A national survey of 1000 parents concerning disciplinary practices and violence included questions about whether the children had been sexually abused, to assess the feasibility of epidemiological research on contemporaneous sexual abuse using parental interviews rather than the usual adult retrospective approach. Results indicated rates of…

This commentary discusses the decline in sexual abuse, citing research that indicates differences in self-reported sexual abuse across age-cohorts in a population-based sample of Australian adults. Similar declines in Ireland and the United States are also noted. The usefulness of self-report surveys for examining trends in child victimization is…

This article suggest three broad categories of improvements to 13 data systems on juvenile victimization: (1) systems could expand to include more jurisdictions or other population segments; (2) systems need to create more specific data items; and (3) systems need to be modified to provide continuity and interrelationships among systems. (Contains…

Reviews current knowledge of the most frequently asked questions about child sexual abuse, in areas such as its prevalence and trends, and what populations are at risk. Data presented from 19 adult retrospective surveys show that the incidence of reported child sexual abuse is rising, that less than one-third of the cases were committed by…