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This section should be relocated from Day care sex abuse hysteria to this article and a "see also" placed there, rather than the other way around as it is now. The section is more directly relevant to this article and has broader relevance than day care abuse hysteria. I have posted the same request in the Day care sex abuse hysteria discussion section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.127.252.195 ( talk) 11:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Created so I can link from Child Sexual Abuse. This needs more data, more citations, and a global outlook. Editing by law-enforcment experts, family-law experts, and experts outside the United States is especially welcome. Please link from other Wiki articles where appropriate. Dfpc 20:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Copied from User_talk:Voice of Britain: I just did a "fresh start" less than 2 weeks ago. I trust within a week or two you will fill in the article so it is at least as informative as the old one. BTW, before doing wholesale changes, it's a good idea to discuss it on the talk page first. It avoids reverts like the one Fuzzygenius made. Dfpc 18:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
i don't believe a quote must be given. after all, you didn't even see fit to give me a single primary citation for the information on cortisol you added. (for the record, i don't have access to thr book voice of britain cited, but i believe it's accurate because i'm fairly sure i've encountered both the low and high given by it in other studies) ~[[ kinda]] 23:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Here is an offsite website which quotes the study for verification:
We recommend a recent research paper on the rate of false
accusations by Mikkelsen, Gutheil and Emons. [Footnote: Mikkelsen, M.D., Gutheil, M.D. & Emens, B.A, "False sexual-abuse allegations by children and adolescents: Contextual factors and clinical subtypes" American Journal of Psychotherapy, October, 1992.] That paper noted the following: "False allegations of sexual abuse by children and adolescents are statistically uncommon, occurring at the rate of 2 to 10 percent of all cases with rates up to 50% in special situations such as heated custody disputes. Nevertheless, when they do occur, they can be extremely detrimental to all involved including the accuser. Thus it is important to those who evaluate these allegations be open to the possibility of a false allegation and have a knowledge of the principal clinical subtypes of false allegation. Our research indicates that it is a narrow focus on the reporter and ignorance or dismissal of the broader contextual factors that often leads to the perpetuation of a false allegation. "The literature and our own clinical research has revealed four clinical subtypes of false allegations: (1) Allegations arising in the context of custody disputes: (2) Allegations stemming from psychological disturbances on the part of the accuser; (3) Allegations resulting from conscious manipulation by the child or adolescent; (4) Allegations based on iatrogenic elements. "This material is presented in the interests of heightening the awareness of this serious miscarriage of clinical and legal processes
and its severe and potentially irreversible social consequences."
the link you removed was indeed relevant, if you'd bother to look at it. ~[[ kinda]] 00:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Added by me for the time being. I realize that what is really needed here is a broader section describing how changes to legal tests and police practices in different countries may have increased the likelihood of false CSA allegations occurring. Please bear with me. I hope to do some more work and improve/rewrite this accordingly. I believe some of the legal detail should go in similar fact evidence but at present that article is quite inadequate and mainly deals with Canada (any lawyers out there?). Furthermore there is a close relationship between CSA cases and changes in the law concerning similar fact evidence in the UK with associated media claims that unreliable allegations have lead to convictions. 68.68.37.190 ( talk) 10:20, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Why does this article exist? It is factually correct in asserting that false allegations of child sexual abuse are uncommon. It then includes under "specific cases" two instances of CSA in which there were confessions, prosecutions and children removed from their parents ... indicating that these are not cases of "false allegations" at all. It seems to me to be a clear case of overcategorisation. If deleted, the rest of the article could be easily accomodated under the general article of child sexual abuse. What do other editors think? -- Biaothanatoi 03:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I will address these in the order they are in the article
The URL for Amazon above should also answer the verification tag. I hope that all of the data in this article is given the same treatment. Abuse truth 03:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's one, but there are more: “Studies on the truthfulness of sexual abuse reports among children and adolescents as judged by evaluators”show that out of 2169 children and adolescents evaluated 98% of generally younger children and 93% of usually older children’s reports were determined to be true. Whitfield M.D., Charles L., Memory and Abuse - Remembering and Healing the Effects of Trauma, Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc, ISBN 1-55874-320-0 Abuse truth 20:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
The "lost in the mall" study does not address the question of traumatic memory. This study cannot be applied to traumatic memory. Abuse truth 03:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
This section has no sources at all. IMO, it either needs to be sourced or deleted. Abuse truth 21:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I found a source which quotes prevalence figures of 0.21% in 1993, and 0.11% in 2004. You want that added to the (irrelevant) paragraph, or shall we just drop the whole thing as irrelevant to this article. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 03:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure why there's a paragraph that's title is the same as the articles, but anyway. The figures and claims should be backed by the most reliable sources available - if not a peer-reviewed journal, then a peer-reviewed book or book published by a university press or other publisher with oversight on the contents of books. Where did Whitfield & Charles get their figures from? Independent research? In which case, publication in a lay-book bypasses the peer review process, but publication in a valid publisher with oversight and review over the contents would be valid. If they're quoting a journal publication, that should be the source, not the book, and include the pubmed ID or other abstract-available weblink. WLU ( talk) 01:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
New quote in article: "Some studies break down the level of false allegations by the age of the child. One study of CSA allegations in child protection offices in the USA as determined by social workers found that among pre-school children, the range of false allegations was between 1.7 to 2.7 percent. Among adolescents, the range was found to be between 8 to 12 percent. The average range was found to be 5 to 8 percent. Higher rates of false allegations are found in custody disputes."
