Evaluates a children's safety program, "Kidscape," that aims to increase primary school children's ability to deal with four types of potentially unsafe situations: being bullied, being approached by a stranger, being subject to inappropriate intimacy from a known adult, and being subject to pressure from such adults to keep such…

Analyzes the challenges, pressures, and uncertainties facing the public child protection systems with recommendations for strengthening child protective services agencies and expanding prevention and treatment resources. Articles in this special issue place typical agency practices in a historical context as they consider dimensions of the child…

Describes a complex court case involving a Massachusetts elementary teacher whose contract was not renewed because she was cohabiting with a suspected (but eventually exonerated) child abuser. School officials should resist the knee-jerk reaction to terminate a teacher's contract on the grounds of narrow, homogeneous community values regarding…

Used longitudinal data from 307 mothers of firstborn infants participating in a home-visitation, child abuse prevention program in a retrospective pretest methodology. Results shows that when response shift bias was present, the retrospective pretest methodology produced a more legitimate assessment of program outcomes than did the traditional…

This study examined the sexual victimization of 309 female students in Germany. The results indicate that the majority of the subjects have been victims of minor offenses and that a minority of subjects was severely victimized. As to the relation of victim and perpetrator, the milder offenses are more likely to be committed by strangers. In…

A community sample of 610 adults were grouped into those who reported no sexual abuse experience, others who reported noncoercive sexual contact with an individual that was at most 4 years older, and those who reported more severe sexual abuse. The first two groups did not differ from each other on current social support, trauma-specific…

During the past 20 years, the development of brain imaging techniques and new biochemical approaches has led to increased understanding of the biological effects of psychological trauma. New hypotheses have been generated about brain development and the roots of antisocial behavior. We now understand that psychological trauma disrupts homeostasis…

This paper examines twentieth century social constructions of child prostitutes and child prostitution, the origins of these representations and the extent to which they have been used as metaphors for other perceived social, economic and political problems. It is important to recognise that these children have been sexually abused and that…

This paper provides the results of two studies designed to evaluate a newly constructed self-report instrument, the Sexual Abuse Questionnaire (SAQ). The SAQ was designed as a brief screening device to aid in the identification of a childhood sexual abuse history. A "unique" feature of the SAQ is the inclusion of a number of non-face…

Juxtaposing scholarly studies of flogging and anti-flogging treatises with a study of educational reform in eighteenth century Europe, I offer a conceptual montage in which the discursive formation of the "child" becomes splintered, disclosing, I suggest, degraded forms of desire in adult fears of caretakers' seduction of children.…

Sexual coping, general coping and cognitive distortions were investigated in 25 rapists, 36 child molesters and 25 violent offenders. Rapists did not report more support for rape-supportive distortions than the violent offender comparison group. Child molesters scored higher than the other groups on the measure of molestation-supportive…

The Association for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) is committed to ensuring that decisions about children's lives are made on sound information and that state leaders and the public are fully informed. It is the public debate that has kept reform moving forward and will be necessary to ensure success. ACNJ believes that it is critically important…

The current review focuses on the construct of psychopathy, conceptualized as a clinical entity that is fundamentally distinct from a heterogeneous collection of syndromes encompassed by the term "conduct disorder". We will provide an account of the development of psychopathy at multiple levels: ultimate causal (the genetic or social primary…

This article presents an analysis of the factors shaping implementation of the Children Act (2004). Specific attention is given to examining the reoccurring themes and debates generated through a number of child abuse inquiries. A connection is made between these themes and debates and the emergence of the "Every Child Matters" agenda.…

Evidence that childhood maltreatment is associated with emotional and behavioral problems throughout childhood suggests that maltreatment could lead to impaired academic performance in middle and high school. This article explores these effects using data on siblings. An index measure of the intensity of childhood maltreatment was included as a…