|
New
Zealand Law Journal
September 2003
ISSN 0028-8373
Criminal Practice
Christchurch
Crèche Case: an author possessed?
Emma Davies and Jeffrey Masson question the psychological research in A City
Possessed
Lynley Hood's book A City Possessed appears to have inspired a petition, a
$100,000 reward for information and a paid advertisement of excerpts from
interviews of child complainants (Sunday Star-Times, 8 August 2003). Unlike
some of the petitioners, we cannot comment on the guilt or innocence of Peter
Ellis, but if the research of the first three chapters of Lynley Hood's book
is anything to go by, one should be cautious about the neutrality of her
analysis. Weaving a story and selecting facts to fit the story is not the
same as carefully documenting the history of events.
Hood describes herself, over and over, as objective. She promises to write (p
31) "as fairly, accurately and sensitively" as she can. She claims
(p 32) that she "steered a steady course through the shoals and tempests
of the controversy, illuminating the context along the way providing a
balanced picture of the apparently conflicting, but presumably equally valid,
points of view". She declares that she especially does not want to
"oversimplify the world around us".
Our comments relate to the first three chapters of her book, the theoretical
foundation for her later statements. , These chapters are devoted to
explaining the issues around child abuse. Hood writes (p 34): "At the
core of these arguments are questions that must be addressed: Just how
widespread is child sexual abuse, and just how serious are the consequences?
(Or, to put it another way: what exactly does the research say, and what
exactly does it mean?)". We agree. These questions are crucial.
She asks: "Is the true prevalence of child sexual abuse higher than one
in four, lower than one in 1,000 or somewhere between?... Clearly the only
answer is: we don't know (italics in original)." But in 1994, Professor
David Finkelhor published a review of prevalence studies with large samples
in 19 countries, including New
Zealand ("The international
epidemiology of child sexual abuse", (1994) 18 Child Abuse & Neglect
409). He found that the variability was between seven and 36 per cent for
women and three and 29 per cent for men.
In the 1990s, two New
Zealand prevalence studies were published
in peer reviewed scientific journals. In a University of Otago study by
Jessie Anderson and colleagues, 32 per cent of a random sample of 3000 adult
women (up to 65 years old) stated they had unwanted sexual experiences before
they turned 16 ("Prevalence of childhood sexual abuse experiences in a
community sample of women", [1993] Jo of American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry 911). Twenty per cent reported unwanted touching of
their genitals, or attempted or completed sexual intercourse.
Professor David Fergusson and colleagues' research on a birth cohort of 1,019
18-year-olds in the Christchurch urban area found that 17.3 per cent of girls
disclosed unwanted sexual experiences prior to sixteen with 12.6 per cent
reporting genital stimulation and 5.6 per cent vaginal, oral or anal
intercourse ("Childhood sexual abuse and psychiatric disorder in young
adulthood", [1996] JAACAP 1355). Fergusson and his colleagues describe
their data as a "lower level estimate", explaining "it may be
that the estimates in this study were influenced by underreporting and it may
be that, at age 18 years, a number of those exposed to abuse may not have
been emotionally ready to disclose CSA [child sexual abuse]". Despite
this, one in 20 young women described attempted or completed vaginal, oral or
anal intercourse.
Two years before the publication of A City Possessed, David Fergusson and Paul
Mullen published an evidence- based review of childhood sexual abuse research
(Childhood Sexual Abuse - An Evidence Based Perspective 1999. Thousand Oaks: Sage
Publications p 28). They concluded that despite methodological limitations of
individual studies, "exposure to some form of unwanted sexual attention
during childhood is all too common.... The majority of studies suggesting
prevalence [for females] somewhere in the interval between 15% and 30%...with
most estimates for males lying within the interval between 3% to 15%. Of
perhaps greater concern is the number of children who report being exposed to
acts of sexual abuse that involve sexual penetration. The estimates suggest
that up to 13 % of females and 11.3% of males may report abuse of this severity,
with the majority of studies reporting prevalence figures in the range of 5%
to 10%".
Data from incidence studies (commonly the number of reported cases in a set
period of time) are not directly comparable to these prevalence surveys
(commonly the proportion of population recalling abuse over their lifetime).