Quote from book:
"False Allegations made by children
Fifteen years ago, Goodwin (Goodwin et al., 1978) described false accusation prevalence by reviewing eighty-eight papers on incest published between 1972 and 1977. Only one paper documented the frequency of the allegations, and found that 6 per cent were concluded to be false "by emergency room staff" (emphasis added). This emphasis is important in the review of the literature....Goodwin concludes that false allegations are rare. Other workers such as Jones and McGraw (1987) studied incest allegations and found a false allegation prevalence of about 2 per cent. Everson and Boat (1989) studied CSA allegations in child protection offices in the USA and found that the level of false allegations (as determined by social workers) varied with the age of the child. Among pre-school children , the range was 1.7 - 2.7 percent, whereas for adolescents the range was 8 - 12 percent, with an overall average for all ages of 5 - 8 percent. Everson and Boat also noted that some case workers seemed to discover more false allegations than others, and conclude that bias is possible. Specifically, high rates of false allegations are said to be found in the context of custody disputes (Benedek and Schetky, 1985;Green, 1986, 1991)." P.62
Adshead, Gwen (1994), "Looking for clues - A review of the literature on false allegations of sexual abuse in childhood", pp. 57–65 {{
citation}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(
help) in Sinason, Valerie (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. New York: Routledge.
ISBN
0-415-10542-0.
Abuse truth (
talk) 17:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I've fully protected this article because of edit warring. Please work on a compromise here or take this to dispute resolution. thankyou-- Hu12 ( talk) 03:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Is this article supposed to be centered on cases from the United States? Or should it be expanded to cover cases from around the world? If it's not supposed to be expanded then I think it should be renamed to False allegations of child sexual abuse in the United States. Ospinad ( talk) 19:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I have added this section. All of this data came from one article
Adshead, Gwen (1994), "Looking for clues - A review of the literature on false allegations of sexual abuse in childhood", pp. 57–65 {{
citation}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(
help) in Sinason, Valerie (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. New York: Routledge.
ISBN
0-415-10542-0..
This weekend, I hope to track down additional online sources to back up and verify this data. The article also cites sources to back up this data, which I hope to try to track down and add as references. Abuse truth ( talk) 01:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
This article has been improved and focused a lot, with plenty of solid references added. The court cases section though only had information about Satanic ritual abuse and did not fit with the topic of this article. Maybe there should be a separate article on "False accusations of satanic ritual abuse", or maybe those court cases can be merged into the article about Satanic ritual abuse.
I don't know much about that topic, so instead of making that decision myself, I moved the text of the court cases section in full, to Talk:Satanic ritual abuse -- at this link. That way, editors who are familiar with that topic can decide if they want to merge it into that article or make a separate article. For this page though, the court cases were a total non-sequitur to the text of the article which is why they were moved. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 07:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed the following sentence from that (new) section as being SYN. As I noted in a comment, I have a source which estimates true prevalence at less than .01%. That is still too common, but the sources are carefully selected. (I think Child Abuse and Neglect might be considered to have an interest in creating reports (I mean, creating interest in reports) of child abuse.)
Prevalence figures range between 10% in the UK [1] or up to 62% for females and 16% for males in the United States. [2] [3]
Of 2019 men and women (aged 15 years and over) interviewed as part of a MORI Survey of a nationally representative sample of Great Britain, 10% reported that they had been sexually abused before the age of 16 (12% of females; 8% of males)....Subjective reports of the effects of sexual abuse indicated that the majority (51%) felt harmed by the experience, while only 4% reported that it had improved the quality of their life.
