Policing Child Sexual Abuse: Understanding and Negotiating the Complexities of Disclosures

The scale of child sexual abuse is such that it is considered a threat to public health, since it can have significant long-term repercussions on the health and psychosocial well-being of those victimised. However, successful prosecution of cases is rare, leaving most perpetrators at liberty to continue offending and many victims without protection. High levels of case attrition are partly attributed to delays in disclosure, meaning that forensic evidence is lacking in these cases, which is further compounded by children’s apparent reticence to repeat earlier disclosures in the context of the forensic interview. Even when children do make timely informal disclosures of child sexual abuse to non-offending family members, it is not inevitable that the disclosure will be relayed to any authority. Many confidants in the context of intra-familial child sexual abuse, at least initially, will disbelieve the allegation, see the child as partly to blame or will be dismissive of the disclosure. This is unfortunate since it is the response to disclosures that are the most influential on the outcomes for victims. Understanding the barriers to children disclosing child sexual abuse will help those tasked with conducting the forensic interviews to ensure that they adopt the most effective approaches.