They each offer different lenses on the extent of child sexual abuse. Hood
chooses not to clarify the distinction, highlighting whichever produces the
lower number. She selectively emphasises the 1981 American National Study of
Incidence and Severity of Child Abuse and Neglect (p 69), which found the
incidence of sexual abuse among American children to be 1 in 500 (Washington DC:
US Dept of Health and Human Services). Why 1981? After all, she was writing
in 2000. Why did she not visit the US Government Department of Health and
Human Services website and find the 1996 study, which showed
"substantial and significant increases in the incidence of child abuse
and neglect since the last national incidence study was conducted"
(Sedlak & Broadhurst, Third national incidence study of child abuse and
neglect. US
DHHS).
Hood states that it is not known whether "most women who were molested
as children experience some difficulties in their adult life, or is sexual
abuse just one of many adverse childhood experiences that may or may not
cause lasting harm?" A review by Kendall-Tackett and colleagues of 45
studies of the effects of child sexual abuse shows that sexually abused
children have more symptoms than non-abused children, with abuse compared to
other adverse childhood experiences accounting for 15-45 per cent of the
variance in symptoms ((1993) 113 Psychological Bulletin 154). Symptoms
included fears, behaviour problems, sexualised behaviours and poor self-esteem
with no one symptom characterising abused children.
In the longer term, although some survivors show no ill effects according to
the measures used, many experience serious problems throughout life,
particularly when the abuser is a family member, when there are multiple
incidents of abuse and when the abuse involves attempted or actual
intercourse. Even in studies that control for other adverse childhood
experiences, child sexual abuse has been linked to suicide, depression,
psychiatric admissions, drug abuse and eating disorders (See Fergusson &
Mullen 1999; Neuman et al. "The long-term sequelae of childhood sexual
abuse in women: A meta-analytic review", Child Maltreatment 1996; 6-16
and Putman,"Ten-year research update review: Child sexual abuse"
[2003] JAACAP 369).
Abuse survivors are ill more often and have surgery more often (Felitti et
al. "Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many
of the leading causes of death in adults", [1998] Am Jo of Preventive
Medicine 245). As Anna Salter, a prominent forensic psychologist, recently
commented: "I had not read the literature on the impact of child sexual
abuse carefully for some time ... I initially planned on reading ALL the
literature on the sequelae of child sexual abuse, but that grandiose plan
faded as I read for months on end without being able to tap into all the
research. At the end of several months, however, I was convinced of one
thing. Child sexual abuse was like getting bitten by a rattlesnake: Some kids
recovered completely, and some didn't; but it wasn't good for anybody"
(Predators, Paedophiles, Rapists, and other Sex Offenders 2003. New York: Basic Books,
p 63).
While Hood is of course entitled to her personal opinion, she cannot
justifiably claim her conclusions to be robust or balanced. She seems intent
on minimising the extent and consequences of child sexual abuse. Her
caricatures of the work of Diana Russell, Roland Summit and Miriam Saphira
are unhelpful to those seeking a fair and reasoned understanding of child
sexual abuse.
Russell's study of the prevalence of sexual abuse of girls was based on a
random sample of 930 adult women in San
Francisco ("The incidence and prevalence of
intrafamilial and extrafamilial sexual abuse of female children", [1983]
Child Abuse & Neglect 133). This was one of the first such surveys on
this scale. The results and methodology were so compelling, that
university-based researchers attempted something similar in many other
countries.
Russell's definition of sexual abuse within the family was: "any kind of
exploitative sexual contact that occurred between relatives before the victim
turned 18. Experiences involving sexual contact with a relative that were
wanted and with a peer [age difference of less than five years] were regarded
as non-exploitive". Her results: 28 per cent of the 940 women reported
at least one experience of sexual abuse within the family before the age of
18; 12 per cent reported same before 14.
Twenty-three per cent of all incidents of abuse within the family were
classified as Very Serious: there were defined as completed and attempted
vaginal, oral, anal intercourse, cunnilingus, analingus, forced and unforced.
