engleski

Characteristics of child sexual abuse cases reported to the Croatian police

Studies based on official data on child sexual abuse are scarce due to their limitations. Nevertheless, their use is justified because they provide information that are not susceptible to memory bias as those in retrospective studies. The main objective of this study is to investigate characteristics of CSA cases reported to the police in three groups of variables: (1) criminal offense, (2) victim, and (3) offender and to identify possible gender differences in reporting CSA. Descriptive statistics, chi-square and T-test were used in data analysis. The most prevalent criminal offence was sexual intercourse with a child ; and the majority of the criminal offences were reported to the police within one year. The criminal offence is committed with the use of force in more than half of cases and victims did not suffer physical injuries. The results show that male victims made up 22.1% of all victims, and victims’ age range from 3 to 17 years. The majority of victims attend elementary school and in almost 95% of cases, victims knew the perpetrator. More than half of the victims tried to resist the offender. Male offenders made up 94.8% of all offenders and their age ranged from 11 to 72. The majority of the offenders have finished secondary school, are unemployed, unmarried, and are first time offenders. Gender differences were found in several variables – nature of the offence, number of perpetrators, victims’ age, education, re-victimisation and resistance, offenders’ gender, education and employment status. The results indicate the need for further studies in this area in Croatia, raising awareness of CSA, strengthen capacities of professionals working with children for better identification of abused children, as well as more educative programs for parents for preventing extra familial CSA.

child sexual abuse, Croatia, police data

nije evidentirano