Remember the collateral damage for every sex abuse charge
Our revulsion must be tempered by the understanding that there are many victims of crimes, says Greg Barns
WHEN we think of victims of sexual abuse we hear and read the voices of those on whom the crimes were inflicted. Last week it was the voice of Grace Tame, now Australian of the Year. Theirs is a powerful voice these days, in main part due to the recent Royal Commission that examined institutional sexual abuse, media and community discourse.
But, unlike some other forms of criminal activity, when it comes to sexual abuse there is a complexity in that victims can and do become perpetrators. Then there is the fact that, because of the level of public hostility and vengeance that is directed at perpetrators of sexual abuse, those who are associated with them are also victims. This complexity needs to be recognised and grappled with by our community if we are to work on prevention and healing. Traditional punitive approaches that divide the world into perpetrator and victim, forgetting that one is sometimes the other, and which neglects the broader damage caused to individuals who are impacted by the vengeance and hostility referred to above, will only serve the negative aims of alienation and suffering for all involved.
Like all of us, those who commit sexual abuse offences have relatives, friends and colleagues. And when the (alleged) perpetrator is charged and convicted of sexual abuse offences, there is serious collateral damage to those who are closely associated with them, particularly family members.
The family member of a person jailed for sex offences describes it in these terms, “How to walk around the supermarket without seeing a newspaper. Whether you need to visit your brother or sister today to check if they have tried again to take their own life. The fact that every part of your life has been completely decimated. Through no fault or action of your own. This is a picture of the victim society forgot.” Powerful and accurate. A 2009 study published in the American Journal of Criminal Justice which surveyed family members of those on public sex offender registers found they “were more likely to experience threats and harassment” by neighbours and that the children of offenders “experienced adverse consequences including stigmatisation and differential treatment by teachers and classmates. More than half had experienced ridicule, teasing, depression, anxiety, fear, or anger.”
As a lawyer this columnist has worked with families and friends of individuals who have committed sex offences where the case has received media and community attention. These are human beings who feel they are being punished for the acts of their brother, father or partner. They are deserving of our support and all too often they feel the hatred that our community directs towards a perpetrator. If we are to change the conversation about sexual abuse then recognising the fallout victims and supporting them is critical.
It is, as we have noted, an unusual crime in that the
person who abuses the child sexually is sometimes themselves a victim of childhood abuse, including sexual abuse. A word of caution here. There is some controversy over the linkage between being abused as a child and becoming an abuser as an adult, but it is fair to say there is some correlation albeit the level varies in the academic and research literature. But importantly, as US legal academic Guy Hamilton Smith, himself a victim of child sexual abuse which triggered adult offending (in his case, downloading child pornography images), has noted, we ignore this background when we cast out of our society the person we label “sex offender”.
In other words, when we rightly talk of giving support to victims of childhood sexual abuse we exclude those victims who have become offenders, even though it can be said that the impact of the childhood abuse on them has been so horrific it has been a factor in why they committed similar offences as an adult. Again, let’s reflect. Should we not hear the stories and the narratives of adult sex offenders who have been abused as children? Or do we, in a simplistic and reductionist way, simply see them as outcasts because they have expunged sympathy by going to the dark side?
It is right for our society to be horrified collectively and individually by sexual abuse of children. But we need to see there is nuance and complexity in this fraught and emotive issue. Our revulsion must be tempered by understanding that there are many victims, direct and indirect, of such crimes. The child who is abused and the families and friends of the abuser are all impacted terribly by this crime. The abuser’s own story is one to reflect upon given that the origins of the offending lie generally in a narrative characterised by emotional and physical neglect and sometimes abuse.
Shaming, ostracising and blaming are natural human responses to child sexual abuse. It is moving beyond those instincts that is the challenge for all of us.