Historical Institutional Abuse Research Articles

Redress, memorials and activism: can heritage be activism?

ABSTRACT The focus of this article is Ireland. Activism has been crucial in exposing historical institutional abuse in different institutions, organisations and contexts. Inquiries set up to investigate abuse have recommended memorials as an element of redress. This article explores what types of memorialisation survivors regard as appropriate, and why. Two responses are considered: (1) state and (2) ‘bottom-up’ unofficial. The article highlights that survivors are rarely active participants in co-creating and implementing state responses. The concept of ‘authorised heritage discourse’ (AHD) is used to shed light on whose knowledge is prioritised, who are deemed the experts and who decides what heritage is. The article contributes to this theorisation by proposing a new concept, ‘activist heritage’, and examines its potential to create spaces and unlock transformative dynamics that empower survivors. Then, using Justice for Magdalene Research’s (JFMR) virtual memorial museum as a case study of ‘activist heritage’, the article shows that in the absence of state or national forms of recognition, JFMR provides a corrective to AHD. It acts as a counter-narrative in the struggle over memory to state and church ‘forgetting’, ignoring and minimising institutional abuse. The role, benefits and outcomes for survivors of such ‘bottom-up’ memorialisation is assessed.

The truth project paper one-how did victims and survivors experience participation? Addressing epistemic relational inequality in the field of child sexual abuse.

The last 30 years has seen an exponential increase in Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiries. One feature of these has been to place adult survivor voices at the center of Inquiry work, meaning that child abuse victims and survivors are engaging with Inquiries, sharing their experiences, with this participation often presented as empowering and healing. This initiative challenges long held beliefs that child sexual abuse survivors are unreliable witnesses, which has led to epistemic injustice and a hermeneutical lacunae in survivor testimony. However to date there has been limited research on what survivors say about their experiences of participation. The Truth Project was one area of work of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales. It invited survivors of Child Sexual Abuse to share their experiences including the impacts of abuse and their recommendations for change. The Truth Project concluded in 2021 and heard from more than 6,000 victims of child sexual abuse. The evaluation of the Trauma Informed Approach designed to support survivors through their engagement with the project was a mixed methods, two phase methodology. A total of 66 survey responses were received. Follow-up interviews were conducted with seven survey respondents. The Trauma Informed Approach was found to be predominantly helpful in attending to victim needs and minimizing harm. However, a small number of participants reported harmful effects post-session. The positive impacts reported about taking part in the Truth Project as a one-off engagement challenges beliefs that survivors of child sexual abuse cannot safely talk about their experiences. It also provides evidence of the central role survivors should have in designing services for trauma victims. This study contributes to the epistemic justice literature which emphasizes the central role of relational ethics in the politics of knowing, and the importance of developing a testimonial sensibility when listening to marginalized groups.

Acts of contrition: Forgiveness and effective intergroup apologies for historical institutional abuse

This article examines some of the complexities of the apology–forgiveness nexus within the context of intergroup apologies by church and state for historical institutional abuse (HIA). Drawing on primary research conducted in Ireland, North and South, including the voices of a sample of victims/survivors, it argues that effective intergroup apologies for HIA and the extent to which they might elicit forgiveness among victimized communities are impacted by a range of factors including (1) leader apologies and the ‘normative dilution effect’; (2) the lack of emotion and remorse; and (3) in the case of church apologies in particular, the use of religious rhetoric and ritual. The analysis ultimately suggests that while ‘pure’ forgiveness may not be possible in this specific context, effective intergroup apologies for HIA, delivered in a collective, public context, which have the potential to promote forgiveness among victims/survivors, are those which closely approximate the relational dimensions of private, interpersonal apologies. This entails demonstrating emotion; humility; proximity to historical wrongdoing; connectivity with victims/survivors; and the commitment to non-recurrence.

Historical Gendered Institutional Violence: A Research Agenda for Criminologists

This article considers the phenomenon of historical gendered institutional harm, examining the widespread incarceration of women and girls in Ireland through the decades following independence in 1922. In this period, thousands of women and girls were confined in a network of sites including Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes. The article considers the responses to this history, focusing on those fields which concern themselves with matters of “wrongdoing” and “harm,” responses grounded in law and legalism. We explore both the utility and the limits of these approaches before proposing a criminological research agenda which draws on the centrality of the state in the perpetration of gendered violence. Although Ireland has become a by-word as a case of historical institutional abuse internationally, it remains remarkably understudied by criminologists. The article explores how the Irish example can speak to the discipline of criminology by forcing us to reimagine how we conceive of gendered harms and state-perpetrated harms.

