Abstract
Non-recent child sexual abuse (CSA) and child sexual exploitation (CSE) have received recent attention. Victims often do not report their ordeal at the time the incident occurred, and it is increasingly common for agencies to refer concerns to the police years, or decades, after the event. The combination of the non-recent nature of the offence, the lack of engagement by the (potentially vulnerable) victim, and the huge resource burden of investigation make deciding whether to proceed with investigation complex and ethically challenging. Although there will always be a presumption in favor of investigation, for some cases the reasons against investigating will outweigh this presumption. We examine the considerations at stake in making a decision about whether to make contact with the victim and proceed with investigating a particular non-recent CSA case. Arguing for a “broad rights” approach, we identify considerations relating to (1) the victim, (2) criminal justice and crime prevention, (3) limited resources, and (4) legitimacy. We argue that, all other things being equal, non-recent and current investigations are equally worthy of investigation. We assess the implications of suspects being persons of public prominence. We outline a principled decision-making framework to aid investigators. The Oxford CSA Framework has the potential to reduce unnecessary demand on police resources.
Highlights
Non-recent child sexual abuse (CSA) has received increased attention in recent years in the United Kingdom and elsewhere
We have developed a principled framework for making decisions about whether to investigate non-recent CSA complaints
The framework that we have presented allows multiple considerations to bear on the decision, considerations that generate reasons for or against the decision, exerting weight regardless of their position in the sequence of considerations
Summary
Non-recent child sexual abuse (CSA) has received increased attention in recent years in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Deciding whether to investigate a non-recent CSA case raises some issues present when deciding whether to investigate domestic abuse cases involving an unwilling victim, CSA decsions are in other ways unique: the combination of the age of the victim at the time of the offence, the substantial resource requirement, and the particular risk to the victims’ psychological stability generates a need to rethink the ethical and strategic justifications for investigational decisions. There are some common features to cases that require a decision about whether to investigate They typically involve offences that occurred some time ago, and the suspected victims have usually not reported the offence to the Police; the victims are typically adults, who often seem to have “moved on” with their lives. As we elaborate below, existing resources and normative theories do not provide sufficient guidance
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