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The main finding from epidemiological literature on child sexual abuse is that no identifiable demographic or family characteristics of a child may be used to exclude the possibility that a child has been sexually abused.
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Arthur Rubin, would you please elaborate on this edit?
You added a tag that states:
What part of that section do you feel is in need of that tag? I've reviewed the section and don't see the problem. But if something is off-topic or not stated clearly, we should fix it, so please point out the part you find of concern. Thanks. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 22:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
removed paragraph with footnotes (Duncan 1985, & 2 USA Dept H&H) for future reference if needed |
---|
Child sexual abuse occurs frequently in Western society. [1] Prevalence figures range between 10% in the UK [2] or up to 62% for females and 16% for males in the United States. [3] [4] According to data from the Administration on Children and Families, of the US Department of Health and Human Services, in 2005 there were an estimated 3.6 million investigations by Child Protective Services in the USA; and of those, 899,000 were substantiated. Of the substantiated abuse reports, 9.3% of the cases showed 83,600 children were determined to have been sexually abused. [5] [6] |
References
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(
help) in Sinason, Valerie (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. New York: Routledge.
ISBN
0-415-10542-0.
Of 2019 men and women (aged 15 years and over) interviewed as part of a MORI Survey of a nationally representative sample of Great Britain, 10% reported that they had been sexually abused before the age of 16 (12% of females; 8% of males)....Subjective reports of the effects of sexual abuse indicated that the majority (51%) felt harmed by the experience, while only 4% reported that it had improved the quality of their life.
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The main finding from epidemiological literature on child sexual abuse is that no identifiable demographic or family characteristics of a child may be used to exclude the possibility that a child has been sexually abused.
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I have added four categories to the article that fit the topic. ResearchEditor ( talk) 01:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC) (formerly AT)
I have deleted a section that has its own page and made it a see also. ResearchEditor ( talk) 03:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
As per edit summary, I am moving this see also to talk : McMartin preschool trial. This see also is unnecessary, since it is already included in the Day Care Sex Abuse see also. To link individual cases in the see also section only adds bloat to the article. Also, many would disagree that the accusations were false and there is no conclusive evidence of this. ResearchEditor ( talk) 16:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Hope you cat is well... Anyway, RE, have you at least watched the film or read Earl's article? You seem to be quite a scholar on SRA sources. Surely a bit of reading or film-watching on the other side wouldn't do any harm. — Cesar Tort 18:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
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ResearchEditor (
talk) 01:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)Research Editor: The claim that Promtheus Books/CSICOP (both founded by Paul Kurtz) is pro-pedophile is preposterous and even libelous. In 1994 I listened to Carl Sagan in the CSICOP conference using the word "betrayal" against incestous parents. This was no less that the keynote address in the CSICOP conference in Seattle. Before you cut and paste more of Biao's libelious sentences here, please take a good look at this. — Cesar Tort 15:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Hello, a WP:3O was requested on this. I have removed the entry from the list, and will share my opinion. I believe that the McMartin preschool trial link is appropriate. It's clearly a case drowned with sides believing the accusations are true, while others present arguments why they are false. It also gives many details on how such cases are handled, and what their flaws may be. Even after the legal system decided the allegations were false, by dropping all charges, and not convicting anyone, the debate didn't stop. =Species8473= (talk) 18:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
This article is not about SRA, it's about false allegations in general. The sources show that the majority of sexual abuse allegations by children are not false, and of those that are false, most of those result from adult coaching in custody disputes. In general, children do not make up stories of abuse unless they are given a reason. There are exceptions of course, but very few. Of the small fraction of allegations that are false, and then out of those, the small fraction that are not a result of custody disputes, there is a tiny fraction that may involve stories of SRA. It's so small that other than literature specifically about SRA, literature on false allegations does not even mention it as a factor (at least, so far as I have been able to find; if someone has that kind of reference it would be of interest).
Considering the smallness of the SRA factor in this topic, it seems to me the McMartin link is not appropriate. This article should not be used as support for either side in the ongoing controversy about the SRA article and other pages related to ritual abuse.
If SRA is mentioned in this article, it would need to be shown with due weight, indicating its tiny prevalence within the overall topic of false allegations by children of abuse.