From shame to guilt: negotiating moral and legal responsibility within apologies for historical institutional abuse

AbstractThis article explores the role of apology in addressing moral and legal responsibility for historical institutional abuse (HIA). Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, it analyses juridical techniques within official apologies, principally by the Catholic Church, to circumvent legal responsibility for HIA: the use of language, the avoidance of tangible redress, and the preference for offering private apologies. Moving beyond the literature, it highlights a more nuanced range of legal and ideological barriers to sincere apologies: the role of canon law, the role of lawyers, and concerns with multiple audiences. The article argues that traversing the complex moral and legal dimensions of apology entails moving from the general expression of remorse and shaming of the self to the specific acceptance of harm to others and responsibility for repair. It concludes by reflecting on the core elements of ‘remedial responsibility’, new classifications of apologies, and their broader therapeutic value.

Institutions and Ireland: Mother and Baby Homes and Transitional Justice

This article addresses the extent to which historical abuses can be evaluated through the lens of transitional justice. Transitional justice concerns a society’s attempts to address widespread or systemic human rights violations. This article will evaluate the approach taken in Ireland in responding to abuse claims in the context of Mother and Baby Homes and, specifically, the government response to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes in 2021. In its manner of addressing cases of institutional abuse, the Republic of Ireland risks ignoring the best practices adopted through a transitional justice paradigm, and thus missing the opportunity to demonstrate the central significance of institutional abuse to national identity, to a transformed national narrative and to the relationship of Church and State. Finally, this process of addressing the past may neglect to comprehensively acknowledge the rights held and harms experienced by victim-survivors. The Irish government’s response has so far failed to prioritize their voices and preferences as the central feature of how we view and redress historical institutional abuse.

Pathways to Justice: Historical Institutional Child Abuse and the Role of Activist Research

Abstract This article contributes to the theorization of responses to historical institutional child abuse by critically analysing the role and utility of activist research. Drawing upon empirical research with survivors1 who participated in the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI or Hart Inquiry), including 43 in-depth interviews, five workshops and a survey, it shows that the Inquiry disempowered survivors, delimited voice, and fell short in meeting survivors’ justice needs. It further explores how activist research was used as a tool to empower survivors and achieve justice. The article begins with a detailed analysis of activist research principles, methodology and debates. It then uses a case study of the survivor-driven Panel of Experts on Redress to explore how, and to what effect, activist research was used to formulate pathways to justice. The article concludes that activist research has transformative potential. It gave voice to those historically marginalized and silenced, challenged powerful institutions, and brought about change to redress legislation. The amended legislation passed through Westminster in November 2019, significantly improving the Inquiry’s compensation package, thereby benefiting thousands of survivors in Northern Ireland and beyond. The article and findings provide lessons for those seeking to facilitate survivor participation in redress policy development and intervention strategies for historical harms.

Apologies as ‘shame management’: the politics of remorse in the aftermath of historical institutional abuse

AbstractThis paper examines the role of apology as a vehicle for shame management in the aftermath of historical institutional abuse (HIA). It draws on extensive fieldwork in Ireland, North and South, including: archival research on public apologies; focus groups with members of the public and with victims; and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. It focuses on the complexities of apology in managing ‘shame’ and ‘self-blame’ for those constituencies affected by HIA – survivors, apologisers, institutions and wider society. Drawing on the notions of ‘shame’ and ‘shame management’, it proposes an interdependent model in order to better understand the function and meaning of apology in such contexts. In addressing the multi-layered relational dimensions of shame surrounding HIA, apology is presented as a potential means of invoking: (a) truth for victims; (b) accountability of offenders; (c) leadership of institutions; and (d) the re-imagination of national identity. The paper concludes by examining the additional performative aspects of shaming and the emotional expression of remorse in establishing proximity to historical wrongdoing.

