Impact of Perpetrator Characteristics on Child Sexual Abuse Substantiation Decisions

Background and Significance:

Attachment theory provides a parsimonious framework to consider abuse within the context of developmental stages of preverbal children.  Caregivers must be responsive, nurturing, consistent, and protect the child from harm in order to facilitate the development of healthy attachment and socio-emotional functioning.  Deviance from this model of interaction, such as experiencing childhood sexual abuse, can corrupt the relationship template and negatively affect future relationships. 

Treatments have been found to successfully moderate the negative impact of early childhood sexual abuse.  However, research has identified children are more likely to receive treatment for reported sexual abuse if the case is substantiated. Subsequently, sexually abused children without substantiated cases are prone to exclusion from treatment opportunities.  This makes it imperative that there is a thorough investigation of potential predictive variables of the decision to substantiate. 

            A gap exists in the knowledge where characteristics of the perpetrator are considered in relation to the decision to substantiate sexual abuse of preverbal children. Juvenile offenders account for about ¼ of all child sexual abuse, while adult offenders account for the majority (77%) of investigated perpetrators.  This disparity between prevalence rates suggests an optimal offender characteristic to examine in relation to substantiation decisions.

Methods:

In this study the age of the perpetrator (adult over 18 yrs., adolescent 13-17 yrs.) was examined as the independent variable and substantiation (yes or no) as the dependent variable.  The study sampled 182 children’s records less than 3 years old referred to a Tennessee urban metropolitan agency for forensic sexual abuse examinations from 1999-2007. A subset of this sample (58) containing the offender’s age for adults (48) and adolescents (10) was utilized to complete the analysis.  The Fisher’s exact test analysis was utilized to answer the question “Are investigations that involve alleged adolescent sexual offenders equally likely to be substantiated as cases that involve alleged adult sexual offenders”?

Results:

            Results suggest a relationship exists between the age of the offender and the likelihood of substantiation for abuse.  Specifically, Fisher’s exact test indicated a statistically significant difference in the percentage of adolescents (70.0%) and adults (22.9%) who were substantiated cases (p = .007). The relative risk of substantiation was more than three times higher (3.06) for adolescents, and the odds of substantiation were 7.85 (95% CI = 1.73 to 35.55) times higher for adolescents.

Conclusion and Practice Implications:

            The age of the perpetrator directly impacts the likelihood that a reported sexually abused preverbal child will have a case substantiated.  The disproportionate number of adults reported as offenders on cases not substantiated for abuse needs further investigation to determine what factors are influencing this decision.  Without a clear voice to defend themselves, infants and toddlers need additional consideration in sexual abuse substantiation research and abuse allegation investigations in an effort to improve substantiation rates, treatment access, and quality of life outcomes for children.