Child Abuse

Law and Policy Across Boundaries
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-19-829946-2
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 1080 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 1817 g

Whilst there may be universal agreement that 'something must be done' about child abuse, there is much less clarity about what qualifies as child abuse and what should be done about it. Policy makers often invoke the law at times of crisis which are seen to demand a societal response. The presence of legislation on the statute book or the creation of rules and protocols which professionals must follow is one socially acceptable sign that the problem has been
recognised and that an effective response has been implemented.

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, the numerous controversies about the response of public agencies and the courts to allegations of child abuse, as well as campaigns to reform the treatment of child witnesses in adversarial trial systems, provided the impetus for legal reform in both criminal and civil proceedings in England and Wales. These legal initiatives were ad hoc responses to specific problems, and not part of a coherent and integrated programme of reform across the
criminal and civil systems. Legislators and the courts in family, criminal, and tort proceedings have constructed different liability and evidential rules in parallel rather than in tandem with the other courts adjudicating the same issues, and often regarding the same child. Similarly reforms in other
common law jurisdictions have often been only partially understood by lawmakers in England and Wales.

This book looks across the legal and geographical boundaries within which the legal discussion of child abuse is usually confined. It considers the themes and policy considerations driving each form of legal response to the problem of child abuse. It also provides a detailed discussion of the law governing the trial of allegations of child abuse in the key areas of family, criminal and tort law in English law, and compares this with the approaches in other common law jurisdictions using the
adversarial mode of trial, in particular in Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia. In its breadth and depth, Child Abuse Law and Policy Across Boundaries marks a significant contribution to the rapidly evolving field of child protection law.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hoyano, Laura C.H.

Keenan, Caroline

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Strafrecht Kriminologie, Strafverfolgung
• Rechtswissenschaften Strafrecht Strafrecht Allgemeiner Teil
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Kindesmissbrauch, Sexueller Missbrauch, Häusliche Gewalt
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsvergleichung

Über Autor(innen)

Laura Hoyano holds three degrees from the University of Alberta in Canada in medieval history and law, and the BCL (Balliol College Oxford). In 1994 she accepted an academic appointment at the Law Faculty of the University of Bristol. In 1999 she became a Tutorial Fellow and CUF Lecturer at Wadham College, Oxford University, where she teaches Evidence, Criminal and Tort Law. Together with colleagues at Bristol University, Caroline Keenan and Laura Hoyano were
co-directors of a major empirical and comparative law study funded by the Home Office, An Assessment of the Admissibility and Sufficiency of Evidence in Child Abuse Prosecutions (HMSO 1999), which contributed to the eventual enactment of Special Measures Directions in the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence
Act 1999. Laura Hoyano has published and lectured extensively about litigating child abuse in different fields of law, in England and North America.

Caroline Keenan graduated in law from the University of Sheffield, where she also completed her PhD on the investigation of cases of child abuse. She then lectured in Criminal and Family Law and Criminology at the University of Bristol and the University of Durham, then subsequently at the University of Bristol. In addition to the empirical study on the prosecution of child abuse, An Assessment of the Admissibility and Sufficiency of Evidence in Child Abuse Prosecutions, she was commissioned by
the Home Office to conduct a review of the law on sexual offences against children and vulnerable adults which contributed to the law reform enacted by the Sexual Offences Act 2003. She has published widely in the field of child protection law, focusing on family and criminal law and the law
relating to the investigation of abuse. Caroline Keenan is currently a visiting Research Fellow in law at the University of Bristol and a member of the Senior Common Room at Wadham College, Oxford.