Kelly Jackson
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Kristi: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the CAPE podcast. CAPE standing for the Child Abuse Prevention and Education podcast. My name is Christy McVie and I am an ex West Australian police officer who spent 10 years with the police where I was trained as a specialist child interviewer and a child abuse detective. This podcast is all about sharing what I learned, saw and knew whilst investigating child sexual abuse in the police force.
It is also about sharing the knowledge that I gained in that time that helped me with my own parenting of my then two year old daughter. My mission is to help share my knowledge and to help you in your role as parents to keep your kids safe along with guest experts in the field of child abuse prevention and education, both in person and online.
Thank you so much for joining in on the fight to prevent child sexual abuse. Your kids will thank you for it.
Hello, and welcome back to the Cape podcast. I am so excited to be talking to Kelly Jackson. [00:01:00] Kelly, I'm a little bit fangirling because your area of research is like, Oh, it's like, I don't know how to explain this without making me sound like a weirdo, but I really love to know the why of everything. And so I'm a white person.
Everything's like, why, why did you do that? Why, why, why? And it drives my family mental. And so the fact that you are a researcher and and you're researching the, you know, offense commission and understanding the decision to offend, and especially in the, in the crime type of child sexual abuse. I am so excited to talk to you about this.
So but before we get started, I just wanted to give everyone the heads up of how we connected. So I put a call out on LinkedIn and I got so many replies. Almost all of the people that are on the podcast at the moment are from my call out saying, Hey, who wants to be on my podcast? Which has been so exciting.
And and you were one of those people. And yeah like I said, just so excited to be here. So. For my [00:02:00] listeners, would you just tell them a bit about yourself and what you're up to and what you're doing and, and yeah.
Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. I have prepared for that. So yeah.
So, so yeah, as you said, I, I I work at the office of the inspector of custodial services. I also teach at ECU. And so I, I actually work across the fields of both psychology and criminology, and I just. I love that. I love having both those disciplines. I've also got my PhD, which, which straddles both fields of study because there's just so much overlap in both of these areas.
And I just, I think it's, it's a missed opportunity not to know about both. fields. They're just so interrelated. And so that's, that's kind of my, my day job. But yeah, my, my PhD is, is what's led me to, to what we're basically going to talk about today which is sexual offense commission which is an area that's not too well researched, which is great for me as a PhD student.
But yeah, it means there's not too much research out there to base things on. [00:03:00] But a lot's happening in this space, which is really exciting. So my PhD is actually based on a database for WA offenders. So it's really quite unique. In the fact that there's, there's not a lot of information out there that we can actually use for WA based sexual offenders.
So I can't really talk about any of the findings to come from the database, which is fine because we'll talk about theory today, which is a lot more interesting. But that's. That's kind of what I'm, I'm focused on at the moment. Yeah, when I'm not teaching at ECU or working on my, my PhD, you can, you can find me in the, in the WA prisons, just sort of hanging out, talking to, talking to business and, and yeah, seeing what we can do in that area to, to make some change.
So yeah. Yeah. That was a really long winded explanation. No, no,
Kristi: not at all. And, you know I take my hat off to you. Not a lot of people can sit right in front of people like that. offending offenders and [00:04:00] hear their stories and hear what they have to say because it's quite confronting and it takes a lot of you know, in my experience, when I was sitting across the table, everyone used to say, how do you just not shoot them or kill them or whatever?
And I used to say, well, it's not my job to judge them. My job is to put them before the courts and let the judge them. And I was able to. You know, what's the word you know, pull apart that and understand that that wasn't my position. That wasn't what I was there for. My job was to do the best job I could for who were the victims for this, for the survivors.
So yeah, so, and I'd imagine you get some of similar, some similar comments.
Kelly: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, my, my PhD is in sexual offending and I can tell you right now, nothing shuts down a conversation quicker than what's your PhD on sexual offending. All right, moving on. Yeah. It can be a little bit isolating sometimes because you really want to talk about all this research and my work as well in the prison system.
I [00:05:00] love it. I find it. So rewarding. I love talking to, to prisoners. Not saying I condone what they've done. But I love the opportunity to, to help people who maybe you know, haven't had the best opportunities in life. And things. One fantastically. I think it's great, but yeah, people, people do not get it.
People
Kristi: should
Kelly: not get it.
Kristi: No, no, they don't. And you know, one of the things that I had to come to grips with when I was investigating, especially historical child sexual abuse cases, and I was going into the prisons and speaking to. Survivors of child sexual abuse, but that also offended and some of them were sexual offenses and stuff was I had to come to grips with, they might be an offender, but they're also a victim.
Yes. And a lot of these, and as you know, probably a lot of these people are victims of some form of abuse themselves, whether it be child sexual abuse or it was some sort of psychological, emotional, physical abuse. And a lot of. A lot of what [00:06:00] happens to us in childhood and we're seeing those studies coming out and they're, they're basically giving us finally the, the clear cut answer that what happens in childhood leaves a lasting imprint, like lasting imprint on your life.
Kelly: Absolutely. Yeah. And it can be difficult because you meet these people and then you hear their story and you hear everything they have gone through. And I, I don't think I've met one person who I've sat across from and they've gone, yeah, mom and dad were great. My upbringing was positive and fantastic.
Got a, got a great relationship with, you know, my friends and family and intimate partner. No, no, I don't think I can think of one person who had that to say they're all stories of disadvantage. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Kristi: Yeah. And that's why you know, it's so important as parents and for this podcast is mostly targeted towards parenting and parents and people in this space who want to do better for the kids.
You know, that's why it is so, [00:07:00] so important that we put the energy into healing our own shit for want of a better word, so that we can be better parents. We can not bleed our trauma onto our kids so that they can have a better chance.
Kelly: Yeah, that's exactly right. So the, the research with my PhD, like that's one of the reasons the fact that it's a WA sample is so important because the findings that will come from this research can directly relate to people in our state.
So we can start you know, putting in, in, in place prevention strategies. We can start putting in place rehabilitative programs or aspects that are built on evidence from our own state and from people who. And then here in, in WA that's one of the reasons I'm, I'm so excited to, to, to get this underway.
So yeah, I totally get what you're talking about. Yeah.
Kristi: I know from speaking to other researchers and criminologists and stuff like that, that it's really hard to get [00:08:00] people to to. also participate in these studies. They, they struggle because the sample sizes are so small. And I know from my experience of dealing with managing child sex offenders that you know, a lot of them haven't come to, well, a lot of them, although they might've been found guilty in court and they might've been sentenced and they might've gone through the prisons, they still don't admit.
Yeah. They're offending to themselves or to anyone else so, you know, coming out the other side. So I'd imagine it takes someone for you to be able to sit across from them. It's going to take someone who's ready and willing to sit and with what they've done.
Kelly: Absolutely. Yeah. In, in sexual offending, there's, there's a lot of shame a lot of shame, a lot of fear, a lot of judgment.
