David Finkelhor

Last updated
David Finkelhor
Born1947 (age 76–77)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Harvard College (BA, 1968)

Harvard Graduate School of Education (MEd, 1971) University of New Hampshire (PhD, 1978)

Contents

Known forResearch on child abuse
Scientific career
Institutions University of New Hampshire
Thesis Sexually victimized children and their families (1978)
Doctoral advisor Murray A. Straus
Website www.unh.edu/ccrc/researchers/finkelhor-david.html

David Finkelhor (born 1947) is an American sociologist known for his research into child sexual abuse and related topics. He is the director of the Crimes against Children Research Center, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory and professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire.

Life and career

Finkelhor graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1964, then attended Harvard College, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Relations in 1968. While at Harvard, he took courses at the Institut d'Études Politiques, University of Paris in 1967. He earned his M. Ed. in 1971 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and he received his Ph.D. in Sociology from University of New Hampshire in 1978 where he studied under Murray A. Straus. [1] [2]

Finkelhor is also a senior faculty fellow and Master in Public Policy faculty member at the Carsey School of Public Policy.

Finkelhor began studying the child abuse problems of child victimization, child maltreatment and family violence in 1977. He is known for his conceptual and empirical work on the problem of child sexual abuse, reflected in publications such as Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse (Sage, 1986) and Nursery Crimes (Sage, 1988). [3] He has also written about child homicide, missing and abducted children, children exposed to domestic and peer violence and other forms of family violence. His 2008 book, Child Victimization, sought to unify and integrate knowledge about diverse forms of child victimization in a field he has termed "developmental victimology".

Finkelhor has received grants from sources including the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the US Department of Justice. In 1994, he was given the Distinguished Child Abuse Professional Award by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. In 2004 he was given the Significant Achievement Award from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. In 2005 he and his colleagues received the Child Maltreatment Article of the Year award, and in 2007 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology.

Finkelhor researches and has authored many studies, articles, and books on child sexual abuse. He is associated with the model which suggests that there are four preconditions which need to be met in order for child sexual abuse to occur:

  1. an offender with a predisposition to sexually abuse a child;
  2. the ability to overcome the offender's internal inhibitions against acting on that predisposition;
  3. an ability to overcome external barriers, such as lack of access to the child or supervision of the child by others;
  4. an ability to overcome any resistance or reluctance on the part of the child. [4]

He has stated that he intends to continue his research until he proves "an unambiguous and persuasive case that the problem [of child sexual abuse] is widespread". [5] According to Ken Plummer, he is "probably the most prominent sociologist at work in the field [of child sexual abuse]". [6]

In 1988 Finkelhor completed an investigation of child sexual abuse in daycares in the United States in response to the satanic ritual abuse panic [7] and co-authored a book with Linda M. Williams. [3] Mary de Young, a sociologist who has written about the moral panic that occurred along with the McMartin preschool trial, criticized the work for a lack of verifiable evidence and incorrect conclusions. [8] : 101–106  It was also cited by Bruce Rind [9] in his controversial work that concluded that the harm caused by child sexual abuse was not necessarily intense or pervasive. [10] [11]

Related Research Articles

Violence is the use of physical force to cause harm to people, animals, or property, such as pain, injury, death, damage, or destruction. Some definitions are somewhat broader, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."

The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient, Michelle Smith, which used the discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make sweeping lurid claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations, which arose afterward throughout much of the United States, involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifices, pornography, and prostitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moral panic</span> Fear that some evil threatens society

A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and mass media coverage, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Moral panic can give rise to new laws aimed at controlling the community.

The Rind et al. controversy was a debate in the scientific literature, public media, and government legislatures in the United States regarding a 1998 peer reviewed meta-analysis of the self-reported harm caused by child sexual abuse (CSA). The debate resulted in the unprecedented condemnation of the paper by both chambers of the United States Congress. The social science research community was concerned that the condemnation by government legislatures might have a chilling effect on the future publication of controversial research results.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child abuse</span> Maltreatment or neglect of a child

Child abuse is physical, sexual, emotional and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a caregiver that results in actual or potential wrongful harm to a child and can occur in a child's home, or in organizations, schools, or communities the child interacts with.

Sibling abuse includes the physical, psychological, or sexual abuse of one sibling by another. More often than not, the younger sibling is abused by the older sibling. Sibling abuse is the most common of family violence in the US, but the least reported. As opposed to sibling rivalry, sibling abuse is characterized by the one-sided treatment of one sibling to another.

Mary de Young is a retired professor of sociology formerly at Grand Valley State University, where from 2000 to 2003 she served as the head of the sociology department. She has published a variety of works in the area of child sexual abuse, including five books, several book chapters, and more than 35 peer-reviewed journal papers.

A false allegation of child sexual abuse is an accusation against one or more individuals claiming that they committed child sexual abuse when no abuse has been committed by the accused. Such accusations can be brought by the alleged victim, or by another person on the alleged victim’s behalf. Studies on the rate of recorded child abuse allegations in the 1990s suggested that the overall rate of false accusations at that time was approximately 10%.

Child-on-child sexual abuse is a form of child sexual abuse in which a prepubescent child is sexually abused by one or more other children or adolescents, and in which no adult is directly involved. While this includes when one of the children uses physical force, threats, trickery or emotional manipulation to elicit cooperation, it also can include non-coercive situations where the initiator proposes or starts a sexual act that the victim does not understand the nature of and simply goes along with, not comprehending its implications or what the consequences might be.