I'm not making any statement here at all about the validity of SRA claims. Yes, the McMartin story refers to false allegations, but it is very far from a representative case, compared to the very prevalent problem of divorce proceedings that bring pressure on children to lie about being abused by one of their parents. For this article, we need to stay on the important points and not get diverted into the SRA controversy that other than a miniscule overlap does not apply to this topic. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 20:04, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Please excuse the apparently cynical tone of what I am about to write, but I can find no reference to this in the article, and I find that to be amazing>
As a phenomenon, the increase of false accusations of sex abuse, especially against children is a quite recent even from the past thirty years.
at about that time, there were a lot of Americans who were feeling depressed etc, who started visiting "ANALYSTS". There then followed a pattern were these patients were subjected to regressive hypnosis, where they discovered that they had repressed memories of being sexually abused by one or both parents. They were urged as part of their therapy to confront their abusers, and having done so, began to feel better.
Not unnaturally, the accused parents felt terrible, and were frequently the subject of criminal investigation and trials.
Eventually, the patients met friends who were also suffering depression, and they told them how good their "ANALYSTS" were. They too were subjected to regressive hypnosis, and they too discovered that they had repressed memories of being sexually abused. As the "ANALYSTS" dug deeper, they were able to show that the patients parents were part of a Satanic Abuse Ring and all the patients had been abused by each others parents etc.
Things came to a head when one of the linked cases involved two families, that were living several thousand miles apart at the time of the abuse, and it was proved that they could not have known each other at that time, and one at a time, evidence was produced to discredit the "ANALYSTS".
The Backlash came when the falsely accused parents started to sue the "ANALYSTS", and pretty soon they stopped discovering that their patients had repressed memories of being abused by their parents.
Of course being America, people still felt depressed, and still visited "ANALYSTS", and still underwent regressive hypnosis, whereupon it was discovered that they had repressed memories of being kidnapped and sexually abused by aliens.
To date, no alien has sued any "ANALYSYTS".
To be more serious though, the epidemic of child sex abuse claims such as the Mc<Martin case, coincided with these events. Though there is a WIKI article on False Memory Syndrome, I am amazed that these two items are not more closely linked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.42.255.237 ( talk) 14:10, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I removed this section because the focus of this article is false allegation of abuse, not denial of genuine abuse. 99.234.101.193 ( talk) 01:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
A false allegation of child sexual abuse is one conveyed by the child himself/herself to a parent, other relative or mandated reporter. It is an allegation that is made in bad faith with malice aforethought such as occurs when a child is coached or programmed to falsely accuse another parent in the midst of a contentious divorce or custody battle. <ref> See www.abuse-excuse.com and TONG'S TAKE ON COACHING page at same web site.
Such false child sexual abuse allegations occur at the rate of only 2% - 5% <ref> (Thoennes). Yet, another 2/3 or 67% are unfounded <ref> (Besharov). Unfounded, by definition, means without foundation, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen. It means it couldn't be proven by a preponderance of the evidence or by 51%.
— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:27, 29 December 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DeanTong ( talk • contribs) 01:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
The definition states that ”A false allegation of child sexual abuse is an accusation by a child (including young adolescents) that a person committed one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged.” I find it strange that this article excludes allegations made by persons close to the child.
The first sentence in the article should therefore be:”A false allegation of child sexual abuse is an accusation made by a child (including young adolescents) or a person close to the child that a person committed one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged.”
Or: “False allegations of child sexual abuse is an allegation of a person committing one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged.” Godtadet ( talk) 14:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
A new section on the effect of false allegation of child sexual abuse has been added. It needs some work. But since this is seldom discussed, it is important to at least have some focus on this. Godtadet ( talk) 17:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to bring in to the article that a totally false allegation is/could be a form of psychological abuse of the child and/or the accused? Godtadet ( talk) 09:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Just fixing the header so it stops setting off vandal alarms on IRC, don't mind me... Hersfold ( t/ a/ c) 02:17, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
[1] WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 14:00, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
"Studies of child abuse allegations suggest that the overall rate of false accusation is under 10%, as approximated based on multiple studies."
Encyclopedic content must be verifiable
I think the claim that the overall rate of false accusations is under 10% is a mere brazen lie. Where are the so called "multiple studies"?
