NCJ Number
177687
Date Published
1998
Length
254 pages
Annotation
This volume uses a restorative justice framework to examine the impacts of child sexual abuse and other sexual abuse and to explain caring ways to confront and support offenders while demonstrating understanding toward victims, with emphasis on the roles of the criminal justice system, child protective services, and religious institutions.
Abstract
The book is intended as a resource for people who are addressing the issue of sexual abuse, whether personally, in their family or extended family, or in the church and community. The text begins with personal accounts of men and women who have survived sexual abuse to examine the nature and psychological impacts of sexual abuse. Additional chapters focus on the causes and effects of sexual abuse; the role and application of restorative justice in respecting and protecting the rights of victims, offenders, and other affected; and issues involved when a clergy member or church leader commits sexual abuse. Further chapters discuss ways individual victims and offenders have found healing and recovery, the meaning of forgiveness, ways in which a caring church works with those in the community who have sexually offended, the use of dialogues between victims and offenders, and future possibilities for confronting sexual abuse. The author has been a coordinator with the Sexual Abuse Treatment Program of Community Justice Initiatives in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, since 1982. Figures, chapter reference notes, appended sample forms and description of a pilot community reintegration project in Ontario, Canada, and 49 references