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11 July 2010: Dr Jackie Turton's work features at British Society of Criminology Conference 2010
Dr Jackie Turton's research featured in two papers given at the British Society of Criminology Conference 2010 held at the University of Leicester on July 11-14.
The first paper entitled "Female sexual abusers: a cultural analysis of denial" (co-authored with Dr Daniel Nehring (University of Middlesex) makes a contribution to current debates on professional responses to child sexual abuse. The sexual abuse of children is commonly a male crime, and the majority of the victims are female. However, the research behind this paper involved an investigation of female perpetrators. It highlights ways in which their abusive behaviours can be denied or minimised by professionals who deal with the prevention, detection, prosecution, and treatment of child sexual abuse.
While taking into account psychological research, this analysis is mainly motivated by debates in the sociology of sexualities and interactionist approaches. It indicates a range of gendered assumptions about child sexual abuse, which may entail the denial or minimisation of female perpetrators' acts. The denial was achieved through recourse to a range of culturally fixed, stock narratives on female sexuality, gender difference, and childhood.
The second paper entitled "Betrayal of trust: children's rights and the victims of maternal incest" discusses how the sexual abuse of children has traditionally been viewed as a male crime. Children have few, if any strategies of coping with sexual abuse and such a betrayal of trust may well affect their relationships with all adults, particularly if the perpetrator is a familiar figure. The difficulties are exacerbated for child victims when the offender is female and even more so in cases of maternal incest.
The paper considers the problems victims of maternal incest have disclosing their abuse and reflects on the dilemmas these children face when considering who to trust. I argue that while a children's rights agenda may be incorporated into UK legislation there are two key problems for victims of maternal incest: (i) the mother figure is so pivotal that the victims minimise their abuse to maintain the maternal attachment; (ii) there are difficulties in offering a discursive space for these stories to be heard.
In addition her book "Child Abuse, Gender and Society" has just been published in paperback by Routledge as a follow-up to the earlier hard-back edition. Publishing academic monographs in paper-back is incredibly rare and reflects the popularity of Jackie's work.