I'm quite sure that in cases where evidence is based on nothing but hearsay witnesses - this is the overwhelming majority of cases where the truth of such accusations is discussed at all - significantly more than 50% of the accusations are false and based on targeted disinformation, in other words, on brazen lies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.192.107.140 ( talk • contribs) 13:19, 26 July 2013
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Can someone please expand this section a bit? The psychological effect on the accusee can be overwhelmingly traumatic, and I think this is under-appreciated. Fmc47 ( talk) 17:20, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
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Let us add another big lie: Operation Midland#Carl Beech ("Nick") Zezen ( talk) 13:50, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
1. Thanks for fixing the ref. 2. I posit that we mention this case as a good example of a false allegation and the presumed motives, pacem the reporters. Zezen ( talk) 18:02, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed. Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary. |
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This section should be relocated from Day care sex abuse hysteria to this article and a "see also" placed there, rather than the other way around as it is now. The section is more directly relevant to this article and has broader relevance than day care abuse hysteria. I have posted the same request in the Day care sex abuse hysteria discussion section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.127.252.195 ( talk) 11:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Created so I can link from Child Sexual Abuse. This needs more data, more citations, and a global outlook. Editing by law-enforcment experts, family-law experts, and experts outside the United States is especially welcome. Please link from other Wiki articles where appropriate. Dfpc 20:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Copied from User_talk:Voice of Britain: I just did a "fresh start" less than 2 weeks ago. I trust within a week or two you will fill in the article so it is at least as informative as the old one. BTW, before doing wholesale changes, it's a good idea to discuss it on the talk page first. It avoids reverts like the one Fuzzygenius made. Dfpc 18:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
i don't believe a quote must be given. after all, you didn't even see fit to give me a single primary citation for the information on cortisol you added. (for the record, i don't have access to thr book voice of britain cited, but i believe it's accurate because i'm fairly sure i've encountered both the low and high given by it in other studies) ~[[ kinda]] 23:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Here is an offsite website which quotes the study for verification:
We recommend a recent research paper on the rate of false
accusations by Mikkelsen, Gutheil and Emons. [Footnote: Mikkelsen, M.D., Gutheil, M.D. & Emens, B.A, "False sexual-abuse allegations by children and adolescents: Contextual factors and clinical subtypes" American Journal of Psychotherapy, October, 1992.] That paper noted the following: "False allegations of sexual abuse by children and adolescents are statistically uncommon, occurring at the rate of 2 to 10 percent of all cases with rates up to 50% in special situations such as heated custody disputes. Nevertheless, when they do occur, they can be extremely detrimental to all involved including the accuser. Thus it is important to those who evaluate these allegations be open to the possibility of a false allegation and have a knowledge of the principal clinical subtypes of false allegation. Our research indicates that it is a narrow focus on the reporter and ignorance or dismissal of the broader contextual factors that often leads to the perpetuation of a false allegation. "The literature and our own clinical research has revealed four clinical subtypes of false allegations: (1) Allegations arising in the context of custody disputes: (2) Allegations stemming from psychological disturbances on the part of the accuser; (3) Allegations resulting from conscious manipulation by the child or adolescent; (4) Allegations based on iatrogenic elements. "This material is presented in the interests of heightening the awareness of this serious miscarriage of clinical and legal processes
and its severe and potentially irreversible social consequences."
the link you removed was indeed relevant, if you'd bother to look at it. ~[[ kinda]] 00:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Added by me for the time being. I realize that what is really needed here is a broader section describing how changes to legal tests and police practices in different countries may have increased the likelihood of false CSA allegations occurring. Please bear with me. I hope to do some more work and improve/rewrite this accordingly. I believe some of the legal detail should go in similar fact evidence but at present that article is quite inadequate and mainly deals with Canada (any lawyers out there?). Furthermore there is a close relationship between CSA cases and changes in the law concerning similar fact evidence in the UK with associated media claims that unreliable allegations have lead to convictions. 68.68.37.190 ( talk) 10:20, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Why does this article exist? It is factually correct in asserting that false allegations of child sexual abuse are uncommon. It then includes under "specific cases" two instances of CSA in which there were confessions, prosecutions and children removed from their parents ... indicating that these are not cases of "false allegations" at all. It seems to me to be a clear case of overcategorisation. If deleted, the rest of the article could be easily accomodated under the general article of child sexual abuse. What do other editors think? -- Biaothanatoi 03:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I will address these in the order they are in the article
The URL for Amazon above should also answer the verification tag. I hope that all of the data in this article is given the same treatment. Abuse truth 03:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's one, but there are more: “Studies on the truthfulness of sexual abuse reports among children and adolescents as judged by evaluators”show that out of 2169 children and adolescents evaluated 98% of generally younger children and 93% of usually older children’s reports were determined to be true. Whitfield M.D., Charles L., Memory and Abuse - Remembering and Healing the Effects of Trauma, Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc, ISBN 1-55874-320-0 Abuse truth 20:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
The "lost in the mall" study does not address the question of traumatic memory. This study cannot be applied to traumatic memory. Abuse truth 03:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
This section has no sources at all. IMO, it either needs to be sourced or deleted. Abuse truth 21:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I found a source which quotes prevalence figures of 0.21% in 1993, and 0.11% in 2004. You want that added to the (irrelevant) paragraph, or shall we just drop the whole thing as irrelevant to this article. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 03:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure why there's a paragraph that's title is the same as the articles, but anyway. The figures and claims should be backed by the most reliable sources available - if not a peer-reviewed journal, then a peer-reviewed book or book published by a university press or other publisher with oversight on the contents of books. Where did Whitfield & Charles get their figures from? Independent research? In which case, publication in a lay-book bypasses the peer review process, but publication in a valid publisher with oversight and review over the contents would be valid. If they're quoting a journal publication, that should be the source, not the book, and include the pubmed ID or other abstract-available weblink. WLU ( talk) 01:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
New quote in article: "Some studies break down the level of false allegations by the age of the child. One study of CSA allegations in child protection offices in the USA as determined by social workers found that among pre-school children, the range of false allegations was between 1.7 to 2.7 percent. Among adolescents, the range was found to be between 8 to 12 percent. The average range was found to be 5 to 8 percent. Higher rates of false allegations are found in custody disputes."