Lessons from Transitional Justice? Toward a New Framing of a Victim-Centered Approach in the Case of Historical Institutional Abuse

ABSTRACT The article critically examines transitional justice mechanisms to determine if historical abuse inquiries can learn from this field of practice. The article explores the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry which reported its findings in January 2017 as a vehicle for addressing what lessons might be learned or shared between the fields of transitional justice and investigations into historical abuse. Through a detailed analysis of empirical research with those that gave testimony to the Inquiry, including fourthly-three victims and Inquiry transcripts, the article explores to what extent the Inquiry was victim-centered, enabled victim participation (beyond giving testimony) and addressed victim needs. The article shows that many of the flaws of transitional justice mechanisms have been replicated when dealing with historical child abuse. Drawing on lessons from transitional justice – both positive and negative – the article outlines five broad areas for consideration that could strengthen the victim-centered nature of approaches to dealing with the legacy of historical child abuse. The article concludes that addressing victims’ needs should be at the center and drive approaches and processes for both transitional justice and historical institutional abuse.

Survivors’ lived experiences of posttraumatic growth after institutional childhood abuse: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

BackgroundInstitutional childhood abuse (ICA) represents a chronic and severe form of childhood maltreatment and is associated with a host of adverse outcomes. However, there is some evidence to suggest that survivors can also experience positive psychological change after institutional childhood abuse and neglect. ObjectiveTo examine the lived experiences of posttraumatic growth (PTG) in adult survivors of institutional childhood abuse. Participants and settingNine survivors of historical institutional abuse in Ireland ranging in age from 41 to 75 years (M = 60.5). MethodSemi-structured interviews were conducted to explore survivors’ experiences of positive change after institutional upbringing. Data were analysed in the tradition of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). ResultsThe analysis yielded two superordinate themes. The first major theme, ‘Survivor Identity’ described participant’s subjective understanding of their survivorship through five subthemes. The second major theme, ‘Engendering Growth’ comprised seven subthemes which collectively identified key factors and processes related to positive change and posttraumatic growth after significant early-life maltreatment. ConclusionsFindings underscore the importance of supporting survivors to construct a comprehensive self-narrative that identifies their personal strengths and growthful experiences, whilst also acknowledging the continued distress associated with their unique survivorship trajectory.

State Legal Responses to Historical Institutional Abuse: Shame, Sovereignty and Epistemic Injustice.

The history of the Irish State is littered with shamed bodies. For decades the State collaborated with religious orders in incarcerating children and single women, shamed by their poverty, race, disability, or association with sexual transgression (Fischer Gender, Nation; O’Sullivan and O’Donnell; Smith; Buckley). Shaming practices such as head shaving, using numbers to identify children, or flogging were used to punish and control (Arnold; Coleman 121; Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse [CICA] vol. 1, ch. 8). Women and children in industrial or reformatory schools, psychiatric hospitals, County Homes, and Magdalene Laundries were burdened with a stigmatized identity that meant total exclusion from society (O’Donnell and O’Sullivan 257). As they have begun to speak publicly about their experiences, victim-survivors have forced the State and Irish society to acknowledge this history. Their testimony to experiences of neglect, beatings, forced labor, sexual assault, and imprisonment are an indictment of the sovereign State’s claim to protectits most vulnerable and to detect and punish crime within its territory. In response, the State offers an architecture of apology, investigation, and redress. Scholars have traced patterns of violation of domestic and international norms at the core of this framework (Gallen and Gleeson; O’Rourke, “The Justice for Magdalenes Campaign”; Ring, “The Victim of Historical Abuse”). These legal responses can usefully be analyzed in terms of the key objectives of transitional justice (truth telling; accountability; redress and reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence). However transitional justice and its processes are themselves contingent and capable of oppression. Suppressed and marginalized knowledges may be omitted or excluded in the name of transitional justice (Mamdani; van Marle; Koggel). This article contributes to the literature exploring epistemic injustice in transitional justice processes by scrutinizing the Irish State’s legal responses to historical institutional abuse. In particular, we develop a theory of State shame that describes and explains the ways the Irish State perpetuates epistemic injustices against people who suffered abuse in State institutions. We unpack the relationship between the State’s performance of shame in these legal responses and its need to preserve its sovereignty — its professed singular competence to determine how painful national events are understood and resolved (Dean). We argue that the State uses discourses of its own shame to legitimate legal responses that prioritize its sovereignty over the demands of true shame. We show how this produces significant epistemic injustices in the present against people who suffered institutional abuse as in the past.