And. Also got a certain type of offender who is, is sexually attracted to children. You have offenders who created a relationship with a young person and who [00:09:00] believes themselves that it's love or it was consensual And, or maybe completely and utterly ashamed of their sexual attraction to children and, and completely unaware of, of what to do with it or how to manage that.
So, yeah, you have a very wide range of, of offenders as we'll, we'll probably start talking about. They're, they're, yeah, as you said, they're not clear cut. There's no decision making process there. And, and there's so much diversity.
Kristi: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, do you know, in my 10 years and I mean I don't know how many cases I did, I don't know how many offenders I spoke to or interviewed.
I only had one who, Straight out came and admitted to his offending one in, in 10 years. And in fact, he admitted to a second, like to offending against another child and they were adults now it was like, you know, historical abuse. And he, I think he wanted to cleanse his own conscience basically, or, or to [00:10:00] some extent, cleanse his conscience.
And he admitted to the, the offense that I was investigating, but he also admitted to offending against another person. And then when I went to that other person, they were like, I don't want to talk about it. I'm not doing anything about it. And so, you know, from the police standpoint you know, I was able to say to them, look, if you ever want to do something about it, he's a good, he's admitted to it.
We will keep this stuff on file and you can you know, if you want, but that's up to you you know, and then further down the track, but you know, I think it's really interesting, but one thing I wanted to, to talk to you about. So. I alluded to it before we pressed record. So in my experience in my experience with offenders, I noticed clear, definitive types of offending.
So one obviously is, you know, a person's attracted to children. Yep. And they can be attracted to different ages of children. There's different sub categories, I guess, [00:11:00] which a lot of people don't realize. A lot of people don't realize that someone who might be attracted to children won't be attracted to a certain age group, but then when they hit that age group, they become attracted to them or that that in their mind it becomes okay.
Then the second subcategory was or category that I saw was situational and opportunistic. So I know that you probably know way more about this. I'd love for you to expand on those.
Kelly: Yeah, no, no, absolutely. As I, as I said before, yeah, we, we hit recording. This is one I'd actually planned for prepped for.
It's, it's the typology theory. And it is one of the most well known you know, think criminal minds like, you know, CSI. It's what most people think about it. It's those behavioral typologies that those categorizations we're actually trying to move away from that, which I'll talk about a little bit further on, but they still stand as really well known still well researched typologies.
Now, yeah, you've, you've hit the nail on the head that the three main ones. [00:12:00] are predatory situational and opportunistic. And that comes from Wortley and Smallbone. And these two guys they've done absolute foundational research. They are pioneers in this area. They have really set set the, set the, Especially for typologies.
So I'm drawing from their research here. So yeah, you've got predatory offenders. Now they mostly target male children who are not related to them. That's the usual victim. range there. They are typically sexually attracted to children, as we said and these are the most skilled in offending.
So they premeditate they have a repertoire of strategies and skills to both approach and defend against children. So they, they are motivated and they, they have a plan in place. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like,
Kristi: I'm like thinking so much there that when you just said the, they mainly target male children, not related to them.
[00:13:00] I was like, Oh my goodness. No one has ever put that to me like that, but I can see it now. And it's interesting because to me, it's interesting because. You think about like the Australian child maltreatment study that came out last year and in that it, you know, groundbreaking research where we finally have like definitive answers to how many children and how many people were walking around as survivors of abuse.
One in three girls and one in five boys and it's, and we always have that we always have, especially young men or men saying I was abused, no one listened or I didn't have anyone to go to. They, they spend a lot longer with that without speaking up about it. So yeah. So they're the target. So that predatory group of offenders, they're going to target those, those men or those boys.
Kelly: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I guess the predatory one is, I'm not sure, but most people say that's like their stereotypical idea of a, of [00:14:00] a sex offender, a child sex offender. That's like your, your, yeah, your go to idea of one. So you've got situational next as you said, now this one these types of offenders, they usually target female children who are related to them.
And therefore this is usually consistent abuse over a period of time. They're, they're likely to offend in reaction to triggering events. So this can be situational frustrations or social pressures marital stress or like Stress seems to be a trigger as well. And without these triggering events these offenders are unlikely to actually offend.
So that's an interesting aspect of these offenders. Okay.
Kristi: That's an interesting one in that it's kind of, I don't know, for someone listening and they might hear that and say, Oh, well, you know, in a perfect world, then they wouldn't offend. And, you know, it maybe they don't really mean to offend and, you know, because we do, we do struggle with the whole concept [00:15:00] of offending against children and the thought that someone can do that to children, that would be more like the familial child sexual abuse that we see, which Do you feel that step parents fall into that category as well?
Kelly: Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. You know, today our definitions of, of parenthood have, have widened. And I think when we're talking about offending which I will touch on when we talk about crime scripts the idea of location can be very, very important as well as the idea of opportunity. Very important.
So As a step parent I think for me, the, the important factor is cohabitation and spending time together. With the young person where they can possibly isolate them especially indoors. These are important factors for offending.
Kristi: Yeah. And I'm just, I'm just thinking in regards to that with, with regards to obviously most [00:16:00] targeted female children are the most targeted victim.
And, you know, they're the largest group that are affected by child sexual abuse. It usually starts earlier. you know, three, four years old can start that as young as birth. I'm just trying to get my head around the fact that you know, this, this crime type, is it always triggered by do you, from your experience, is it always triggered by some sort of stress or is it potential that is, you know, because we've just broken down predatory situational.
Well, sorry. Yes. Situational. Yeah. With regards to the predatory, I mean, I'm thinking along the lines of, you know, people who start dating single mothers with children in order, you know, that sort of thing. Do they fit in between the two types? I think
Kelly: Yes, they could. Yeah, I can't see why they wouldn't. I guess it would depend on the nature of the individual.
So, with situational, you're not really, you don't have that pure [00:17:00] sexual attraction to children. So, that might be an issue. Missing in that aspect with situational, what I find most of the time is unfortunately as horrible as it is, the sexual offending is a coping mechanism. So it's almost like, and I don't mean to be flippant or anything, but it's almost like having a drink, you know, to, to, to relax, to calm down.
So I'm, it's, it's a coping mechanism, which is all learned. Yeah. So it might be something that, again, they're very ashamed of, and usually you do high degrees of shame post event with these types of offenders. So it might be more of a learned behavior as opposed to a sexual attraction to, to, to someone.
And then a premeditated plan to build a relationship with, with that, that person for example. Yeah.
Kristi: Yeah. I can see that in some of the cases that I've had over the years actually, because in some cases there would be a whole heap of like, for want of a better word, like coercion and [00:18:00] grooming behaviors, but they would be buying presents and trying to make up for the abuse.
And that now, now that you've explained that, I can see how that would be, they've been triggered, they've offended against the child they've, you know, and now they're trying to make it up to the child.
Kelly: Yeah, you can almost see parallels between this and a domestic offender, domestic violence. Yeah, it's, it's a coping mechanism, almost like they, they snap, quote unquote, you know, they snap.
And this is the, this is the reaction. And then afterwards there's a, yeah, a high degree of shame and as you said, guilt behaviors. Yeah.