Quote from book:
"False Allegations made by children
Fifteen years ago, Goodwin (Goodwin et al., 1978) described false accusation prevalence by reviewing eighty-eight papers on incest published between 1972 and 1977. Only one paper documented the frequency of the allegations, and found that 6 per cent were concluded to be false "by emergency room staff" (emphasis added). This emphasis is important in the review of the literature....Goodwin concludes that false allegations are rare. Other workers such as Jones and McGraw (1987) studied incest allegations and found a false allegation prevalence of about 2 per cent. Everson and Boat (1989) studied CSA allegations in child protection offices in the USA and found that the level of false allegations (as determined by social workers) varied with the age of the child. Among pre-school children , the range was 1.7 - 2.7 percent, whereas for adolescents the range was 8 - 12 percent, with an overall average for all ages of 5 - 8 percent. Everson and Boat also noted that some case workers seemed to discover more false allegations than others, and conclude that bias is possible. Specifically, high rates of false allegations are said to be found in the context of custody disputes (Benedek and Schetky, 1985;Green, 1986, 1991)." P.62
Adshead, Gwen (1994), "Looking for clues - A review of the literature on false allegations of sexual abuse in childhood", pp. 57–65 {{
citation}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(
help) in Sinason, Valerie (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. New York: Routledge.
ISBN
0-415-10542-0.
Abuse truth (
talk) 17:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I've fully protected this article because of edit warring. Please work on a compromise here or take this to dispute resolution. thankyou-- Hu12 ( talk) 03:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Is this article supposed to be centered on cases from the United States? Or should it be expanded to cover cases from around the world? If it's not supposed to be expanded then I think it should be renamed to False allegations of child sexual abuse in the United States. Ospinad ( talk) 19:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I have added this section. All of this data came from one article
Adshead, Gwen (1994), "Looking for clues - A review of the literature on false allegations of sexual abuse in childhood", pp. 57–65 {{
citation}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(
help) in Sinason, Valerie (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. New York: Routledge.
ISBN
0-415-10542-0..
This weekend, I hope to track down additional online sources to back up and verify this data. The article also cites sources to back up this data, which I hope to try to track down and add as references. Abuse truth ( talk) 01:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
This article has been improved and focused a lot, with plenty of solid references added. The court cases section though only had information about Satanic ritual abuse and did not fit with the topic of this article. Maybe there should be a separate article on "False accusations of satanic ritual abuse", or maybe those court cases can be merged into the article about Satanic ritual abuse.
I don't know much about that topic, so instead of making that decision myself, I moved the text of the court cases section in full, to Talk:Satanic ritual abuse -- at this link. That way, editors who are familiar with that topic can decide if they want to merge it into that article or make a separate article. For this page though, the court cases were a total non-sequitur to the text of the article which is why they were moved. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 07:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed the following sentence from that (new) section as being SYN. As I noted in a comment, I have a source which estimates true prevalence at less than .01%. That is still too common, but the sources are carefully selected. (I think Child Abuse and Neglect might be considered to have an interest in creating reports (I mean, creating interest in reports) of child abuse.)
Prevalence figures range between 10% in the UK [1] or up to 62% for females and 16% for males in the United States. [2] [3]
Of 2019 men and women (aged 15 years and over) interviewed as part of a MORI Survey of a nationally representative sample of Great Britain, 10% reported that they had been sexually abused before the age of 16 (12% of females; 8% of males)....Subjective reports of the effects of sexual abuse indicated that the majority (51%) felt harmed by the experience, while only 4% reported that it had improved the quality of their life.