In just one instance, Russell classified "unwanted but non-forceful
kissing by a cousin" as sexual abuse. Hood's often-subtle bias becomes
starkly transparent when she writes: "Russell's definition included
everyday aspects of family life like unwanted hugs and kisses". Hood's
misuse of one isolated case seems inconsistent with her stated goal of objectivity.
For well over a hundred years no mental health system, never mind society at
large, was willing to recognise the reality and seriousness of child sexual
abuse (see Seymour,
"Memory and childhood abuse", [1996] Waikato L R 155). However,
Hood (p 30) is sceptical about "the bad old days when victims were
disbelieved" and says that this is "a self-serving myth". Her
source? Sixty-five years of the New Zealand Truth shows that "children's
complaints of sexual molestation were taken seriously".
Summit was the
head physician for the Community Consultation Service and clinical assistant
professor of psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA medical center when he wrote a paper
on the process of disclosure of child sexual abuse ("The child sexual
abuse accommodation syndrome", [1983] Child Abuse & Neglect 190).
Hood states that Summit
described this paper as "highly impressionistic". The paper is
actually based on clinical experience "derived from the collective
experience of dozens of sexual abuse treatment centers in dealing with
thousands of reports or complaints of adult victimisation of young
children". Such clinical experience contributes another lens onto our
understanding of child sexual abuse.
Hood, continuing her unhelpful game of heroes and villains, introduces Dr
Alfred Kinsey (p 52), as a "husband and father of irreproachable
personal conservatism". Kmsey's biographers James Jones (Alfred C
Kinsey: A Public/Private Life New York: WW Norton 1997) and Jonathan
Gathorne-Hardy (Sex the Measure of All Things: A life of Alfred C. Kinsey
Indiana University Press 2000) do not agree. According to Jones (p 512),
Kinsey allegedly used paedophiles to bring children to orgasm and then record
the number they could achieve: "Children gasping for breath, sobbing, screaming
in pain, fainting, and desperately struggling to fight off the assailants
Kinsey dignified as 'partners' - these were descriptions of hapless
victims". While Kinsey was convinced the victims derived pleasure, Jones
commented: "how reliable was the testimony of paedophiles about the
children they molested? Not very."
Much attention is given to discrediting the work of Hood's arch-villain, Dr
Miriam Saphira. The statistics from the 1970's Women's Weekly survey are
ridiculed. Yet the key messages that "the man will usually know the
child" and "one in five child molesters will be the father,
stepfather or foster father", are not as far from academic research
findings as Hood chooses to believe. Nor is the widely quoted "one out
of four girls will be molested before she turns eighteen". Twenty-five
per cent (one in four) is within the accepted range of prevalence data
(Fergusson & Mullen, 1999; Finkelhor, 1994). While this may seem
unbelievable, it includes one-off incidents at the lower end of the spectrum
of sexual abuse. The University
of Otago and
Fergusson's study found that men known to the children perpetrate most child
sexual abuse (Anderson et al. 1993 and Fergusson et al. 1996). In Fergusson's
study, 23.5 per cent of the perpetrators were family members. In Anderson's study, 38.3
per cent were family members and 16 per cent of abusers were relatives living
with the child. In 18.5 per cent of children's allegations of sexual abuse
reported to Child, Youth and Family in 1999, the alleged abuser was a father
or a stepfather (Basher, "Children who talk on tape: The facts behind
the pictures", (1999) 12 Social Work Now 12). Stepfathers are at a
higher risk of being perpetrators than biological fathers (Fergusson &
Mullen, 1999 p 51).
Hood writes (p 95): "To encourage the child protection movement to close
ranks, the Geddis-led National Advisory Committee on the Prevention of Child
Abuse recommended that all abuse allegations be investigated by
"specialised personnel, trained and working together". The literature
is consistent in the importance of the use of multi-disciplinary trained
teams, not to close ranks, as Hood puts it, but to improve practice. Each
discipline has different knowledge bases and skills to contribute to the
investigative process (Myers, "Keep the lifeboat afloat", (2002) 26
Child Abuse & Neglect 561). Such teams help to increase professionals'
and agencies' accountability for their practice, by being more open to the
scrutiny of their colleagues from other agencies, the opposite of what Hood
proposes.