Kristi: Yeah, I can see that. And I can actually think of multiple cases where that occurred. And yeah, it makes a whole lot of sense to me. I'm sure people listening are like what, but you know, like it makes a whole lot of sense because obviously I've spent a lot of time around offenders and people who've offended and, and done these sorts of behaviors.
So yeah, like, and so [00:19:00] then there's the opportunistic offender.
Kelly: Yes. So this offender often targets female young people that they are related to so opportunistic, but though in the nature of the word, it's opportunistic. So I say that, but really, It extends to non related children as well, as you will hear as I'm about to explain.
So these offenders, they they have low self control they offend sporadically, as the name suggests and they also typically offend in non sexual ways as well. So anti social, think of that sort of you know, deviance. So this offender doesn't typically maintain a relationship with the victim which makes sense because their offending is quite sporadic and spontaneous.
And like I said, not restricted purely to sexual offending, which is also something a bit different from possibly the other two typologies.
Kristi: Yeah. So we see a lot of those offenders who are actually quite [00:20:00] violent, they're, they might be used heavy. Substance abuse use heavy in other type of offending types such as breaking and entering stealing violence against other people sort of thing.
So I saw a lot of that as well. You know, I liken that to they break into a house to steal something and then they break the occupant. Yep. Yep. Yes. Yeah. So, so again, you know, that they've, they haven't gone with the intention to do it, but they, it just happens to be that they, they've got the opportunity to do it.
Kelly: Yes. Yeah. Which is perfect. That just leads into what I was about.
So with typology, as I hinted on before because we've spoken about the three of them, so they're moving away from that, that strict sort of discrete categorization, because obviously people don't fit neatly into boxes. Do they? No, everyone is. No, everyone is buried. Everyone is [00:21:00] idiosyncratic. So they've taken this idea of precipitators and the role of opportunity across all of these offense typologies, including obviously the opportunistic one.
So what they're saying is that that the role of opportunity is actually critical in offense commission, whether an offense happens, whether someone feels that they have the opportunity to offend. So opportunities encourage people to commit an offense, even though they hadn't planned to do so in the first place, or even if they had planned to commit an offense at a later stage against a different victim.
So it basically apply. Yet, as you just said someone may have may not have intended to offend, but the opportunity has presented itself. And even a predatory or a situational offender may offend where they hadn't intended to, because the opportunity has been presented to them. Yeah, yeah.
Kristi: And [00:22:00] I've seen many cases where you know, I'm trying to just think about it and not generalize too much, but you know, where a child goes and stays with a single parent, they've, they've had a really bad week, something that major has happened, their lives falling apart and then the child's there and something happens.
And or in a lot of cases, I, I saw that parents were having a party, the kids were off in bed. Alcohol and, and substance use is involved and one of the guests has decided, has walked in and abused and offended against a child, you know, lots of things like that. It's very rare, I mean, I know from research and I also know from my experience, but most offenders are going to be either in the family, the family unit or someone very close to the family.
Kelly: Yeah, the whole idea of stranger danger, which is how my generation was brought up, you know, Yep. Yep.
Kristi: Yep. Don't take lollies [00:23:00] from strangers. Don't you know, the white van. I mean, how, how crazy
Kelly: the white van from, I don't know. None of us can talk to anyone we don't know now. Thanks. I'm kidding. But we've really moved away from that whole, you know, stranger danger.
And, and you're right, sadly it, it's, it's usually gonna be someone that, you know someone that you Yeah. Are either related to or a close family friend or yeah, someone close to you. Unfortunately, that's usually gonna be the case.
Kristi: Yeah. I, I talk a lot about red flags, morning signs and grooming behaviors as well.
And I try and educate on that all the time because, you know someone just doesn't wake up one morning and go, I'm going to abuse a child, right? They have had so many barriers that they have had to get through. And I'm wondering if you might have some insight into that. So they've got barriers to offending, right?
So the first barrier is usually their own conscious conscience, you know, that [00:24:00] they're deviancy is there, what they like. There's a lot of things that they have to get past before they decide to offend against a child. And sometimes that's why it takes years before they actually offend against someone.
Kelly: Absolutely. I mean, there's also a pathway as well, like a progression. So a lot of though some research says this is the other way around. So don't, don't quote me. Some offenders will start with online based offending, you know viewing the child exploitation material thing, things of that nature.
And then move on to maybe a physical realm. Some will stay online and that will be quote unquote enough for them. And they won't actually progress to physically offending. But there is a sort of progression in severity, which does indicate, as you've just said, there are barriers to get through which does start with their own conscience.
And of course, you know, social it's not. Encouraged. It's not okay. You know, we all know that it's a form of deviance. So yeah, they do have to get [00:25:00] past that. But that does kind of work into crime script analysis, which is one of the other theories I was going to talk about which actually tries to break sexual offense commission down into discrete stages where there are decisions made or behaviors that have to occur for the next stage to sort of complete.
So that one kind of talks a little bit about barriers and crime script analysis is one of the theories that's commonly used when we talk about prevention strategies. So that has a lot to do with that.
Kristi: Yeah,
Kelly: I guess I'd love to.
Kristi: I'd love to hear about it because for me, I mean, I'm not a researcher. I didn't go, I didn't even finish high school.
I did 10 years in the police. I've written a book. You know, I consider myself fairly intelligent, but most of my intelligence comes from, you know, being on the, on the front line, being on the street, talking to people, listening and, and questioning people. And that's where my experience comes from. [00:26:00] You know, it's so good validating for me because I observed so much of this behavior.
It's validating for me to hear that exactly what I was observing is exactly the theories that we're working with still. And, and I mean, it doesn't matter if it changes, it might change in the future. But the fact is, is that I obviously paid attention enough and I noticed enough that I've got this you know, this understanding of offending behavior and You know, these barriers that we're talking about, I know that, you know, we can have a father not offend against children, but then offend against his grandchildren.
We can have an uncle not offend against his own children, but offend against his nieces and nephews. We can have all of these types of things. And I apologize to my listeners. It's not all men. We do have a lot of female offending. It's just a smaller portion of that.
Kelly: 27 percent of Australian. Offenders, I believe, are female, that we know of.
Kristi: Wow. See, that's a lot more than what I [00:27:00] actually wow I'm glad that you told me that. So is that, is there some study that I can now quote?
Kelly: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, Australian Bureau of Statistics 2022. So yeah, so it's, we're getting a higher number because People are starting to report.
That's exactly right. People are starting to report. Again, the, the shame around male victims because again, that's a whole other discussion right there. Again, we're starting to move away. From that judgment for male victims. So we are starting to see an increase in the, the number of yeah, reports against female sexual offenders.
Yeah.
Kristi: Yeah. Oh, well, and in my experience, female sexual offenders were much more deviant and can be quite damaging, especially adult sexual offenders. You know, we say a lot of, and this is a whole nother topic, but, you know, with harmful sexualized behaviors with, Young, young people offending against young people or, or harming other young people, you know?
