When the Child Abuser Carries a Bible
Religious or spiritual themes are often weaponized by perpetrators to justify the abuse of children, and are invoked to avoid accountability and consolidate power within faith communities. This workshop provides best practices, recent trends, and practical tips and corroboration strategies for MDTs to navigate these issues.
Suggested Audience: All CAC and MDT members, with a focus on investigative and forensic interviewing applications
Full Description: Religious or spiritual themes are often weaponized by perpetrators to justify the abuse of children, and are invoked to avoid accountability and consolidate power within faith communities. Presented by a former child abuse prosecutor and civil investigator with a decade of experience in independent investigations of faith communities, this workshop provides best practices and practical tips for investigators, forensic interviewers, and other child protection professionals to navigate the dynamics of abuse in particular religious settings; the distortion of faith issues to manipulate victims; spiritual blocks to disclosure or compliance with investigations (and their implications for forensic interviews); special investigative considerations; and strategies for MDTs to navigate the convergence of faith and abuse. The workshop includes recent trends and developments in faith community response to abuse and articulates a path forward for MDTs to more fully address these issues
Learning Objectives:
Articulate perpetrator distortion of faith issues to manipulate victims and communities.
Describe spiritual blocks and their implications for conducting forensic interviews and building rapport with child sexual abuse survivors.
List potential sources of corroborative evidence in faith-related child abuse investigations.
Speaker(s): Robert Peters