ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s there has been a transformation in understandings of institutional child sexual abuse. While these developments have been long overdue, shifts in understanding other forms of child abuse and neglect have been much more incremental. This is particularly true of abuse occurring in the family. This article examines the Wood Royal Commission, which operated from 1994 until 1997 in the Australian state of New South Wales. Unlike inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse, its scope was not limited in terms of the scenarios of abuse that it investigated. Notwithstanding this, a flawed approach saw it effectively erase familial abuse as a sufficient matter of concern. While scholarly research on royal commissions frequently points to an inquiry’s terms of reference, or the failure of governments to implement recommendations in an inquiry’s aftermath, the Wood Royal Commission reveals a failure in investigative decision making. By positioning this Royal Commission within the broader terrain of public inquiries into child sexual abuse, I demonstrate how intrafamilial abuse continues to be neglected.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
3 For example, see Daly (Citation2014a, Citation2014b), McAlinden and Naylor (Citation2016), McPhillips et al (Citation2020), Sköld (Citation2013), Swain (Citation2014, Citation2015), Swain, Wright and Sköld (Citation2017), Wright (Citation2017), Wright (Citation2018), Wright and Henry (Citation2019), Wright and Swain (Citation2018), Wright, Swain and Sköld (Citation2017).
5 Wood (Citation1997a, Citation1997b). Note for clarity that there is some inconsistency in pagination across the Final Reports. Pagination of Volume IV, which is closely analysed throughout this article, has been updated and is no longer cumulative in electronic versions of the report. While this oddity does not appear to affect original hardcopies, it is a characteristic of all electronic versions that the researcher has been able to identify, including those available through the websites of the State Library of NSW, the NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, and archived webpages of the of the NSW Police Integrity Commission. This article refers to the updated electronic pagination.
6 Now known as the NSW Police Force, at the time of the Wood Royal Commission the organisation was known as the Police Service. For the sake of consistency with the Final Report of the Royal Commission, I refer to it as the Police Service throughout this article.
7 I differentiate between paedophilia and child sexual abuse to underscore the more general point that the two are not synonymous. The rate at which children are sexually abused cannot be explained by the clinical concept of paedophilia.
9 For a critique of the focus on sexual abuse in the context of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, see Golding (Citation2018). For a discussion of how sexual abuse has arisen as an aspect of concern in the context of inquiries into the Stolen Generations, Forced Migrants and Forgotten Australians, see Daly (Citation2014b), pp 47–49.
11 For a detailed critique of the way in which successive governments have failed to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, see in particular Jordan et al (Citation2018).
12 For example, another recent inquiry to do so was the Victorian Parliament’s Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations, known more widely as the Betrayal of Trust Inquiry. See Victorian Family and Community Development Committee (Citation2013), pp 123–138. While other inquiries have engaged in similar psychiatric theorising, they have not discounted familial abuse in the way that the Wood Royal Commission did.
15 ‘Police Corruption: MPs Force Inquiry’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1994, p 1; ‘A Necessary Investigation’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1994, p 12; ‘An Inquiry Born of Many Parents’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1994, p 12.
16 ‘A Tough Crusader Fights On’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1994, p 6.
17 Hatton’s speech was comprehensive, running for a total of almost 80 min. See Hansard, Legislative Assembly (11 May 1994), pp 2286–2297. For the complete parliamentary debate concerning the enactment of the Royal Commission, see Hansard, Legislative Assembly (11 May 1994), pp 2286–2347.
19 For Fahey’s complete response to the call by Hatton for a royal commission, see Hansard, Legislative Assembly (11 May 1994), pp 2297–1301.
22 The circumstances I recount here are detailed in nature. For an extended overview of how they culminated in an expansion in the Wood Royal Commission, see Wood (Citation1997b), pp 17–23.
23 Although contested in the psychiatric literature, the distinction between paedophilia and hebephilia is determined by pubertal stage of the child. Whereas paedophilia is most commonly defined as an erotic preference for prepubertal children, hebephilia is defined as an erotic preference for pubertal children who are typically around 11–14 years of age. See Blanchard et al (Citation2009), Glueck (Citation1955).
24 On subsequent allegations made against John Marsden, see Dalton (Citation2006). On the use of parliamentary privilege to publicly accuse gay men of paedophilia, see McDonald (Citation2016).
30 For example, where it is referred to in this broader literature it is typically as a brief acknowledgment of its status as one of a number of inquiries that has been enacted to examine child abuse over the recent decades. For examples of this, see Swain (Citation2014), Wright, Swain and McPhillips (Citation2017), McPhillips et al (Citation2020), Death (Citation2015).
31 The work of Anne Cossins (Citation1999) is the most sustained academic engagement with the Paedophile Inquiry and offers an important critique that is drawn upon more closely in the remainder of this article.
32 On the emergence of an interdisciplinary field in the wake of institutional abuse inquiries, see Daly (Citation2014a), p 5 and Sköld (Citation2013).
35 For example, see ‘Gay Backlash Unfair in Light of Evidence’ (1996) Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 1996, p 13; ‘Love and Rage’, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 October 1996, p 1; ‘NSW Gays Oppose Witch-Hunt’ (1996) Green Left Weekly, 5 June 1996; See also Cossins (Citation1999).
36 While homosexuality was decriminalised in NSW in 1984, in order for the bill to pass a compromise was adopted whereby male same-sex relations carried an age of consent of 18. In comparison the age of consent was 16 for all other sexual relations. The Wood Royal Commission went on to recommend that this be equalised, which subsequently occurred in 2003. See Wood (Citation1997c), pp 1058–1064.
38 See ‘Wood Rejects Sex Bias Attacks on Inquiry’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 May 1996, p 8.
42 Wood (Citation1997b), p 27. For a discussion of legal, social and biological definitions of paedophilia, see Ames and Houston (Citation1990).
45 See in particular ‘Chapter 3: The Paedophile Offender’ of Wood (Citation1997b), pp 57–82. All information presented here relating to the Inquiry’s use of typologies is drawn this chapter of the Final Report.
47 The Wood Royal Commission’s description of the sadistic offender as per the DSM-IV can be found at Wood (Citation1997b), p 62.
48 The Wood Royal Commission’s description of the regressed offender as per the DSM-IV can be found at Wood (Citation1997b), p 62.
49 The Wood Royal Commission’s description of the fixated offender as per the DSM-IV can be found at Wood (Citation1997b), p 62.
50 The Wood Royal Commission’s description of the other category as per the DSM-IV can be found at Wood (Citation1997b), p 62.
51 The Wood Royal Commission’s description of the typology provided by Raymond Wyre can be found at Wood (Citation1997b), p 63.
52 The Wood Royal Commission’s description of the typology provided by Kenneth Lanning can be found at Wood (Citation1997b), pp 63–64.
53 Variations of situational offenders comprised of regressed, morally indiscriminate, sexually indiscriminate and inadequate offenders. See Wood (Citation1997b), pp 63–64. The preferential offender comprised of seduction, introverted and sadistic offenders. See Wood (Citation1997b), pp 63–64.
54 The Wood Royal Commission’s description the typology provided by Dr Mervyn Glasser can be found at Wood (Citation1997b), pp 64–65.
58 Johnston and Johnston (Citation1997), p 361. For more recent applications of the distinction between fixation and regression, see Kelly and Lusk (Citation2013).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Dave McDonald
Dave McDonald is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Melbourne.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9920-9212
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