Mm-Hmm. . We see a lot of that being, it's not just [00:28:00] boys offending against siblings or, or other children. It's girls and boys. But when it comes to adult female sexual offenders. They can be a lot more psychologically traumatizing, a lot more they can be a lot more vicious is what I want to say.
They do a lot more harm mentally.
Kelly: I was going to say vicious. Yeah. That's, that's the word I would use to describe as well. And the the abuse the offending can go on for much longer because they it's a lot harder to detect female. Sneak out. Sneak out. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And a lot, a higher degree of manipulation of, of the victim as well.
So yeah, a lot harder to identify. Absolutely.
Kristi: And I don't want to diminish the abuse by male sexual offending as well. I don't want to diminish that what they do isn't traumatizing. I just saying that when I've interviewed children and it was in my experience, it's mostly mothers that abuse their own children, [00:29:00] mothers and stepmothers generally not.
Adult relatives, generally not, but you might get the odd one. But when I interviewed the children, it was, it was some of the stuff that turned my stomach, actually my last case that I interviewed two little girls and they'd been offended against by their mother. And. That was my last case before I quit retired.
So, and that one was the one that I just went, nah, I can't do this anymore. Cause it was so bad. And I'm not laughing for, I'm just saying it was terrible. My brain just cracked and. And that's the thing that I, you know, I do not diminish or say that women aren't capable of this. They are capable. We just see, obviously, percentage wise, it's a lot more male based offending.
Kelly: Absolutely. Yeah, it does happen. And yeah, you shouldn't discount anybody because of their biological sex or gender. Females are [00:30:00] just as Possible, likely possible, able to, to engage in, in that offending. Absolutely.
Kristi: Yeah. And the only other, before we move on to those scripts, I was just going to say, the other thing is I saw a lot more females justify and validate and, you know, justify and enable abuse.
They put, turned a blind eye. They didn't do anything. They didn't act as a protector. They basically enabled it for a long time, you know, a lot of the times, a long time, they blamed the victim. And so that can be also very damaging for children, for young people and that leaves, sometimes that will leave a bigger scar than the actual abuse that they underwent because the person that was meant to protect them didn't.
So. Yeah. And, and there's so much to this. I mean, I'm sure you, I, I, I feel like you're a bit like me. You're hypothesizing, you're thinking like, why do people do that? Why don't they protect their kids? Well, this is me sitting there because I talk about prevention all day. [00:31:00] So scripts, you were going to talk about crime scripts.
Tina: Quickly interrupting this episode to let you know that Christie has a whole library full of resources to support you. If this podcast hits home for you and you want to learn more about cyber safety, abuse awareness and prevention, and how you can protect your children, head to the link in the show notes where you can access free downloads, informative guides, and courses relating to these topics.
You can also order Christie's book, Operation KidSafe, a detective's guide to child abuse prevention. If you want to join the fight against child sexual abuse, you can support Chrissy to reach a wider audience by leaving a review on this podcast or sharing it with your community.
Kelly: Yes. Yeah. Okay. So as, as I said, they, they try to break down the, the offense commission because everything we've been talking about today which I've spoken about before, we're not talking about, you know, all of the factors across the lifespan that have come together to culminate in [00:32:00] this person eventually offending.
No, no, no, no, no. We're focusing on the actual event. So what happened, why it happened and the order of events. And that is important because up until recently, that hasn't really received a lot of attention. So looking at the actual. Commission of the offense. So we're trying to get predictable actions, locations and roles.
And so obviously this has direct links to how we can possibly prevent this from happening. So this is a lot more sort of it involves community. It involves yet guardians as well. And it's more of a preventative approach. But talking about the crime script, it's So, so I actually found, I dug out a a study that was done in Queensland.
Cause I really like to use research that's, you know, local as much as I can. So in Queensland, they applied one of the many crime script models, because of course us researchers never agree anything ever. There are [00:33:00] many different crime scripts out there but I chose, they chose one and they applied it to offenders in Queensland.
So what they found is that the model fit reasonably well. There were about seven stages and they were fit sorry, they were divided into two phases. So you had your crime setup as your first phase, and then you had your crime achievement as your second phase. So in crime setup you've got the stage of gaining the trust of the young person you then move into proceeding to a selected location.
Now that can be pre selected, that can be based on, on the opportunity, depends. But you move from that one into selecting an indoor location, which sounds really random, but apparently that's a very important factor, finding an indoor location in order to isolate the young person, which is the. Age in that phase.
So that's your setup. And it, and it ends with you, you know, the ends with the offender [00:34:00] isolated with the young person. So we make sense.
Kristi: That makes sense with the grooming steps and phases, you know, you, you, you, well, first of all victim selection would be in there as well. I'd imagine if, you know, finding a victim that you can get alone, you know, if it's not your own child and finding ways to isolate that child away from another safe adult or someone who might interrupt what they're about to do and that can take time.
Kelly: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That can take multiple attempts as well. And. This is something that this particular study did look at was offenses that were completed and offenses that were disrupted. And I will talk about that in a second because that's where your guardians can kind of come in. But the victim themselves and their level of cooperation was found to be really quite critical in whether or not an offense was completed or whether it was disrupted.
But I'll finish the model first. Yeah, sure.
Kristi: Sorry.
Kelly: It's okay. No, don't worry. So you've got the, [00:35:00] the, the crime achievement phase then and that's got three stages. So that's gaining the young person's cooperation. Now that can be by force or by what we call compliment, which is your typical sort of grooming behaviors trying to form a relationship and a connection.
Achieving the young person's cooperation. So you can see already it's important because they've broken it down into two different stages. So you achieve the young person's cooperation and that can look very different as we'll talk about. And then that leads to the final stage, which is achieving sexual contact.
Kristi: Yeah.
Kelly: Yeah.
Kristi: And, and it's, it might happen like, this is the crazy thing. I, and I don't think people realize this happens in almost every. Contact offending offence. This, these same six phases or six stages happen in every contact offence. It might happen faster, it might happen slower. It all depends on, first of all, the availability, the child's resistance and, and [00:36:00] compliance, you know, and the, and the fact that they can get them alone and keep them in, you know, for them to offend against.
And so. This was something that I observed over and over and over again. And this is something that I would, I just kept thinking, why don't parents know this? Why don't people know about this stuff? Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, why? Like it used to baffle me, but I guess, you know, unless we break it apart and make it into simple stuff like this, it, when you see it now, I can literally, you know, pick out when people are, you know, potentially being groomed.
Because I've seen enough of it and I'm, I'm willing to accept that this is actually grooming.
Kelly: Yeah. This, this is happening. And that, that can be difficult. Especially when it's someone, you know, which as we've spoken, the likelihood is it is going to be someone, you know, it's very unlikely some stranger that you feel very comfortable screaming at you know, and get, get out of my [00:37:00] space a lot different if it's your dad
Kristi: or your grandfather or a family member.
Yeah. Yeah.
Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. Or your best friend, you know, whatever, whatever.
