Impact of the Court Process on Sexually Abused Children in North Carolina, 1983-1986 (ICPSR 9985)
Version Date: Feb 18, 1994 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Desmond K. Runyan;
Mark D. Everson;
Wanda M. Hunter;
Nancy M.P. King
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09985.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
This data collection examines the psychological impact of judicial processes on child sexual abuse victims. More specifically, it provides information on how sexual abuse and the subsequent judicial processes affect the mental health functioning of child victims by assessing the impact of (1) additional harm to victims from out-of-home placement, (2) criminal prosecution of the offender/family member, (3) subject testimony in juvenile or criminal court, and (4) family and professional support for the children. Children were enrolled in the study at the time that social services personnel substantiated claims of sexual abuse, and they were followed for a period of 18 months. Assessments of the mental health functioning of the children were made at the time of initial investigation, five months later, and 18 months later, using a combination of self-reports, parent and teacher reports, and psychological tests. After obtaining informed consent from the parent or guardian, each child was interviewed using a structured psychiatric inventory. The specific impacts of the various judicial processes or interventions under study were examined through comparisons of subgroups of the sample that did and did not experience particular interventions. The interventions included social services investigation, court process, foster placement, and psychological therapy. Other information in the file includes the type of sexual abuse experienced, judicial interventions the child experienced, and the child's level of depression, anxiety, and social adjustment. Demographic variables include age, sex, and race.
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
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Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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Initial data covered 100 respondents but complete 18-month data exist on only 62 subjects. Respondents who dropped out might not be comparable to those who remained in the study.
Sample View help for Sample
Referrals from county social service agencies.
Universe View help for Universe
Victims of intrafamilial sexual abuse 6 to 17 years old in North Carolina for whom substantiated claims with social services agencies were registered.
Data Source View help for Data Source
personal interviews, questionnaires, psychological testing, and social service and court reports
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
1993-05-13
Version History View help for Version History
- Runyan, Desmond K., Mark D. Everson, Wanda M. Hunter, and Nancy M.P. King. IMPACT OF THE COURT PROCESS ON SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILDREN IN NORTH CAROLINA, 1983-1986. Los Altos, CA: Sociometrics Corporation [producer], 1992. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium of Political and Social Research [distributor], 1993. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09985.v1
1993-05-13 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Standardized missing values.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.