About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

79 Brook. L. Rev. 397 (2013-2014)
The Time Has Come for a Restatement of Child Sex Abuse

handle is hein.journals/brklr79 and id is 413 raw text is: The Time Has Come for a Restatement of Child Sex Abuse Marci A. Hamiltont INTRODUCTION Child sex abuse is a widespread, persistent, and prevalent evil that is finally getting the attention it needs in the media and the courts. For centuries, children's suffering on this account was accepted, taboo, or willfully ignored. That has changed as we have entered an era that portends a civil rights movement for children and dramatic increases in our knowledge about the realities of child sex abuse. The law, as usual, has been slow to catch up to the social science and policy needs, but the time is now to bring together the fast-advancing field of law that is assisting these victims and improving the odds of preventing abuse and bringing those who are responsible for it to justice. Restatements are not only statements of black letter law, but also re-statements in the sense that the Reporters have latitude to point the way on legal developments in the field. The time is ripe to restate the law of child sex abuse. Not only has the law been rapidly developing over the last 20 years, but there is now a well-developed science of child sex abuse that informs the law and which is quite helpful for lawmakers setting public policy and judges interpreting the law. Thus, for lawyers, judges, policymakers, and scholars, the time has come to survey and document the many interrelated issues on which there is growing or even near-complete agreement and to chart the way for the future. It is also worthwhile to highlight where courts are struggling to find clear standards and whether legislatures need to clarify their standards or consider new approaches. Importantly, social science is developing at an even faster rate than both federal and state law, with the law often laboring t Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law. Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. I thank Gregg Meyers for helpful comments and my team of research assistants for their hard and excellent work for this article, including Emma Glazer, Jeremy Ancelson, Alexander Blake, Alyssa Figueroa, William King, Tammy Lam, Shane Martins, Danielle Nolan, and Courtney Soliday. 397

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most