Kristi: Yeah. Or, or your neighbor or your neighbor's child or whoever it is. And you know, we, we, this is one of the things and people, you know, criticize me, call me a Karen for one. I've been called a Karen a lot this week, by the way. Which makes me laugh.
I kind of, like, get insulted and then I'm like, huh, I'd rather be a Karen, thank you very much, because my daughter hasn't been abused, touch wood and she goes to school with a whole heap of kids that, you know, have disclosed abuse to her and she's, you know, only 16. And Because they know that I do the work I do and and so she's obviously a safe place and they come to her for help and all for advice or they're not getting help from home and so they're always coming to her going, oh can you ask your mom this question?
Can you ask this mom? Yeah, crazy that I, yeah, but it is what it is. But yeah, my daughter, touch wood hasn't been sexually abused [00:38:00] yet. You know, quite a lot of her peers have. Wow.
Kelly: Which is just upsetting to, to hear. Like that's just, it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be. Right. Right. And yeah, your, your daughter's friends shouldn't be having to disclose things to her.
Number one at all. You know full stop, but number two, because they're not getting the support they need elsewhere. Yeah, that just tells me that as, as, as we've been talking about today, not enough is being done like in the community to, to really sort of I guess, update people understand it.
Yeah. Yeah. Move away from stranger danger, which I don't know if that's still the, the, the, the drum that we're beating. But it seems like whatever we're doing, it's not really translating down to, to our young people to be able to safeguard themselves, or if something goes wrong. Where to go for help.
Kristi: Get
Kelly: support.
Kristi: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's my biggest message is first of all, here's what, here's what we're watching out for. These tricky behaviors is the [00:39:00] word new terminology. Here's what we're looking out for. Here's what you, here's who you can go to who here's what you do if you need support and help.
You know, if something happens, this is what we do next sort of thing, you know, and. So it really, it really hurts my heart when I see, especially young people who have gone to someone for help or support, especially, and they have been turned away or their family doesn't know, or they are disregarded or not validated.
And it really hurts my heart because I know how much, how much pressure that puts on that child, that young person, how much trauma that causes. And we, so that's my whole work is, is basically trying to wake people up and go. Hey, we actually have an opportunity here to stop this.
Kelly: Yeah, exactly. So I guess taking it back to the, the crime script, I've made a few notes here about subject because I obviously I had did a bit of research about the podcast coming on.
Thanks
Kristi: Kelly. You're so smart. [00:40:00] See, I love researchers. You guys have all the things.
Kelly: We research everything. And, and I figured that, yeah, it's more of a preventative. Totally. Totally. What you just explained. So coming out of this, this research of the crime script analysis and some of these coming from from Queensland is the victim cooperation or the cooperation of the young person, like I said, is actually critical in disrupting the, the offense.
It might be that we're playing on the conscience as, as we've hinted at the offender suddenly has to. Be more aware of what they're doing, take more accountability, take more responsibility for what's going on. But in Queensland for 86 percent of the offenders that they were talking to the inability to achieve victim cooperation was the reason that they disrupted their offense.
And then right behind that was the presence of a guardian. So.
Kristi: 86%. So we're talking, so just let's, let's simple talk this out. Okay. We're talking about a [00:41:00] child saying something, not going along with it, being aware that what was happening was like inappropriate or, or bad or tricky behaviors.
Kelly: Yeah. Resisting, calling out, just reacting negatively to even the initial, the initial attempts just sort of a, a bit of a group or a, I don't know, or this isn't right.
I'm uncomfortable. Any of that, right up to fighting, kicking, screaming, calling for help, all that sort of stuff. 86 percent of offenders. So what
Kristi: you're telling me is body safety education and education around all of this stuff is the, and I've got tingles because this is what I've been shouting from the rooftop for so long.
So 86 percent of non, so basically they're disrupted. They couldn't get to the, the phase of actually, yeah, they couldn't get to the phase of finalizing it and actually abusing the child is because the child [00:42:00] reacted or didn't, didn't what was the word you used? They didn't they didn't get their compliance.
Yep. Yep. Yep. And that's why the next thing was the, was the family member or the guardian being, being close or wow.
Kelly: Yep.
Kristi: You've made my day. I mean, you've made my day because I knew that this was the case. Intrinsically, I knew, I knew from my own experiences and my own stories that, you know, the children who had, first of all, as, as protective guardian, had someone and had some body safety education behind them.
They were. You know, it might have been a one and done, or it might have been a, an attempt, but most of the time they were, they were, you know, supported and out of that situation quicker, the ones that didn't have that protective parent didn't have that education, didn't have anyone to sort of, you know, support them and protect them.
Those were the [00:43:00] kids that went on for years.
Kelly: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, to, to you and me, it might not be, be surprising to, to people listening. It, it might be but yeah, so obviously having a guardian present is very important. Like that's never not going to be important, I don't think. And that's, you know, your basic level of protection is, is being there and not letting the child out of your sight.
But as we all know, life happens, things happen and that can't always be achieved. So. Victim and you also trust people, which is absolutely fine to do, but yeah, you're not always around or it's not always around. So yeah, victim cooperation just yeah, resisting or yeah, just like I said, from those initial stages, that whole gaining the trust of a young person, if they struggle in that initial stage you know, it really does create quite a few barriers for them because they don't know what to do.
You just think about it logically for a second. Your first stage is gaining the trust of a child. If the child doesn't trust you proceeding [00:44:00] to a selected location with them getting them indoors and then isolating them is going to be quite difficult. Yeah, if they cooperate almost immediately. So this is where maybe bringing, bringing in the typologies for a little bit.
A predatory offender might have quite a few different strategies in play for that. A predatory offender might be able to identify which children, as we've spoken about before, are more likely to not offer resistance and are more likely. Right.
Kristi: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I saw that all the time, you know certain offenders, like you just said, the predatory offenders, they're going to, they're going to be selecting the children that don't have a, have a guardian that's protected, that might have some form of you know, self esteem or, you know, they're, they're trying to pick the kids out that, you know, they might be on the spectrum or they might have a disability or they might.
[00:45:00] just be quite withdrawn and not very confident, the confident kids, they're not going to even go like they might attempt, but then that first barrier comes up and then they're going to go nut too hard. Cause one thing I do know about most offenders is they're they are cowards. They are not wanting to get found out and they do not want to go to jail.
They do not, but yet they're still going to give it a go. They're going to give it a crack anyway.
Kelly: Yes. Yeah. So yeah, the more confident your, your children are the more they're aware of, like I said, that, yeah, their, their body and, and no, and the statements, I'm not comfortable with this. You are making me uncomfortable.
Knowing that, okay, I'm with this person. I don't feel safe. Where is the. safe adult and, and all that sort of stuff, even down to yet physically resisting, if it comes to that. Yeah.
Kristi: That makes so much sense. And again, I want to reiterate, it's never a child's job to stop child sexual abuse, but. Yeah, no, no, we're not.
