Yorick Smaal, Andy Kaladelfos, and Mark Finnane (eds.), Child sexual abuse: Redress and recognition
| Author | Vicky Nagy |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865818779825 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Review
Yorick Smaal, Andy Kaladelfos, and Mark Finnane (eds.), Child sexual abuse: Redress and
recognition, Monash University Press: Clayton, 2016; 224 pp. ISBN 9781876924171,
$39.95 (pbk).
Reviewed by: Vicky Nagy, Deakin University, Australia
In November 2012, the then-Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, announced the
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The road to this
inquiry was a long one for survivors who had been victimised while under the care
of clergy, other religious and secular authorities, and had then fought for decades to
be recognised as victims of sexual abuse. After handling over 42,000 calls, 8000 private
sessions and referring 2575 cases to the police, the findings were handed down in late
2017. Into this environment of finally beginning to pull back the cover on child sexual
abuse within Australia comes the publication of The Sexual Abuse of Children:
Recognition and Redress edited by Yorick Smaal, Andy Kaladelfos and Mark
Finnane. This is the necessary, accessible to the wider audience, book that Australia
deserves. Divided into three parts, this collection presents research from leading
Australian and international experts in child sexual abuse perpetration, victimisation
and investigation. Each of these three parts explores the core question posed on the back
cover: How can we seek justice and redress for the sexual abuse of children and better
prevent its occurrence? The first part focuses on a collection of chapters about the
histories of child sexual abuse in Australia from the colonies of Australia through to
today; part two considers recognition of and response to abuse within Australia as well
as abroad; finally, the last five chapters discuss justice and redress. The chapters
throughout the collection explore the various legal and informal responses to child
sexual abuse in institutional and non-institutional settings not only from Australia,
but also drawing upon case studies from the United States, United Kingdom,
New Zealand and Canada.
The collection opens with a chapter by Finnane and Smaal outlining how child sexual
abuse was historically prosecuted and punished in Australia. Although there has been
silence about the sexual exploitation for children for a very long time, the criminal
justice system and media were aware of these crimes; Finnane and Smaal estimate
there were possibly 15,000 prosecutions for child sexual abuse related crimes in
Australia in the first half of the 20th-century. In a similar vein, Andy Kaladelfos and
Lisa Featherstone explore in chapter 2 the argument that discussions of child sexual
abuse were never invisible in Australia: in the courts, parliament and in the community,
Australian & New Zealand Journal of
Criminology
2019, Vol. 52(2) 311–313
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865818779825
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