Victimisation is the state or process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology.

Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child, indecent exposure, child grooming, and child sexual exploitation, such as using a child to produce child pornography.

Child pornography is erotic material that depicts persons under the age of 18. The precise characteristics of what constitutes child pornography varies by criminal jurisdiction.

Linda Meyer Williams is an American sociologist and criminologist. She is senior research scientist at Wellesley Centers for Women and director of the Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative. She is also professor emerita of criminal justice and criminology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on child maltreatment, research methods, and gender, race and crime. Williams has researched in the field of psychology on topics including child abuse, family violence and violence against women, and trauma and memory.

Murray Arnold Straus was an American professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire. He is best known for creating the conflict tactics scale, the "most widely used instrument in research on family violence".

In many parts of the world, mandated reporters are people who have regular contact with vulnerable people such as children, disabled persons, and senior citizens, and are therefore legally required to ensure a report is made when abuse is observed or suspected. Specific details vary across jurisdictions—the abuse that must be reported may include neglect, or financial, physical, sexual, or other types of abuse. Mandated reporters may include paid or unpaid people who have assumed full or intermittent responsibility for the care of a child, dependent adult, or elder.

People in prison are more likely than the general United States population to have received a mental disorder diagnosis, and women in prison have higher rates of mental illness and mental health treatment than do men in prison. Furthermore, women in prisons are three times more likely than the general population to report poor physical and mental health. Women are the fastest growing demographic of the United States prison population. As of 2019, there are about 222,500 women incarcerated in state and federal prisons in the United States. Women comprise roughly 8% of all inmates in the United States.

The feminist pathways perspective is a feminist perspective of criminology which suggests victimization throughout the life course is a key risk factor for women's entry into offending.

Child sexual abuse prevention programs are programs designed to lower the incidence of sexual abuse amongst those that access them. Programs can be provided to children and young people, those employed in childcare, people who would have otherwise have abused a young person, and situations where abuse can take place.

Denise A. Hines is an American psychologist doing research on domestic violence and sexual abuse with focuses on prevention, intervention, and public policy. She is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juvenile sex offenders in the United States</span>

A juvenile sex crime is defined as a legally proscribed sexual crime committed without consent by a minor under the age of 18. The act involves coercion, manipulation, a power imbalance between the perpetrator and victim, and threats of violence. The sexual offenses that fall under juvenile sex crimes range from non-contact to penetration. The severity of the sexual assault in the crime committed is often the amount of trauma and/or injuries the victim has suffered. Typically within these crimes, female children are the majority demographic of those targeted and the majority of offenders are male. Juvenile sex offenders are different than adult sex offenders in a few ways, as captured by National Incident Based Reporting System: they are more likely to be committed in school, offend in groups and against acquaintances, target young children as victims, and to have a male victim, whereas they are less likely than their adult counterpart to commit rape.

References

  1. ↑ David Finkelhor, Ph.D., Professor
  2. ↑ "Dissertation Catalog: Sexually victimized children and their families (Finkelhor, David, dissertant)". University of New Hampshire Library. University of New Hampshire . Retrieved 2022-01-02.
  3. 1 2 Finkelhor, David; Williams, Linda; Burns, Nanci (1988). Nursery Crimes: Sexual Abuse in Day Care. SAGE Publications. ISBN   9780803934009.
  4. ↑ Finkelhor, David; Cuevas, Carlos A.; Drawbridge, Dara (2016). "The Four Preconditions Model". The Wiley Handbook on the Theories, Assessment and Treatment of Sexual Offending. pp. 25–51. doi:10.1002/9781118574003.wattso002. ISBN   9781118572665.
  5. ↑ Finkelhor, David (1984). Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research. New York: Free Press. p. 229. ISBN   9780029100202.
  6. ↑ Plummer, Kenneth (1985). "Review of Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research by David Finkelhor". Contemporary Sociology . 14 (6): 712–713. doi:10.2307/2071423. JSTOR   2071423.
  7. ↑ Finkelhor, David; Williams, Linda M; Burns, Nanci; Kalinowski, Michael (1988). "Executive Summary - Sexual Abuse in Day Care: A National Study" (PDF). University of New Hampshire, Family Research Laboratory. Eric # ED292552. Retrieved 2022-01-02.
  8. ↑ de Young, Mary (2004). "A problem to Puzzle the Devil". The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic. McFarland & Company. pp. 97–106. ISBN   9780786426898.
  9. ↑ Rind, Bruce (2002). "The Problem with Consensus Morality". Peer Commentaries on Green (2002) and Schmidt (2002). Archives of Sexual Behavior. Vol. 31. pp. 479–503. doi:10.1023/A:1020603214218. S2CID   102340546.
  10. ↑ Rind, Bruce; Tromovitch, Philip; Bauserman, Robert (1998). "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples" (PDF). Psychological Bulletin . 124 (1): 22–53. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.22. PMID   9670820. S2CID   16123776.
  11. ↑ Rind, Bruce; Tromovitch, Philip (2007). "National Samples, Sexual Abuse in Childhood, and Adjustment in Adulthood: A Commentary on Najman, Dunne, Purdie, Boyle, and Coxeter (2005)" (PDF). Archives of Sexual Behavior . 36 (1): 101–106. doi:10.1007/s10508-006-9058-y. PMID   17139555. S2CID   392041. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-16. Retrieved 2022-01-02.
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