During the last decade, sexual grooming has been recognized as being part of the victimization process in child sexual abuse in the UK (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist, 2006). Since its recognition, the concept of grooming has become one of the most contentious debates within child sexual offences. The current literature tends to mainly focus specifically on the grooming of children and often fails to take into account other factors contributing to the grooming process (Salter, 2003). The media plays a pivotal role in determining what the public perceive as prominent issues. This is evident with stories in the news relating to online sexual predators and cases institutional grooming by high profile celebrities. Whilst these examples of grooming
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Intra-familial grooming accounts for the majority of abuse cases in the UK (Grubin, 1999). These interactions were typified as aggressive, intimate or criminal-opportunistic (Canter et al., 1998). The intimate mode is defined as the offender being in full understanding that the relationship that they have with the child is of an equal level to a consenting adult relationship. Furthermore, they are affectionate to the victim and attempts to seduce them by gift giving and eventually attempting to de-sensitise the victim to notion of a sexual relationship (Canter et al., 1998). These actions all contribute to the overall sexual grooming process and can be seen as an attempt to manipulate the victim into ‘not telling’, lessening the offence being discovered (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist, …show more content…
In contrast, on-line and street grooming tend to target the victim directly via the internet, using platforms such as social media, chatrooms or mobile phones and text messaging (Davison and Gottschalk, 2011)or in cases of street grooming, the offender approaches the victim on the street to engage them in a preliminary discourse to begin grooming. Whilst the least seen form of grooming, street grooming, if highly organised, can indicate a form of human ‘domestic’ trafficking (Pearce,
Intra-familial grooming accounts for the majority of abuse cases in the UK (Grubin, 1999). These interactions were typified as aggressive, intimate or criminal-opportunistic (Canter et al., 1998). The intimate mode is defined as the offender being in full understanding that the relationship that they have with the child is of an equal level to a consenting adult relationship. Furthermore, they are affectionate to the victim and attempts to seduce them by gift giving and eventually attempting to de-sensitise the victim to notion of a sexual relationship (Canter et al., 1998). These actions all contribute to the overall sexual grooming process and can be seen as an attempt to manipulate the victim into ‘not telling’, lessening the offence being discovered (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist, …show more content…
In contrast, on-line and street grooming tend to target the victim directly via the internet, using platforms such as social media, chatrooms or mobile phones and text messaging (Davison and Gottschalk, 2011)or in cases of street grooming, the offender approaches the victim on the street to engage them in a preliminary discourse to begin grooming. Whilst the least seen form of grooming, street grooming, if highly organised, can indicate a form of human ‘domestic’ trafficking (Pearce,