NCJ Number
122669
Journal
Behavioral Sciences and the Law Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: (Spring 1988) Pages: complete issue
Editor(s)
R Rogers,
R M Wettstein
Date Published
1988
Length
127 pages
Annotation
Incest or intrafamilial sexual abuse represents a multidimensional problem from a social, legal, and mental health perspective.
Abstract
Incest is distinguishable from other forms of sexual assault and child molestation. The nature of the victim offender relationship and the repetitiveness of abuse that occurs with the same child makes incest more of a phenomenon than a clinical concept. The majority of cases involve father-daughter incest with coerciveness ranging from simple requests to brutal attacks. This issue contains six papers and a study which focuses on legalities of intrafamilial child abuse and the role of mental health workers, children's allegations of sexual abuse, guidelines for evaluating credibility of allegations, pressure on incest victims to report or not to report abuse, and intervention theories. Treatment for incest offenders, difference between incest and other types of molestations and their treatment response and recidivism, clinical interventions, and prediction factors among child molesters are also discussed.