Reply #76: Interesting thoughts on your third point

[Ms. Toad]

Although it is the sexual touching that sets of societal flags, the abusive of trust/secrecy aspects can be far more damaging.

Somehow we need to help these children learn healthy ways of relating. When we focus (as we tend to do) on the sexual aspects of the damage without helping the child go through and learn the lessons of the emotional growth stages which were likely skipped or compressed in the presence of abuse we leave them incredibly vulnerable to continuing the cycle of abuse. We also leave them with the impression that the worst of what happened to them was physical, when their gut tells them otherwise. Prosecuting may add to this difficulty because it necessarily focuses on the physical aspects of the abuse.

I haven't done this work in years, but the general concept matches my experience - for at least the younger (0-8, or so) and older (adult) end of the spectrum when the abuse is perpetrated by a trusted individual. I am more skeptical when the victim is in the sexually charged tween/teen/early adult years, particularly when the abuse is longstanding.

The difficulty with not prosecuting, however, is that many times prosecution is the only way to protect this particular survivor from more abuse - or to protect others from abuse, given the high repeat offense rate. For this concept to work there needs to be some mechanism, short of prosecution, to address the needs of offenders (who are, many times grown up victims who were unable to make the transition to healthy survivor) and to address the needs of society to be safe from individuals who are unable to exercise restraint over their compulsions.