I just [00:46:00] wanted to reiterate that because, you know, it's one of the things that I like to remind people is, is that yes, we can teach them body safety. We can create that confidence, but it is not their responsibility to stop it. It's our responsibility as guardians and adults to help them when they, and to believe them when we get, when they tell us something.
Kelly: Yeah, and I will actually state as well that there are quite a few offenders as well who will push through without gaining cooperation, without gaining trust and again, different typologies, but there are ones and they're the more violent, unfortunately and those situations do typically end up in with more severe offending all the way up to possibly murder, unfortunately.
But it's because, yeah, there's a very, there's a lack of empathy there. There's a, there's a lack of care. That's a very specific offender. But that, that does happen. There are offenders who don't bother with cooperation, don't bother with trust and will just use force. So, yeah, as you said, it's not the child's [00:47:00] job and it's not guaranteed that them resisting or not giving cooperation is going to automatically result
Kristi: in,
Yeah.
And a lot of and you know, when we're talking that, that type of offender that you just mentioned, that will just push through the resistances and, and, and use force. There are small, there are small percentage of child sex, sex offenders. You know, they're not a large percentage. Most child sex offenders are looking for cooperation.
They're looking for you know, they're looking for the child's, you know, cooperation, the family's cooperation, they're going to be looking for the easy win. They're not for want of a better word. They're not looking to fight someone because. Ultimately, they don't want to get found out. Yeah. And the other, and the other offender, there's a whole heap of other stuff in the background going on with them.
Kelly: Absolutely. Yeah. So I guess again, you've perfectly led to the final theory that I, I had for, for this, this podcast, which is offense pathways. And they do delve a little bit more [00:48:00] into yeah, the use of force and the different strategies that are sort of used. So offense pathways that there's sort of the more contemporary theory that we're sort of looking at because they're models that sort of bring together all of the factors we've been talking about.
So individual dispositional factors of the offender, but together with those situational factors, you're getting a really integrated model of sexual offense commission. And, you know, I really. as whole a picture as you possibly can. So the research around offense pathways they actually break the offense pathways down depending on whether the offender offends against children that they are related to or if they offend against children they are not related to.
So for extra familial offense You've got three different pathways and you've got the non coercive deviant, the coercive deviant, and the coercive non deviant. I don't love the names. No.
Kristi: I was just trying to make it easy for them [00:49:00] and we're like, what?
Kelly: Absolutely. So yeah, bear with the language. But for these three pathways, which kind of fits into what we've just been talking about.
The non coercive deviant is again an organized offender but they engage in enticement or entrapment and they don't use physical violence. So that's, you know, one, one area. The coercive deviant that's again, a reactive offender who lacks self esteem and therefore engages in the use of force. So that's important.
They don't have enough self esteem to win over the trust or the cooperation. So they go immediately to the use of force. The fact that they're reactive as well, that kind of links back to earlier conversations that we've had. It's a very emotional form of offending. They've been ready and they're looking for a release.
And then the coercive non deviant this is an egotistical offender who lacks empathy in their approach and is motivated [00:50:00] by immediate gratification. So this is probably quite close to adult sexual offending, sexual assault. It's very it's more violent and motivated by the actual physical gratification.
Yeah,
Kristi: so, so basically with that last one, it's, it's more, there's no consideration to the victim or the person that they're offending against. They don't care about their feelings, thoughts, or, or wants. They're not going to, they're basically gonna use force and they're gonna do what they want.
Kelly: Yep. And again, these types of this pathway typically does end with the death of the, the victim.
Because again. Just that lack of empathy. So as, as we were saying before here, the cooperation or the trust of the, the young person would not matter at all. Yeah. Wouldn't matter.
Kristi: Yes. I'm thinking of I'm thinking of a few cases, not necessarily child sexual abuse, but sexual assault cases where it's been you know, they've kind of lured in their victims.
One was a a case [00:51:00] where they lured the victim via a dating app. And then when they finally got them into their safe place, then they, you know, tied them up, raped them for days and stuff like that. And just happened that this young person was, you know, only just turned 18 and you know, it was trying to not date close to home.
So it was on this dating app, which was meant to, you know, be older men, you know, and it was really sad. I felt really bad for her because the, the situation was terrible. Luckily she was able to, she was freed after two days and, and basically sent on her way. But I just think about that kind of offending where it was literally lure, like luring in this young woman promising all of these things.
But when they, when it got down to it, there was no consideration for her. Everything they'd promised was gone. It wasn't, yeah. Whereas the other that, you know, that what was the first one? The non. Non coercive deviant. Yeah, the non coercive deviant. [00:52:00] So they're, they're basically going to lure the person in.
They want that person to be cooperative. They want them to believe that they love them and, or, or maybe using all of those kinds of love bombing and, and those kinds of things. Yep.
Kelly: So again, you know, if you want to link it back to sort of thinking about typologies, this is these types of offenders are more likely to be sexually attracted to children.
Gotcha. More a genuine care, a genuine care a genuine love and trying to build a relationship there. Yeah. They will typically fall into that sort of category. Yeah. And then you've got the Intra familial offense pathways. So those offenders that have been against their, their own children.
The labels for these ones are even worse. But we've got sexual deviance which again is planned offenses involving isolated victims or sorry, isolated offenders. So that's, that's important. These are people who might be quite lonely might be separated from [00:53:00] their intimate partner and they engage in manipulation and persuasion.
So that's actually, you've then got opportunity, which again, kind of harks back to typology a bit. So you've got sporadic offenses and this often involves intoxication and use of coercion. Sorry. Emotionally charged use of force, and then you would expect great greater feelings of shame after this as well.
And then your final one is just problematic. Which involves dysfunctional offenders who engage in either calculated or uncontrolled offence behaviours. So they're a bit of a wild card, that one. So I'm not too sure what was going on with that offence pathway. But it might be sort of related to that impulsivity again, that anti social tendency
Kristi: that might be.
They would be emotionally charged. They would be an emotionally charged offender, like, They would be offending when they're feeling out of control and they don't feel confident, etc. So they go and offend to [00:54:00] feel, you know, to fill a fill a void in themselves. Oh, yeah.
Kelly: Yeah.
Kristi: Yeah, okay. The first one the first one with regards to the intrafamilial deviant, was it?
That was what it was called, yeah? Sexual deviants, yeah, they just call it. Yeah, and they, and, you know, one of the, one of the hard things for people to understand that don't work in this field and, and just, One of the hard things for people to understand, and one of the hard things for survivors and victims to understand is sometimes it's not forced.
Sometimes the victim is coerced. Sometimes the victim actually enjoys the the offense defending because, you know, some, that non familial sexual deviant, they, they're not out to. For want of a better word, harm in brackets, the child, the child or the person there and they're there to fill a need they have.
So if they don't harm that, that child, then it's going to, they've [00:55:00] got a greater chance of it continuing.
Kelly: Yes.
Kristi: Yep. Yeah. And that's hard for some people to understand that not all sexual offending is, is forced or painful or harmful, it can be pleasurable, it can be you know, there could be cooperation from the victim survivor, which, you know, at the time they're children, so that how are they, you know, meant to, You know, they don't know any different.
