Purpose

Research on women who sexually abuse children is relatively scarce and tends to rely on small or unrepresentative convenience samples. The purpose of the current descriptive study is to examine characteristics female perpetrators of child sexual abuse using a large and contemporary dataset.

Design/methodology/approach

This study analyzes data collected by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, which is a census of all child protective services investigations or assessments conducted in all 50 states, as well as in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico from October 1, 2018, to September 30, 2019.

Findings

Only substantiated cases of sexual abuse were analyzed (n = 51,442 cases). Overall, 7.6% of the perpetrators were female, though the percentage of female perpetrators varied dramatically across states from less than 1% to over 36%. Female perpetrators tended to have younger victims than did male perpetrators. For children aged 2 or less, female perpetrators constituted approximately 20% of the abusers. Female perpetrators were more likely to victimize male and female children, whereas male perpetrators predominantly had female victims. More female perpetrators had a prior finding of maltreatment than did male perpetrators (32.3% vs 23.5%).

Research limitations/implications

These findings add to the limited research base on female perpetrators of child sexual abuse and highlight avenues for further research into the differences between male and female sexual abusers.

Originality/value

This study is a replication of previous research but also provides additional novel findings.

中文翻译：

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美国儿童性虐待的女性施害者

目的

对性虐待儿童的妇女的研究相对较少，并且往往依赖于小规模或不具代表性的便利样本。当前描述性研究的目的是使用大型当代数据集来研究儿童性虐待女性施暴者的特征。

设计/方法论/途径

本研究分析了国家虐待和忽视儿童数据系统收集的数据，该系统是对自 2018 年 10 月 1 日起在所有 50 个州以及哥伦比亚特区和波多黎各进行的所有儿童保护服务调查或评估的普查，至 2019 年 9 月 30 日。

发现

仅分析了经证实的性虐待案件（n = 51,442 例）。总体而言，7.6% 的施暴者是女性，尽管各州女性施暴者的比例差异很大，从不足 1% 到超过 36%。女性犯罪者的受害者往往比男性犯罪者更年轻。对于2岁或以下的儿童，女性施虐者约占施虐者的20%。女性施暴者更有可能伤害男性和女童，而男性施暴者主要受害女性。与男性施暴者相比，更多的女性施暴者之前曾发现过虐待行为（32.3% vs 23.5%）。

研究局限性/影响

这些发现补充了关于儿童性虐待女性施暴者的有限研究基础，并强调了进一步研究男性和女性性虐待者之间差异的途径。

原创性/价值

这项研究是先前研究的重复，但也提供了额外的新颖发现。