State Legal Responses to Historical Institutional Abuse: Shame, Sovereignty, and Epistemic Injustice

State Legal Responses to Historical Institutional Abuse:Shame, Sovereignty, and Epistemic Injustice* Máiréad Enright (bio) and Sinéad Ring (bio) The history of the Irish state is littered with shamed bodies. For decades the state collaborated with religious orders in incarcerating children and single women, who were shamed by authorities for their poverty, race, disability, or association with sexual transgression (Fischer, "Gender"; O'Sullivan and O'Donnell; Smith, Ireland's Magdalen Laundries; Buckley, Cruelty Man; Clough, Shame). Practices such as head shaving, name changing, identifying children by number, and flogging were used to punish and control (Arnold; Coleman 121; Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse [hereafter cited as CICA] vol. 1, ch. 8). Women and children in industrial or reformatory schools, psychiatric hospitals, county homes, and Magdalen laundries were burdened with a stigmatized identity that meant total exclusion from society (O'Sullivan and O'Donnell 257). By beginning to speak publicly about their experiences, victim-survivors have forced the state and Irish society to acknowledge this history. Their testimony of neglect, beatings, forced labor, sexual assault, and imprisonment is an indictment of the sovereign state's claim to protect its most vulnerable and to detect and punish crime within its territory. In response the state offers an architecture of apology, investigation, and redress. Scholars, however, have traced patterns of violation of domestic and international norms at the core of this framework (Gallen and Gleeson; O'Rourke, "Justice for Magdalenes Campaign"; Ring, "Victim of Historical Abuse"). This essay contributes to the literature exploring transitionaljustice processes by scrutinizing the Irish state's responses to historical [End Page 68] institutional abuse.1 Scholars can analyze state actions through the lens of truth-telling, accountability, redress and reparations, and guarantees of nonrecurrence—the key objectives of transitional justice. But such processes are themselves contingent and potentially oppressive, especially where suppressed and marginalized knowledges are omitted or excluded in the name of transitional justice (Mamdani; Van Marle; Koggel). This essay develops a theory of state shame that describes and explains the harms experienced by victimsurvivors of state institutions in their attempts to gain recognition and redress from the state. It demonstrates the relationship between the state's performance of this shame in these legal responses and its need to preserve its sovereignty, and it evaluates its professed singular competence to determine how painful national events are understood and resolved (Dean). We argue that the state uses discourses of its own shame to legitimate these flawed responses. We further show that in its legal responses the state benefits from a series of epistemic injustices against people who suffered institutional abuse in the past. We present our argument in four parts. First, we distinguish between true shame as an ideal type on the one hand and the Irish state's discourse of itself as shamed subject (state shame) on the other. We argue that true shame and state shame are very different modes of engagement with past wrongs. Whereas true shame involves a collapse of the sovereign self, state shame preserves the state from any loss of sovereignty. As we next show, a discourse of state shame has been employed to legitimate narrow legalist strategies such as limited inquiries, adversarial interrogation, adherence to fixed evidentiary standards, and a focus on monetary redress to the exclusion of other aspects of reparation. Examining the state's use of law and legalism to respond to the claims of victim-survivors of institutional child abuse and of the Magdalen laundries, we show how the state produces unitary official histories, monetizes and commodifies [End Page 69] harms raised in victim-survivors' testimony, and preserves old hierarchies of power between state, religious orders, and victim-survivors. In the third section we argue that in their encounters with these legal measures victim-survivors experience epistemic injustice. This term refers to forms of unfair treatment relating to issues of knowledge, understanding, and participation in communicative practices (Kidd et al. 1). Feminist philosopher Miranda Fricker identifies two forms of epistemic injustice, testimonial and hermeneutical, both of which involve wronging someone in their capacity as a knower (Epistemic Justice 1). We suggest that the legal responses to victim-survivors enact a refusal to listen...

