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Gender Differences in Prosecution Acceptance of Child Sexual Abuse Cases

October 2, 2013

Edelson (2012) found that cases involving male victims were significantly less likely to be accepted for prosecution than cases involving female victims.

 

Only two variables were discovered to account for this difference. The first variable was the relationship of the child to the perpetrator. Females were more likely than males to be abused by biological fathers, and males were more likely to be abused my mother's boyfriends. The second variable was whether or not the child was offended by a juvenile. The males' cases were more often referred to the juvenile justice system, whereas the females' cases were more often referred to the adult division of the DA's office.



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