Law, Procedure & Precedents on Child Sexual Abuse Trials

Child Sexual Abuse Trials – Laws, Procedures and Precedents examine how laws and procedures are being applied to bring justice to the victims of CSA and how the same laws and procedures are either not applied to deny justice to the child victim or interpreted so as to not believe the abuse of the child victim. One of the purposes of this book is to unravel and simplify the use of the legal system for getting justice for affected children. Another important purpose is to acquaint readers with the prevalence of CSA across the nation, potential difficulties that child victims may have to face after reporting the offense, possible loopholes that could fail the prosecution and conflicting views on the same set of circumstances right from the registration of abuse to final disposal of the appeal challenging the acquittal or the conviction by the trial court. The chapters focus on shortcomings that surface during the investigation, adjudication and treatment stages of CSA. At the same time, the best practices evolved through precedents to assure the well-being of children as victims are also included to benefit future justice seekers. Further, the relationship between poverty and CSA, between family support and victimization, between medical evidence and judicial reasoning is also explored and analyzed to understand how these relationships influence the outcome of CSA trials. Child Sexual Abuse Trials – Laws, Procedures and Precedents will be of use to everyone engaged in any way with CSA trials be it the victim or the accused, investigating agencies or prosecution, defence or adjudicating officials, judges or academia, non-governmental organizations or government agencies laying down the law on the subject.