Survivors of institutional abuse in long-term child care in Scotland.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) commissioned the research project to document the outcomes of institutional abuse in long-term child care in Scotland. To profile the experiences of survivors abused in long-term child care in Scotland, and to develop a model which linked maltreatment, risk and protective factors, and outcomes. 225 survivors of historical institutional abuse in Scotland, who made witness statements to SCAI. Data were extracted from witness statements using a coding frame developed through a thematic analysis of a subsample of 52 statements. Survivors had been in care in predominantly Catholic and non-religious residential institutions in Scotland for an average of 8 years, having entered at an average age of 6.8 years. They had suffered multiple forms of maltreatment. Maltreatment rates were: physical abuse, 95.6%; emotional abuse, 85.3%; sexual abuse, 60.4%; emotional neglect, 51.1%; and physical neglect, 37.3%. Across the lifespan survivors had negative outcomes in psychosocial adjustment (96%), mental health (84%), and physical health (43%). The effect of maltreatment in care on psychosocial problems was mediated by both risk and protective factors; and on mental health was mediated by risk factors, but not protective factors. Maltreatment in care had a direct effect on physical health which was not mediated by risk or protective factors. The effects of the cumulative number of risk factors on adverse mental health and psychosocial outcomes was greater than that of maltreatment, and protective factors had a limited impact on adverse outcomes. Evidence-based child protection policies and practices should be implemented to prevent institutional abuse and treat child abuse survivors in Scotland.

Both Victim and ‘Perpetrator’: Finding a Voice before Inquiries into Historical Abuse in Out-of-Home Care

Abstract Inquiries into historical institutional abuse have only recently come to be viewed through the lens of transitional justice. This article argues that their distinctive victim-focused approach disguises a reality that institutions in which violence was endemic blurred the line between victims and ‘perpetrators.’ Earlier inquiries often blamed residents for the prevalence of institutional violence, avoiding accusations that authorities had failed. Contemporary inquiries, intent on exposing institutional failures, draw a dichotomy between victims and perpetrators, but this makes it difficult for a victim/‘perpetrator’ to find a space in which to speak. This article explores the ways in which such people shape their understandings of their dual identity and the challenges which they pose to the unity of survivor advocacy groups in the shift from inquiry to redress. It argues that the existence of victim/‘perpetrator’ should be seen as evidence of institutional failure rather than an indication of individual culpability.

Residential child care workers: Relationship based practice in a culture of fear

AbstractIn a contemporary context dominated by reports of the historical institutional abuse of children and young people in residential children's homes, and where the voice of workers is largely absent, this study explores the views and experiences of 26 workers in the Republic of Ireland regarding relationship‐based practice. Using an exploratory, qualitative approach and informed by ‘appreciative inquiry’; semi‐structured interviews were undertaken with 26 residential care workers. The findings highlight that relationship‐based practice has not been fully understood and/or embraced in practice because of a culture of fear that has permeated the Irish residential childcare system. Using theoretical concepts associated with the sociology of fear, the paper explores their effects on practice and argues that these are amplified given the current low status of residential care workers, the impact of media reports and the influence of current discourses around professional practice in which ‘objective’ and ‘emotionally detached’ practice is viewed as synonymous with efficiency and effectiveness. The paper ends by considering implications for professional practice in residential childcare settings.

An inconvenient truth: barriers to truth recovery in the aftermath of institutional child abuse in Ireland

Contemporary settled democracies, including the USA, England and Wales and Ireland, have witnessed a string of high-profile cases of institutional child abuse in both Church and State settings. Set against the broader literature on transitional justice, this analysis argues that there are significant barriers to truth recovery within the particular context of historical institutional abuse by the clergy in the Republic of Ireland. In the main, it argues that the frameworks of the inquiries and commissions into historical institutional child abuse are not conducive to truth recovery or the search for justice in dealing with the legacy of an abusive past. It is the Church–State relationship which makes the Irish situation noteworthy and unique. The Catholic Church and child care institutions are especially self-protective, secretive and closed by nature, and strongly discourage the drawing of attention to any deficiencies in organisational procedures. The nature of the public inquiry process also means that there is often a rather linear focus on accountability and apportioning blame. Collectively, such difficulties inhibit fuller systemic investigation of the veracity of what actually happened and, in turn, meaningful modification of child care policies. The paper concludes by offering some thoughts on the implications for transitional justice discourses more broadly as well as the residual issues for Ireland and other settled democracies in terms of moving on from the legacy of institutional child abuse.