While glamorising the good old days, Hood is equally misleading in her
statement that the passing of the Evidence Amendment Act 1989 meant that (p
113): "child complainants no longer had to appear in Court in person.
They were no longer required to deliver their evidence-in- chief without
leading or coaxing. Their evidence was no longer tested by unhampered
cross-examination. Instead juries viewed pre-recorded interviews with child
complainants conducted by interviewers trained in the beliefs and methods of
the child protection movement, and observed cross-examinations conducted via
videolink".
Hood fails to mention the advantages of videotaped evidential interviews of
children for the Court. Specialised interviewers are under scrutiny. If they ask
poor questions, those questions are there for all to see and hear in the
courtroom. Videotapes also provide a record of what the child said much
nearer to the disclosure than the trial, which may be more than a year later.
They also enable the jury to see the child complainant on tape at an age
nearer to when the events allegedly took place. In one or two years, children
can look quite different. As children are less stressed, their testimony is
likely to be clearer (See Cashmore, Children's evidence research paper 1: The
use of closed-circuit television for child witnesses in the ACT. Sydney: Australia Law
Reform Commission, 1992; Davies & Noon.
An evaluation of the live link for child witnesses. London: Home Office 1991; and Murray, Live
Television Link: An evaluation of its use by child witnesses in Scottish
criminal trials. The Scottish Office 1995).
There is no evidence to substantiate that lawyers are more skilled at
questioning children than specialised interviewers. There is some evidence to
the contrary. One of us (ED) developed a coding system with Fred Seymour for
analysis of the types of questions asked of children in Court. Having checked
the coding system for inter-rater reliability, we analysed transcripts of the
evidence-in-chief and cross-examination of child complainants of sexual
abuse, including transcripts of evidential interviews of the younger of these
complainants ("Questioning child complainants of sexual abuse: Analysis
of criminal Court transcripts in New Zealand", (1998) 5 Psychiatry,
Psychology & Law 47). We found that evidential interviewers used
significantly more careful neutral (open, non-loaded) questions than
prosecutors, who used significantly more neutral questions than defence
lawyers. Evidential interviewers also asked significantly more age-
appropriate questions than lawyers. Children being asked questions that they
do not understand is not in the interests of those seeking the truth.
Children who give evidence-in-chief via videotape are still cross-examined
live in austere Court buildings, even if it is via closed-circuit television
(CCTV). Hood again omits the advantages for the Court. There is some evidence
that children appear to be more comprehensive, more forthcoming, louder, more
resistant to leading questions and more fluent when giving evidence on closed
circuit television compared to open Court (Davies & Westcott 1995,
"The child witness in the Courtroom: Empowerment or protection?" In
Zaragoza Graham Hall Hirschman Ben- Porath (Eds) Memory and testimony in the
child witness (pp 199-213). Thousand
Oaks CA: Sage).
Lawyers in the UK
and Australia
have been observed to use more age- appropriate questions through CCTV than
in open Court (see Cashmore). There is no evidence that the use of CCTV
increases the chances of conviction (See Tobey et al. 1995, "Balancing
the rights of children and defendants: Effects of closed-circuit television
on children's accuracy and jurors' perceptions." in Zaragoza et al; and
Ross et al. 1994, "The impact of protective shields and videotape
testimony on conviction rates in a simulated trial of child sexual
abuse", (1994) 18 Law & Human Behaviour 553). If by "unhampered
cross-examination" of a child, Hood means a flurry of juxtapositions and
multi-faceted questions designed to confuse, then this might be so, although
this seems contrary to the interests of justice.
An abridged version of this article was published in The New Zealand Herald
(11 August 2003). Hood's response (13 August 2003): "As befits
supporters of recovered memory therapy (now known euphemistically as abuse-
focused therapy), Jeffrey Masson and Emma Davies rely on statistics that have
been either discredited or misrepresented to support their otherwise
insupportable beliefs. Nonetheless, it is pleasing to see that some members
of the sex-abuse industry have been reading A City Possessed."
