Hazel Kemshall

Communicating about child sexual abuse with the public: learning the lessons from public awareness campaigns

ABSTRACT Despite numerous public awareness campaigns child sexual abuse (CSA) remains a significant global issue affecting millions of children. This suggests that such campaigns have had minimal impact, and the paucity of good quality empirical evaluation makes it difficult to establish what has worked and what has not. This article considers how different and evolving approaches to public awareness campaigning on CSA since the 1990s have influenced (or not) attitudinal and behavioural change. The article reviews a number of key initiatives from around the world and identifies common themes that can inform campaigning and prevention efforts. Recommendations for further research efforts, social problem framing, and targeting are offered. The article concludes by arguing that more recent multi-faceted campaigns which combine a range of messaging methods are more likely to turn public awareness campaigning into public action campaigning.

Serious Violent or Sexual Offenders Travelling Across EU Borders. Ideological and Ethical Challenges of Information Exchange.

The relative ease of international travel, coupled with open borders across much of the European Union provides capacity for some serious violent or sexual offenders to utilise these advancements to increase their opportunities to offend. In 2013, an EU-funded project reviewed existing information exchange systems and the challenges of collaborative working across EU Member States to manage such offenders. This article reviews key issues arising from that research, and a range of ideological, ethical and legal differences and constraints that impact upon the choices and actions of law enforcement and probation personnel.