And a lot of survivors who have had on the podcast and to talk to, you know, they really struggle in adulthood when they're trying to reconcile what happened to them as a child and how they feel about that offender, because sometimes there's genuine love and affection between the two. And yeah. And it's, and it's not their fault at all.
Kelly: No, no. And these, these feelings that you're, you're talking about in these situations, they become more prevalent as the young person gets into their late teens, you know, so we're, we're just shy of 18. You know, so. We've got, you know, hormones, we've got development going on all that sort of stuff.
And [00:56:00] yeah, things feel good as they should. And maybe that person did feel genuine love and care for this other person. It's a time of first romantic relationships. Yes. So finding out who you are and finding out what you like, so it can be a very, very difficult situation and time, especially as you get into those final couple of years before you are an adult in the eyes of the law.
Kristi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so difficult. There's no one, one perfect archetype. subcategory, category perfect. Like, it's just, this is why it's such a hard, hard category or crime type to be able to really understand for the general population to understand after years of working in this space, I, you know, have a lot more understanding about how this affects survivors, but also how, you know, how some of these offenders are of victims themselves, how it's, it's basically you know, that it's created the [00:57:00] pathway that they're on however, that is never an excuse.
However, that's no excuse. And so that's the hard thing, I think, for people to understand.
Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. And, and yeah, bringing it, I guess, full circle to back how we started the conversation, people not understanding those of us who work in this area, I guess it's, and this is what I say to people. I was like, look, it takes a very special person a unique person to be able to work in these areas and to be able to empathize.
But not support I, I can understand what you're saying and I can see your point of view, but I'm not enabling, I'm not advocating and I'm not accepting what has happened, but I'm here to talk to you about it so we can figure out why it happened and on it never happening again and yeah, moving on from that and rehabilitating.
Kristi: A question just [00:58:00] popped up then, and it's probably one you can't answer, but I should ask it anyway. So I get, like, I'm an advocate, I talk about this so, so openly and I get a lot of people, you know, with very varying varying opinions on this and, and one of the opinions, so I've got two parts to this.
The first part is, do you think, There is the potential for rehabilitation in offenders.
Kelly: Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And I'm, I'm talking broadly here, all offenses. But I am also talking about what we're talking about here today. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Kristi: I think it all. I think when I think about that question, it comes down to the individual and the individual has to want.
A change for themselves.
Kelly: Yes, absolutely. Yes. Sorry. Let me preface this. Yeah. If the person is ready in, in the area that I'm, I'm in I, I used to evaluate [00:59:00] rehabilitative programs for offenders in prison all sorts of offenses, including sexual offending. And time and time and time and time again, the research shows that it doesn't matter how great.
And a rehabilitative program is doesn't matter how wonderful your facilitators are in the content and everybody around you, unless you are ready, unless you are motivated, unless you are willing to accept change. It is not going to, it is not going to have an effect. It's not going to have a long term effect on your.
Thoughts or your behaviors, you have to be motivated and you have to be willing. If that's there and you have what's called treatment readiness then yeah, wonderful things can happen. And I've seen wonderful change in, in people who have touched wood, I guess haven't come back to prison as far as I'm aware of and have really moved into quite a pro social life.
[01:00:00] Talking about are in the areas of family violence and substance offending and violent offending. But I extend that same ethos to, to sexual offending as well. Yeah. Everyone's got the potential.
Kristi: Yeah. I will agree with that. Everyone does have the potential to be. change. Unfortunately you know, we're lucky in Australia that we now have Stop It Now Australia, where anyone who's identified their identified their feelings towards children, or towards child sexual abuse thoughts, or maybe even watching child exploitation material they, they actually have this free resource that they can call, it's anonymous.
And, and unfortunately it's not highly Resourced or funded, but it's there. At least there's something. And that's really, really important. Secondly, the second part to that is, is that you know, if you are willing to take responsibility for your own actions, anything's possible, right? So yes, possible.
Kelly: Yeah, that's part [01:01:00] of being treatment ready. That's part of being ready to change your behavior is ownership and accountability and accepting that that you engage in these behaviors and you are accountable for that. Yes. There might be things that happened, but it doesn't, you know, your background and what happened to you and all of that sort of stuff.
It doesn't take away the accountability for your, you are responsible for your actions. Yeah.
Kristi: Yeah. And that goes, and you, you hit the nail on the head. It doesn't matter if it's. or another crime type, domestic violence, anything, gendered violence, anything that you, it's all, yeah, you got to be accountable and ready.
And yeah, the second thing that I was going to ask is so again, I'm part of an advocacy group of advocates and South Australia is just in Western Australia. We have a and a public accessible sex offender register. This is a curveball for you. Sex offender register and it's, and it's quite limited.
The sex offender [01:02:00] register in Western Australia, which is public is quite limited. All you get is a photo of the person that is on the sex offender register that lives in your suburb, basically. I don't, did you know about that? Surely you did.
Kelly: No, I'll be honest. I did not know about that.
Kristi: Yeah. So it's a, it's available to everyone in West Australia.
South Australia is just about to bring it in. Tasmania is talking about it. Do you think that, cause my biggest concern in regards to sex offenders, the amount of sex offenders that I've seen who have obviously dated moms with kids and, you know, and you know, it's quite, it can be quite manipulative because they've obviously, They know that they've got an attraction there or that they offend against children when certain things happen, certain parts you know, when things fall apart and all of this, this opportunistic or situational stuff.
So, you know, they then go out and date someone with kids and, and it happens to be that shit hits a fan and then they are offending [01:03:00] against children that are, you know, in the home. So do you think that public sex offender registers? Are a are a prevention measure method or prevention measure.
Kelly: Hmm. Like you said, that is, that is a curveball.
That one's tricky. I would say yes, but I would caveat that by saying you would really want to To be very specific about who goes on to that register. Now, again, I didn't know about the register, so I'm not going to speak too broadly on it but depending on what kind of offenses are included in that register, like, if you have offended against a child.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. But if it's things like like, I don't know, indecent, indecent exposure, like you're, you're, you're pissed and you're, you know, flash, flash, a group of. Yes. Yeah. And I know I'm using a random example, and it's probably like, you know, [01:04:00] 5 percent of the actual offending population, but because I'm a researcher, I think this way, so I would want to see the eligibility criteria of who make to that register the people that we've been talking about today yeah, these people should be on a register because it'll help the offense prevention, as I was saying about community awareness, things of that nature.
You know, yes, you can have vigilante vigilantes and things of that nature. And I don't really condone that two rights. Don't make a two wrongs, don't make a right. That's the right one. Yeah. . So I'm not saying that that that's all cool. But in terms of Yeah. Raising awareness, yeah, absolute.
But I want a really tight eligibility criteria on on that one to make sure that the right kinds of people backed by research are the ones that go on to that database so that we can just all, you can be a lot more sure about what you're looking up and why you're looking it up. The fact that it's just a picture.
