Legal
One of CHILD USA’s primary missions is to end the child sex abuse statutes of limitation (“SOLs”) that have held back victims from justice and healing. They have also blocked the public from learning what it needs to know to prevent abuse to children. We have a tremendous amount of information about the laws themselves, current developments, and the SOL reform movement on our website at www.childusa.org/law.
This category in our library is intended to provide another angle on the legal issues that are involved in the child sex abuse universe. We have included books by lawyers in the trenches, online resources aimed at educating lawmakers and policymakers about various legal issues, and other law-centered resources. There are also some resources for lawyers in the field from leading experts like Prof. Kathleen Faller.
To be sure, everything on CHILD USA’s portal interfaces with law and public policy in some way and so you will also find discussions relevant to the legal side of child sex abuse in our other categories, from Survivors to Parents and the contexts of Religious, Sports and the Arts, and Schools.
Indeed, one of my favorite law professors at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Seth Kreimer, would frequently say in class, “The law is a seamless web.” In a constitutional democracy with emerging rights for children and survivors, that is a fact about this portal! But the law is also intertwined with the battle for these rights in many different spaces. So I urge the lawyers visiting our portal to look beyond this category to all of the other categories as well.
I hope you will find this section inspiring and enlightening.
— Prof. Marci Hamilton, Founder/CEO of CHILD USA
Books
Our selected books are typically available in public and/or university libraries.
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- This scholarly article discusses legal solutions for child pornography victims.
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Broken Trust: Getting Justice for a Sexually Groomed and Sexually Abused Young Athlete by Andrew J. Leger Jr. and Daniel Pollack
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- This article describes the legal advocacy skills a plaintiff’s attorney needs to conduct a lawsuit and bring it to a conclusion, all the while being highly sensitive to the client’s unique psychological needs.
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Report to Congress: Federal Child Pornography Offenses (December 2012) by the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC)
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- This report is the result of the USSC’s examination of child pornography cases of offenders sentenced under federal sentencing guidelines.
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Secrecy and the Underpinnings of Cycles of Child Sex Abuse in Religious Organizations, Chapter 10 by Marci Hamilton
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- This chapter examines the beliefs mandating secrecy, which have created and perpetuated cycles of child sex abuse within mainstream and fundamentalist religions.
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The Time Has Come for a Restatement of Child Sex Abuse by Marci Hamilton
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- This article details some of the relevant topics that a Restatement on Child Sex Abuse Law should address.
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The Childhood Adversity Narratives by CANarratives.org
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- The purpose of this Narrative is to help inform policy makers and the public about the costs and consequences of child maltreatment and adversity.
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Child Pornography Survivors’ Survey by Canadian Centre for Child Protection
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- This report discusses research aimed at learning about child abuse experiences and determining proper policy, legislative, and therapeutic changes for survivors.
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Towards a Global Indicator on Unidentified Victims in Child Sexual Exploitation Material (ECPAT) by Interpol
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- This is a summary of a longer study called Towards a Global Indicator on Unidentified Victims in Child Sexual Exploitation Material, published by ECPAT International and INTERPOL in February 2018. The study was financed by the European Union and carried out between 2016 and 2018 under the title International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) Database Connectivity and Awareness Raising Enhancements (I-CARE) Project.
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CHILD USA's Survivor Toolkits
CHILD USA, in partnership with SNAP, has developed Survivor Toolkits to help survivors understand their rights and guide them through the empowering but challenging process of filing a civil lawsuit.
Intro to Statutes of Limitations (SOLs) for Child Sex Abuse and the National SOL Reform Movement
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- Prof. Marci Hamilton speaking about national SOL reform movement for child sexual abuse at the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence.
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