Which statistics have been "discredited" or
"misrepresented" by whom and where? The term "sex abuse
industry" is a meaningless derogatory term used to denigrate those who
research or work within the child protection system or with survivors of
abuse. What did recovered memory have to do with it? Our critique did not
mention it. Besides, one of us (JM) has actually written a book Against
Therapy, in which all forms of professionalised therapy are criticised. The
other (ED) has never been a therapist nor has she ever made a public
statement on recovered memory.
Hood's response to our critique reinforces our view that she is untrustworthy
in her analysis of the issues involved in child sexual abuse. In claiming
that "recovered memory therapy" is the same as "abuse focused
therapy", Hood once again misconstrues the literature (Seymour, 1996). In her book, Hood boldly
states that cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus wins "hands
down" the scientific debate about whether recovered memory exists (p
55). Three prominent cognitive psychologists have recently reached a more
measured conclusion (Sivers Schooler Freyd, "Recovered memories",
In Ramachandran. (2002) 4 Encyclopedia of the Human Brain 169). Hood omits
that the false memory in Loftus's infamous analogue study was not for abuse.
It was about being lost in the mall when one was a small child (Loftus &
Pickrell, "The formation of false memories", (1995) 25 Psychiatric
Annals 720). Analogue studies like these can never replicate the conditions
of abuse. Nonetheless, a considerable body of experimental research has shown
that young children can provide accurate recall of salient events (Eisen,
Quas & Goodman 2002, Memory and suggestibility in the forensic interview,
New Jersey:
LEA Publishers).
Since Hood mentions recovered memory, we will briefly clarify our
understanding of the implications of research, although we are at a loss to
see its relevance to young children. A well-designed prospective study by
Linda Williams showed that some sexually abused adults have periods in their
lives when they do not remember being abused ("Recall of childhood
trauma: A prospective study of women's memories of child sexual abuse",
(1994) 62 Jo of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1167). Even Loftus herself
believes "it is possible to lose contact with memories for long periods
of time". She merely disputes that the correct term to describe this is
"repression" (Ceci & Loftus 1994, "A royal road to false memories?"
quoted in Seymour 1996).
With regard to therapy, cognitive experimental psychologists, Read and
Lindsay, are quite clear in their concerns about specific techniques, for
example hypnosis ("Moving toward a middle ground on the false memory
debate" (1994) 8 Applied Cognitive Psychology 407). They clarify:
"there is little reason to fear that a few suggestive questions will
lead psychotherapy clients to conjure up vivid and compelling illusory memory
of childhood sexual abuse". And "not all or even most memories
recovered in therapy are false ... our comments focused exclusively on
approaches that make extensive use of suggestive memory recovery
techniques". These techniques are appropriately treated with caution in
the guidelines of professional psychological associations. (Seymour, 1996)
Hood's supposedly balanced book has been used to steer public attention to
one case, from which we are encouraged to draw all sorts of spurious
generalisations. New Zealanders concerned with a fair and reasonable approach
to child abuse need to maintain a broader focus. Where is the public demand
for the outcomes from the work based on the Ministerial Inquiry into Child
Protection in 2000? Where is the parallel debate about how to prevent child
sexual abuse? How can careful interviewing practice be strengthened? How can
young children's safe access to the criminal justice system be ensured?
The standard of scholarship of the first three chapters of Lynley Hood's book
is poor. At the beginning of chapter 4 it gets no better: "The flatness
of the city makes it easy for anyone with a bright idea to gather together
enough like- minded people to turn any theory - be it dazzingly enlightened
or downright flaky - into action. And for more than 100 years that is exactly
what Christchurch
people have been doing". As Brian Edwards asked on TV1 (15 August 2003)
don't you see an element of absurdity in what you're telling me here?"
Hood: "No".
Her ability to stereotype, distort and denigrate groups of people and bodies
of scientific research undermines her credibility. Her support of the recent
publication of carefully selected excerpts of children's testimony is
consistent with her carefully selected version of reality evident in the
first few chapters of her book. Her tendency to vilify those she doesn't
respect as members of the "sex-abuse industry",
"zealots", "lesbian radical feminists", or inhabitants of
a particular city, seems to mirror the witch-hunt she appears to have sought
and found. Her analysis in the foundation chapters is more akin to story
telling than the presentation of evidence. We suggest that those who signed
the petition on the basis of Hood's book might wish to think again.
|