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The main finding from epidemiological literature on child sexual abuse is that no identifiable demographic or family characteristics of a child may be used to exclude the possibility that a child has been sexually abused.
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Arthur Rubin, would you please elaborate on this edit?
You added a tag that states:
What part of that section do you feel is in need of that tag? I've reviewed the section and don't see the problem. But if something is off-topic or not stated clearly, we should fix it, so please point out the part you find of concern. Thanks. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 22:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
removed paragraph with footnotes (Duncan 1985, & 2 USA Dept H&H) for future reference if needed |
---|
Child sexual abuse occurs frequently in Western society. [1] Prevalence figures range between 10% in the UK [2] or up to 62% for females and 16% for males in the United States. [3] [4] According to data from the Administration on Children and Families, of the US Department of Health and Human Services, in 2005 there were an estimated 3.6 million investigations by Child Protective Services in the USA; and of those, 899,000 were substantiated. Of the substantiated abuse reports, 9.3% of the cases showed 83,600 children were determined to have been sexually abused. [5] [6] |
References
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Of 2019 men and women (aged 15 years and over) interviewed as part of a MORI Survey of a nationally representative sample of Great Britain, 10% reported that they had been sexually abused before the age of 16 (12% of females; 8% of males)....Subjective reports of the effects of sexual abuse indicated that the majority (51%) felt harmed by the experience, while only 4% reported that it had improved the quality of their life.
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I have added four categories to the article that fit the topic. ResearchEditor ( talk) 01:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC) (formerly AT)
I have deleted a section that has its own page and made it a see also. ResearchEditor ( talk) 03:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
As per edit summary, I am moving this see also to talk : McMartin preschool trial. This see also is unnecessary, since it is already included in the Day Care Sex Abuse see also. To link individual cases in the see also section only adds bloat to the article. Also, many would disagree that the accusations were false and there is no conclusive evidence of this. ResearchEditor ( talk) 16:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Hope you cat is well... Anyway, RE, have you at least watched the film or read Earl's article? You seem to be quite a scholar on SRA sources. Surely a bit of reading or film-watching on the other side wouldn't do any harm. — Cesar Tort 18:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
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ResearchEditor (
talk) 01:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)Research Editor: The claim that Promtheus Books/CSICOP (both founded by Paul Kurtz) is pro-pedophile is preposterous and even libelous. In 1994 I listened to Carl Sagan in the CSICOP conference using the word "betrayal" against incestous parents. This was no less that the keynote address in the CSICOP conference in Seattle. Before you cut and paste more of Biao's libelious sentences here, please take a good look at this. — Cesar Tort 15:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Hello, a WP:3O was requested on this. I have removed the entry from the list, and will share my opinion. I believe that the McMartin preschool trial link is appropriate. It's clearly a case drowned with sides believing the accusations are true, while others present arguments why they are false. It also gives many details on how such cases are handled, and what their flaws may be. Even after the legal system decided the allegations were false, by dropping all charges, and not convicting anyone, the debate didn't stop. =Species8473= (talk) 18:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
This article is not about SRA, it's about false allegations in general. The sources show that the majority of sexual abuse allegations by children are not false, and of those that are false, most of those result from adult coaching in custody disputes. In general, children do not make up stories of abuse unless they are given a reason. There are exceptions of course, but very few. Of the small fraction of allegations that are false, and then out of those, the small fraction that are not a result of custody disputes, there is a tiny fraction that may involve stories of SRA. It's so small that other than literature specifically about SRA, literature on false allegations does not even mention it as a factor (at least, so far as I have been able to find; if someone has that kind of reference it would be of interest).
Considering the smallness of the SRA factor in this topic, it seems to me the McMartin link is not appropriate. This article should not be used as support for either side in the ongoing controversy about the SRA article and other pages related to ritual abuse.
If SRA is mentioned in this article, it would need to be shown with due weight, indicating its tiny prevalence within the overall topic of false allegations by children of abuse.
I'm not making any statement here at all about the validity of SRA claims. Yes, the McMartin story refers to false allegations, but it is very far from a representative case, compared to the very prevalent problem of divorce proceedings that bring pressure on children to lie about being abused by one of their parents. For this article, we need to stay on the important points and not get diverted into the SRA controversy that other than a miniscule overlap does not apply to this topic. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 20:04, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Please excuse the apparently cynical tone of what I am about to write, but I can find no reference to this in the article, and I find that to be amazing>
As a phenomenon, the increase of false accusations of sex abuse, especially against children is a quite recent even from the past thirty years.
at about that time, there were a lot of Americans who were feeling depressed etc, who started visiting "ANALYSTS". There then followed a pattern were these patients were subjected to regressive hypnosis, where they discovered that they had repressed memories of being sexually abused by one or both parents. They were urged as part of their therapy to confront their abusers, and having done so, began to feel better.
