Situational Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse (Crime Prevention Studies, Vol. 19)

A new approach to understanding and preventing the sexual abuse of children is described in this book, whose contributing authors include leading criminologists as well as researchers on sex offending. Their findings demonstrate that sex crimes against children are strongly influenced by opportunities to commit crimes and other immediate environmental conditions. By analyzing the environmental or "situational" contexts of offending, the authors develop many new insights into effective methods of preventing child sexual abuse. The "situational" approach to crime prevention has in recent years proven successful in reducing many types of crimes, such as burglary and car theft. However, this volume represents the first attempt to systematically apply situational crime prevention methods to crimes of child sexual abuse. The chapter topics are: -- Applying situational principles to sexual offenses against children. -- A clinical perspective on situational and dispositional factors in child molestation. -- Legislation, prevention and investigation of child sex abuse. -- An empirically based situational prevention model for child sex abuse. -- Convergence settings (meeting places) for youths and non-predatory "boy lovers." -- The Internet and abuse images of children. -- Situational prevention of crimes by intellectually disabled child sex offenders. -- Approach and avoidance goals in the treatment of sex offenders. -- Strategies adopted by offenders to involve children in sexual activity.