Does it say anything about what [01:05:00] they may have been charged with? Yeah, see,
Kristi: It's a, it's a, the West Australian system has been around for like, for a long time. Now, first of all, I'll touch on the vigilantism. There is laws to protect released offenders into, you know, there is legislation to protect them. So, you know, Anyone who goes against that is going to end up probably with their own charges.
So hence why I'm not worried about vigilantism because it'll only take a couple before someone actually goes, okay, it's not worth it. We're just going to, we're going to hate them and that's it. But secondly to that I agree with you. I think contact offending, any contact offending should be on that list.
I'm, I'm a little bit with the WA register, it's literally just a photo. You don't get a name. You don't get. You know, you just get a photo, the South Australian register and what some of the advocates are pushing for is so that you can go, I can have started dating Joe Smith. Joe [01:06:00] Smith's date of birth is this.
Put in, go, you go into this website, which is managed by police and you put it in and you can find out if Joe Smith with this date of birth is on the register or not. I mean, it doesn't mean that they have, that they're not offending against kids. It just means I haven't been charged with anything. It's similar to the working with children check.
Exactly. But no, I think as parents, we love our kids. We, we don't want them to be harmed. Most of us, we don't want to harm them. We don't want them to be harmed. And so therefore we should be doing everything in our power to keep them safe.
Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I'm, I don't see a problem with the, with the register, but yeah, I, I personally would want to tweak it a little.
Kristi: Yeah. Good to hear. I'll, I'll pick your brains afterwards. So Kelly, my last question is, As a this podcast is all about prevention, education keeping parents informed. What, what's one thing that you, or what's one thing that you think [01:07:00] parents need to know that you want them to walk away from and maybe think about when they listen to this podcast?
Kelly: I was reading up this morning on a whole bunch of different stuff to get my head in the, in the space here. And I, I had a feeling you might ask this question given, you know, the, the nature of the podcast. So we've spoken a little bit about things that, you know, people can, can do to, to potentially prevent or mitigate.
But one thing I came across today which really kind of just struck for me was don't underestimate the power of your instinct. Your gut visceral instinct. It's mothers, fathers, whatever, whoever. If there is something that you're not quite right, there's a feeling that you're not quite sure about.
Don't, don't leave that person with your child. Don't walk away from that. Remove yourself from that, that scenario. Stop talking to that person. Stop seeing that person. You don't have to report them or anything, but remove yourself from that [01:08:00] situation. Trust your instincts. Because you will notice, you know, people instinctively notice grooming behaviors and things of this, of this nature.
I guess don't leave your children alone as well, which seems really silly to say, but a lot of this again revolves around opportunity. So don't provide the opportunity, whatever that opportunity might look like, which is basically isolation. Opportunity is a critical factor in, in offending. So if there's no opportunity, then that's an additional barrier.
And someone who may have wanted to offend will not have the ability to.
Kristi: Perfect. Oh, well done. Yep. You're, you're hitting all of the ticks that I could ever want, because that's the same thing that I say. I'm like, trust your gut. Your gut is there for a reason. It's the internal warning system. You're, we teach kids to, to listen to their early warning signs and let us know.
So how about you listen to [01:09:00] yours too and do something about it.
Kelly: That's exactly right. We teach our children to say, you're making me feel uncomfortable. Yep. If someone's making you feel uncomfortable or your kid tells you that you, you remove them, you remove yourself, remove them as soon as possible.
Kristi: Yeah.
And it doesn't matter if it's your, your friend, family, someone, you know, a coach, anyone in your life. It it's too, there's too big a risk to you that, that, that potentiality. And people call me, someone said, Early on in, when I started talking that I have confirmation bias,
confirmation bias, I had to go and look it up. Cause I wasn't quite sure what it meant. And then I was like, I'm going to swear, fuck off. I've got confirmation bias. And I've been called a Karen a few times this week, and it's quite funny because I'm like, Karen? Yeah, no, I think you guys are sticking your heads in the sand.
And luckily the people who listen to this podcast [01:10:00] aren't those people. That's
Kelly: it.
Kristi: Yeah.
Kelly: I mean, yeah. So you might, you might be. Wrong. And you might lose out on a friendship or something of that nature, or someone might call you a Karen for some reason. But you know, your, your child will not be harmed by that person.
They may never have been, you don't know, like, yeah, maybe you completely overreacted, but you have removed the possibility. And that is the best thing we can do. Like I can talk to you about situational crime prevention and all this sort of stuff and, you know, reducing provocation and blah, blah, blah.
But no, what I, when I read that line this morning, I thought, yeah, yeah, you know what, for real world people, people who don't have their heads in research and literature and all that, trust your instincts. Trust you got it. They're there for a
Kristi: reason. Yeah. No, that's great, Kelly. So Kelly, if anyone wants to follow along with your PhD or anything, do you do PhD students and people in research?
Do you do are you? Allowed to share what you're doing. Are [01:11:00] you allowed to keep up people up to date?
Kelly: I'm eventually allowed to share. Yeah. When it's finished, when it's finished my, my PhD is a one by publication. So everything we've been talking about today is the background that actually formulates my very first publication.
So once that goes live, which I'm hoping will be next year
Kristi: yeah. You're publicly available to everyone. That'd be amazing. Well, I'll definitely be sharing it when I, when you finally publish and you get that big. You know, you get that PhD and, you know, you can have PhD at the end of your name. It's been a lovely conversation mainly because this topic is not someone, something that's ever really talked, spoken about, you know, in public.
Yeah. I mean, we get a bit, we get a bit, sorry, I have to cut you off. We get a bit like, we talk about it all the time and we're like, you know, sadly we get Excited when we learn something new and we get excited, you know, but most [01:12:00] people, the everyday person doesn't hear about this stuff.
Kelly: I know, which, which blows my mind.
But yeah, you know, whoever listens to this, like, yeah, I hope it was helpful. I hope it wasn't too dry. Not at
Kristi: all. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. What I will do though, Kelly is I, all of the research that you quoted, I will put the research in the show notes. Cause if anyone's interested, they can look it up themselves.
Kelly: Yes, absolutely. Yes. I'm all about sharing the research and yes, sharing the knowledge.
Kristi: We need that. Well, then it gives us credentials like we can sit there and go, well, actually we're not just sprouting shit. We're actually telling people someone's actually spent time to research and write this paper. All right.
Well, thank you so much. And it's been a pleasure.
Kelly: Oh, thank you. I've had great fun. Yeah.
Kristi: Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. Education empowers children and empowers parents and education prevents abuse. That is why I'm here [01:13:00] and that is why you are here. So thank you. If you want any further information or support, follow me on social media, either under Christy McVie or KAU social media accounts.
I'll put the links in the show notes. You can also purchase a copy of my book Operation Kids Safe via the [email protected]. Also, on my website is a free ebook titled 10 Tips to Keep Your Kids Safe from Abuse. and self paced courses for parents to help you in your journey of child abuse prevention.
Please see the show notes for any extra information, links and help should you be looking for extra support. Thank you once again for giving a shit about preventing child sexual abuse. See you next time.
