Book Reviews : ANNE ELSE, A Question of Adoption. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books, 1991, xiii + 241 pp
| Author | Judith Modell |
| Published date | 01 March 1993 |
| Date | 01 March 1993 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399300200111 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
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Chtld Victims examines how children attain the status of ’victims’ in the criminal justice
system. It scrutinizes the successive stages in the legal process from the initial reporting of
the offence to the investigation and the subsequent adjudication. In child abuse contexts,
there is a specialist system which attends to the child’s needs, especially if the possible
abuse is sexual, but children who are victims of other crimes are thrust into an adult system
which is less benign.
It is a very stimulating study which reminds us of the complexities of the child protec-
tion and criminal justice systems and highlights important lacunae in our knowledge. The
most
salient gap is the move from victim to perpetrator. Children are still more likely to be
thought of as potential offenders than as victims of crime but, presumably, many are both.
Some children who lose their Mars Bars to the school bully will later turn to theft them-
selves. Similarly, the victim of physical abuse or violent assault may later become the ag-
gressor and we know that sexually abused children can become abusers. This change in
behaviour, which radically transforms societal views of the child’s status and situation, is a
grey area about which we know little but which will, potentially, yield much information
of value to both criminologists and child abuse researchers. Chald Victims is a valuable link
between these two fields and contributes to our understanding of both.
MICHAEL LITTLE
Dartington Social Research Unit, UK
ANNE ELSE, A Question of Adoption. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books,
1991, xiii + 241 pp.
Anne Else has written a good, solid study of adoption in New Zealand from 1944 through
1974 (with a coda on the 1985 Adult Adoption Information Act). The book is readable,
informative and moving. It also has several weaknesses. In portraying the history of
’fictive kinship’ in her country, Else too cautiously removes herself from the picture; her
viewpoint is not...
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