ABSTRACT
Sexual abuse by children and young people has emerged as a problem in the United Kingdom during the 1990s. Correspondingly the number of related professional publications has increased (NCH, 1992; Hoghughi et al., 1997; Farmer and Pollock, 1998), as has public awareness. A measure of this heightened awareness is the regularity of reporting of instances of such alleged abuse in the media, with discussions in the more responsible press about, for example, the rights and wrongs of trials of young children in adult courts in instances of the most serious allegations, such as rape (see, for example, The Guardian, 1998). This introductory chapter will review and discuss issues of incidence, prevalence, and the characteristics of young sexual abusers. Current theoretical models and concepts which seek to understand the behaviour of such youngsters and which inform the assessment and intervention approaches considered in subsequent chapters will then be outlined.
