By Emily Gibson, Russell Knight, Annie Durham and Imran Choudhury

The Inquiry has heard that LGBTQ+ children face specific challenges that make them vulnerable to child sexual abuse. We also heard that LGBTQ+ victims and survivors can face barriers which make it difficult to disclose child sexual abuse, access support and form adult relationships. Society’s views of LGBTQ+ victims and survivors are often built on harmful myths and stereotypes. Although social and political attitudes have improved, we live in a heteronormative and cisnormative culture, with a deeply homophobic history. We heard that many people, including professionals, continue to believe and act on harmful myths and stereotypes about LGBTQ+ victims and survivors. For example: ● Some victims and survivors were told that their gender identity or sexual orientation resulted from the child sexual abuse they experienced, which severely damaged their self-identity and mental health. ● Some victims and survivors were told that they were sexually abused because of their sexual orientation or gender identity (‘you brought it on yourself’), including vulnerable LGBTQ+ children using online spaces to explore their sexuality. ● We also heard the myth that ‘people who have been abused go on to abuse’ can stop both gay and straight men from reporting or disclosing having been sexually abused because they fear being thought of as ‘paedophiles’. LGBTQ+ victims and survivors experience distinct barriers to disclosing and reporting child sexual abuse. We heard that because LGBTQ+ people are seen as ‘different’ from the norm, it can be more difficult to disclose and report child sexual abuse, which has led to under-reporting of child sexual abuse by LGBTQ+ victims and survivors.

London: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, 2022, 53p.

By HM Government (UK)

The publication of the Rape Review in 2021 demonstrated a commitment to improving the Criminal Justice System process for victims, and to more than double the number of adult rape cases reaching court by the end of Parliament. Now, two years after its publication, we are making strong progress towards the Rape Review’s ambition to return volumes of cases being referred by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS); charged by the CPS; and going to court, to at least 2016 levels. The data shows us that 2016 marked a key point in time where the system faltered: well-documented issues regarding the disclosure of evidence combined with strained relationships between criminal justice agencies, inconsistent support for victims, and ultimately a decline in the number of charges and prosecutions for rape cases. We have made clear our intention to continue reversing these trends. Having delivered on the vast majority of milestones set out by our Action Plan’s eight levers, we are pleased to report that we have already met two of our ambitions and remain well on-track to meet the one that remains, with a strong upward trajectory. Whilst we know that there is much more to do, this shows that our Action Plan is working.

London: HM Government, 2023. 40p.

By Richard Wortley And Stephen Smallbone

From the foreword by Graeme Newman: “…We see from the authors' outstanding review of who the offenders and victims are and how they are connected through the Internet and other technologies that Internet child pornography is the quintessential global crime, bringing with it the increasingly familiar problems of policing-crimes defined differently across multiple countries and jurisdictions, the labyrinthine and decentralized nature of the Internet, the capability to transmit images across borders around the world instantaneously, and the availability of smartphones and other mobile devices to children and those who would exploit them. They remind us that at the shocking end of the continuum of child pornography, it is essentially local because the actual, original production of child pornographic images most often results from contact sexual abuse by adults with close familial or social relationships to the children. It is the international distribution and con- sumption of images that convert the local crimes into global ones…”

NY. Praeger. 2012. 165p.

Edited by Gillian Abel, Lisa Fitzgerald and Catherine Healy

New Zealand was the first country in the world to decriminalise all sectors of sex work. Previous criminal or civil laws governing sex work and related offences were revoked in 2003 and sex workers became subject to the same controls and regulations as any other occupational group. This book provides an in-depth look at New Zealand's experience of decriminalisation. It provides first hand views and experience on this policy from the point of view of those involved in the sex industry, as well as people involved in developing, implementing, researching and reviewing the policies. Valuable comparisons pre- and post-decriminalisation are made, based on research in the sex industry prior to decriminalisation. Presenting an example of radical legal reform in an area of current policy debate this book will be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates in criminal justice, political science, sociology, gender studies and social policy as well as policy makers and activists.

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2010. 280p.

By Philip M Stinson, Zachary J. Calogeras, Natalie L. DiChiro, and Ryan K. Hunter

This report was prepared at the request of the California Research Bureau. The data are from a larger study on police crime in the United States. Police crimes are those crimes committed by sworn law enforcement officers given the general powers of arrest at the time the offense was committed and/or at the time when the officer was arrested. These crimes can occur while the officer is on- or off-duty and include offenses committed by state, county, municipal, tribal, or special law enforcement agencies. Police crimes damage the occupational integrity of police officers, the organizational legitimacy of the employing law enforcement agency, and the overall authority and legitimacy of the law enforcement community. According to Stinson’s (2009) typology of police crime, nearly all crime committed by sworn law enforcement officers is alcohol-related, drug-related, sex-related, violence-related, and/or profit-motivated. This report focuses on the sex-related police crime arrests of sworn law enforcement officers in the State of California during the years 2005-2011.

Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University, 2015. 25p.

By Hannah Ford

Until recently, the topic of female sexual offenders remained under-researched, and many incorrect assumptions and beliefs still surround the subject. This book is organised into five parts around eleven chapters. It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research in this often overlooked area and discusses both adult female offenders and adolescents/younger children who commit sexual offences against children. After an in-depth evaluation of research literature, the author then considers a range of treatment approaches and directions for future research.

Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. 204p.