Forensic Aspects of Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse is defined as the act of making someone take part in unwanted sexual activities, against their will, or without their agreement. Sexual activities encompass not only the sexual intercourse but also different forms of nonconsensual erotic contact and other forms not involving direct contact such as voyeurism or exhibitionism. A sexual offender or abuser is defined as someone who performs sexual acts through violence, threat, deception, coercion, or psychological manipulation, sometimes by taking advantage of the victim’s condition of physical and mental inferiority. But from a juridical perspective, a sexual offender may also refer to someone who exploits (mostly) women or children for prostitution or pornography. Given the breadth of the boundaries of this definition and the dozens of nuances of the classification of sexual abuse and sexual offending in the literature, the Italian legislature has also had to modify and update the different cases of sexual abuse to include the various behaviors that amount to a crime. As a result, the assessment and treatment of sexual offending have undergone a shift in perspective and in the evaluation methods over time, affecting the role and competencies of the forensic psychologist in the criminal justice process. In this chapter, we will illustrate the challenges faced by psychologists and the principles of good practices to operate in the forensic context, in particular with children.