LeRoy G. Schultz

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LeRoy G. Schultz (birth / death date unknown) is / was a professor of social work at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. He is known for his early publications, stretching from the 1950s-1990s, which offered guidelines for professionals working with legally defined child victims of sex offenses, cautioning against hysteria / over-reactions from parents and professionals which risk introducing iatrogenic/secondary harm. His publications are indicative of the pre-1980s scholarly consensus, as one contributor put it in a 1980 volume he edited:

The fact agreed upon by psychiatrists, that a child may be affected only by the events subsequent to the offense (which itself did not affect him), or that the ill effects of the offense may be aggravated by those reactions[.]

Quotes

Many child victims consent intentionally or unwittingly to the sex offense, or offer only passive resistance. In many child victimization relationships the victim and offender are in a symbiotic relationship or they form a cooperative dyad. The degree of consent and the type of child sex victim-offender relationship is important to know since it shapes the victim’s as well as society’s attitude toward the sexual offense and toward the offender and it will affect the victim’s willingness to legally testify against him and possibly generate subsequent guilt feelings. (p. 259).

In general, physical force and violence on child victims play a small role in the offenses', for example, 4 percent of 333 court cases. This is related to the fact that most sex offenses against children are committed by persons they have a relationship with prior to the offense, such as a family friend, a neighbor or teacher, so that physical force is unnecessary to the success of the offense. (p. 260).

The effect of victimization upon children has been exaggerated in the earlier literature, partly due to a naive misunderstanding of the role of sexuality in the development of children, average child’s adaptive capacity and a Victorian belief that sex must leave permanent trauma for the innocent child. Generally, sexual assaults of children do not have an excessively unsettling effect on personality development, nor a serious effect on his later adult adjustment. (p. 260).

Possible negative or traumatic effects are related to the amount of violence employed by the offender, the type and depth of the child’s relationship to the offender, and the family’s, society’s and significant others reaction to the offense. (p. 261).

By far, the greatest potential trauma to the child’s personality is caused by society, its institutions, and the victim’s parents as a result of (1) the need for the court to use the child victim for the prosecution of the offender, and (2) the need of the victim’s parents to prove to themselves, other family members, neighbors, and significant others that the victim was free of any victimogenisus and that they were good parents. (p. 262).

Child trauma occurs as a result of the courts' need to have the child victim repeat the details of the sexual offense several times, to police, warrant officers, prosecutors, and a jury of twelve adults, sometimes with the suspected sex offender present. This places what is perhaps in the child’s mind a short-lived traumatic event with few permanent consequences, out of proportion to its importance to him, and forces the child to reorientate his ideas toward a confusing adult interpretation of the offense, its new importance, and the victim’s role in punishing the offender. Most police, sheriffs and prosecutors have no training or education in positive methods of interviewing children and tend to use adversary approaches (p. 263).

It is clear from research on child sex victims that it is not the sexual act per se that creates trauma, but the parent's behavior towards the child victim on discovery of the offense, and how this parental behavior affects the child. Parents may overreact, become hysterical or physically attack the offender in front of the child. They may physically attack, berate, belittle or punish the victim, or demand, under threats, that the child inform court and police officials that the sex offense was not provoked by the victim. [...] Parents will need help in accepting the offense in such a way that horror, panic and fright are not communicated to the child so as to create trauma where perhaps none existed before (p. 264).

Particular avoidance should be made to lengthy description of sexual pathology or dirty old men generalizations which compound the problem further. The relative harmlessness of certain types of sexual behavior for the victim, exhibitionism for example, should be reinforced, and a feeling that the child can share his sexual ideas and experience with open-minded parents may prevent concealment of damaging experiences. (pp. 268-9).

He concludes with 5 points (p. 272):

• 1. Probably less than 5 percent of all child-sex victims are assaulted through physical violence or vaginal/anal penetration, so that physical damage is minimal in most cases.
• 2. Most of the child-sex victims who would be traumatized by court experience, indicated personality disturbances before the offense.
• 3. Most of the sexually assaulted children, where no violence was employed, were engaging in affection-seeking behavior and do not perceive the offense at the time as traumatic.
• 4 Guilt in sexual victims is fairly absent, but may be engendered by parents, courts or community after the fact.
• 5 Most sexual assaults do not affect the child’s personality development, particularly where neither violence nor court appearance occurred.

Schultz, Rape Victimology, ed. by Shultz (Charles C. Thomas Publishers: Springfield, Illinois, U.S.A. 1975).

Publications

• The victim-offender relationship, Crime & Delinquency Volume 14, Issue 2 (1968).

• The Child Sex Victim: Social, Psychological and Legal Perspectives, in Child Welfare, Vol. 52, No. 3 (March 1973), pp. 147-157.

• Child Sexual Abuse In Historical Perspective, in Social work and child sexual abuse, ed. by Conte, Jon R; Shore, David A (New York: Haworth Press, 1982).

• Schultz and Jones Jr., Sexual Abuse of Children: Issues for Social Service and Health Professionals, in Child Welfare, Vol. 62, No. 2 (March/April 1983), pp. 99-108.

• The Social Worker as an Expert Witness in Suspected Child Abuse Cases: A Primer for Beginners. IPT (1990). [Open-access online].