, the number grows to an astounding 37% for women in the system (Prather, Walter and Jeannie A. Golden. 2009). This forms a strong case for criminals who experienced this type of abuse and their reasoning for turning to crime (Prather, Walter and Jeannie A. Golden. 2009). Using the Interaction theory, for many of these individual’s extreme abuse was one of the first things experienced in life. They learned it from their parents or other family members, or maybe other children and teachers at school. From verbal to physical abuse, this type of interaction went on to form and become an essential part of their identity and reality. Abuse which was transformed to violence and deviancy whether to earn a living or let out rage upon another person resulting in a heinous
In today’s society, one will find that there are many different factors that go into the development of a criminal mind, and it is impossible to single out one particular cause of criminal behavior. Criminal behavior often stems from both biological and environmental factors. In many cases criminals share similar physical traits which the general population do not usually have. For example criminals have smaller brains than properly adjusted individuals. However biological reasons cannot solely be the cause of criminal behavior. Therefore, one must look to other sources as to how a criminal mind is developed. Social and environmental factors also are at fault for developing a person to the point at which they are lead to committing a criminal act. Often, someone who has committed a violent crime shows evidence of a poorly developed childhood, or the unsuitable current conditions in which the subject lives. In addition if one studies victimology which is the role that the victim plays in the crime, it is apparent that there are many different causes for criminal behavior. Through the examination of biological factors, in addition to the social and environmental factors which make up a criminal mind, one can conclude that a criminal often is born with traits common to those of criminals, it is the environment that exist around them that brings out the criminal within them to commit indecent acts of crime.
While sexual violence is the underlying issue that results in rape, there is no single concrete definition stating what it is exactly. This might be because of widespread societal disagreements on the different levels of what we consider sexual violence and it may vary from one society to another or may change over historical periods of time. What might not have been considered as sexual violence in earlier years might be today. Therefore, the issue will be examined in greater depth where multiple definitions will be revealed. The causes and consequences of sexual violence will be discussed as well as what can be done to prevent it and how society should deal with individual’s who engage in such deviant crimes.
More importantly, “60 percent of children who are sexually abused do not disclose and most are acquaintances but as many as 47 percent are family or extended family” (The Scope of, 2016). The prevalence of child sexual abuse is difficult to determine because it is often not reported; experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported to authorities (Child Sexual Abuse, 2012). Startling statistics represent the depth of the issue. Globally, prevalence rates show that a range of 7-36% of women and 3-29% of men experience sexual abuse in childhood (The Scope of, 2016). “The U.S Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau report child maltreatment 2010 found that 9.2% of victimized children were sexually assaulted” (Child Sexual Abuse,