Disentangling practitioners’ understandings of child sexual exploitation: The risks of assuming otherwise?
| Author | Samantha Weston,Gabe Mythen |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1748895821993525 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895821993525
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2022, Vol. 22(4) 618 –635
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895821993525
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Disentangling practitioners’
understandings of child sexual
exploitation: The risks of
assuming otherwise?
Samantha Weston
Keele University, UK
Gabe Mythen
University of Liverpool, UK
Abstract
This article reports findings from a qualitative study investigating the efficacy and the effects of a child
sexual exploitation awareness raising intervention with young people. Drawing on in-depth interviews
with members of a multi-agency team set up to prevent child sexual exploitation, we elucidate the way
in which practitioners communicate the problem of child sexual exploitation and how risk registers
are deployed to assess the dangerousness of young people’s behaviours. In examining practitioners’
understandings of child sexual exploitation, we illuminate the ways in which educative interventions in
this domain are informed by a confluence of policy guidelines and personal/experiential perceptions.
Unravelling the tensions arising between these two frames of interpretation, we illustrate that – despite
routine recourse to embedded professional knowledge – underlying moral and cultural assumptions
alongside anxieties about childhood sexuality influence practitioners’ understandings of the nature of
risk, who is at risk and the context in which risks manifest themselves.
Keywords
Child sexual exploitation, childhood sexuality, police interventions, risk prevention, young people
Introduction
While decisions within the criminal justice system about the identification and prediction of
‘risk’ are often informed by a combination of clinical and actuarial methods, the suggestion
that such assessments are based entirely on these methods is erroneous (Kemshall, 2011;
Corresponding author:
Samantha Weston, Keele University, Keele, Newcastle ST5 5BG, UK.
Email: s.k.weston@keele.ac.uk
993525CRJ0010.1177/1748895821993525Criminology & Criminal JusticeWeston and Mythen
research-article2021
Article
Weston and Mythen 619
O’Malley, 2004). As Walklate and Mythen (2011) assert, relying on such ‘objective’ meth-
ods alone denies the ‘lived reality of risk assessment practices, in other words what it is that
criminal justice professionals actually do: how they judge risk’ (p. 104). Echoing this obser-
vation, within the context of parole decision-making and border security, studies have shown
that actuarial information can be rendered secondary to both accumulated vocational exper-
tise and moral judgement (Degenhardt and Bourne, 2018; Werth, 2017). Similarly, in iden-
tifying partner violence, the use of intuitive experiential knowledge has been advocated by
caveat in the guidance attached to the use of risk assessment tools: ‘please pay particular
attention to a practitioner’s professional judgement in all cases. The results from the check-
list are not a definitive assessment of risk’ (CAADA: 1, cited by Walklate and Mythen, 2011:
107). Within such contexts, it is tacitly acknowledged that ‘knowing otherwise’ often sup-
plements – and sometimes supplants – the use of professional risk registers and, further, that
tacit knowledge may enable a more considered appreciation of the everyday experiences of
marginalised individuals (Walklate and Mythen, 2011). Drawing on data from a situated
empirical study, we illumine below the ways in which the use of experiential knowledge and
moral values among practitioners may lead to inconsistencies in identifying who is ‘at risk’,
from whom and under what circumstances.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of a multi-agency team – co-located
within a police headquarters and established to prevent child sexual exploitation (CSE) –
this article examines the ways in which practitioners both professionally and experientially
construct understandings of risk and subsequently attribute these risks to young people. We
illustrate that, while practitioners are able to articulate very clearly their formal understand-
ings of CSE through the lens of policy and guidance, they nevertheless frequently construct
the risks associated with CSE through informal means with reference to personal experi-
ences and pre-conceived notions of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. The (dis)
articulation of these competing frameworks of ‘knowledge’ means that decisions about
who is at ‘risk’ become based on a series of unknowns and uncertainties that are translated
into tangible causes for suspicion. Importantly, what is palpably absent in this operational
context is young people’s capacity for both responsibility and agency. Furthermore, we
posit that negating young people’s exploration of alternative sexual experiences that may
not align with dominant normative frameworks can lead to the reproduction of false ‘red
flags’ that obscure rather than expose vulnerability to exploitation.
We begin by situating the study within the context of broader CSE policy developments,
before outlining our methodological approach. From here, we present the data substantiat-
ing the assertions made above. We conclude by rendering explicit the wider implications of
our findings for professionals interfacing with young people in child protection. In toto, we
assert that in order to address the problem of CSE, there is a palpable need for practitioners
to be afforded spaces to reflect on the constituents of their own frames of understanding
and also how these understandings are translated into and impact in practice.
Context and methods: Situating the study
Following the charges brought against organised ‘gang’ members targeting girls and
young women in Rochdale, Derby and Oxford, CSE has been subject to significant
national media attention in recent years. These cases prompted widespread political and
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