Not unnaturally, the accused parents felt terrible, and were frequently the subject of criminal investigation and trials.
Eventually, the patients met friends who were also suffering depression, and they told them how good their "ANALYSTS" were. They too were subjected to regressive hypnosis, and they too discovered that they had repressed memories of being sexually abused. As the "ANALYSTS" dug deeper, they were able to show that the patients parents were part of a Satanic Abuse Ring and all the patients had been abused by each others parents etc.
Things came to a head when one of the linked cases involved two families, that were living several thousand miles apart at the time of the abuse, and it was proved that they could not have known each other at that time, and one at a time, evidence was produced to discredit the "ANALYSTS".
The Backlash came when the falsely accused parents started to sue the "ANALYSTS", and pretty soon they stopped discovering that their patients had repressed memories of being abused by their parents.
Of course being America, people still felt depressed, and still visited "ANALYSTS", and still underwent regressive hypnosis, whereupon it was discovered that they had repressed memories of being kidnapped and sexually abused by aliens.
To date, no alien has sued any "ANALYSYTS".
To be more serious though, the epidemic of child sex abuse claims such as the Mc<Martin case, coincided with these events. Though there is a WIKI article on False Memory Syndrome, I am amazed that these two items are not more closely linked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.42.255.237 ( talk) 14:10, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I removed this section because the focus of this article is false allegation of abuse, not denial of genuine abuse. 99.234.101.193 ( talk) 01:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
A false allegation of child sexual abuse is one conveyed by the child himself/herself to a parent, other relative or mandated reporter. It is an allegation that is made in bad faith with malice aforethought such as occurs when a child is coached or programmed to falsely accuse another parent in the midst of a contentious divorce or custody battle. <ref> See www.abuse-excuse.com and TONG'S TAKE ON COACHING page at same web site.
Such false child sexual abuse allegations occur at the rate of only 2% - 5% <ref> (Thoennes). Yet, another 2/3 or 67% are unfounded <ref> (Besharov). Unfounded, by definition, means without foundation, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen. It means it couldn't be proven by a preponderance of the evidence or by 51%.
— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:27, 29 December 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DeanTong ( talk • contribs) 01:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
The definition states that ”A false allegation of child sexual abuse is an accusation by a child (including young adolescents) that a person committed one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged.” I find it strange that this article excludes allegations made by persons close to the child.
The first sentence in the article should therefore be:”A false allegation of child sexual abuse is an accusation made by a child (including young adolescents) or a person close to the child that a person committed one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged.”
Or: “False allegations of child sexual abuse is an allegation of a person committing one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged.” Godtadet ( talk) 14:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
A new section on the effect of false allegation of child sexual abuse has been added. It needs some work. But since this is seldom discussed, it is important to at least have some focus on this. Godtadet ( talk) 17:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to bring in to the article that a totally false allegation is/could be a form of psychological abuse of the child and/or the accused? Godtadet ( talk) 09:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Just fixing the header so it stops setting off vandal alarms on IRC, don't mind me... Hersfold ( t/ a/ c) 02:17, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
[1] WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 14:00, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
"Studies of child abuse allegations suggest that the overall rate of false accusation is under 10%, as approximated based on multiple studies."
Encyclopedic content must be verifiable
I think the claim that the overall rate of false accusations is under 10% is a mere brazen lie. Where are the so called "multiple studies"?
I'm quite sure that in cases where evidence is based on nothing but hearsay witnesses - this is the overwhelming majority of cases where the truth of such accusations is discussed at all - significantly more than 50% of the accusations are false and based on targeted disinformation, in other words, on brazen lies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.192.107.140 ( talk • contribs) 13:19, 26 July 2013
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Can someone please expand this section a bit? The psychological effect on the accusee can be overwhelmingly traumatic, and I think this is under-appreciated. Fmc47 ( talk) 17:20, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
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Let us add another big lie: Operation Midland#Carl Beech ("Nick") Zezen ( talk) 13:50, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
1. Thanks for fixing the ref. 2. I posit that we mention this case as a good example of a false allegation and the presumed motives, pacem the reporters. Zezen ( talk) 18:02, 23 July 2019 (UTC)