Understanding Clergy-Perpetrated Child Sexual Abuse as Organised Offending : Networks versus Individuals

Through ongoing research and public inquires, the systemic nature of clerical child sexual abuse (CSA) and its management has been established (McPhillips, McEwan, Death & Richards, 2022; McPhillips, Death, Richards & Fitzgerald, 2022). Whilst systemic issues have been acknowledged, the body of work that examines clergy CSA as organised remains in development. Understanding institutional violence as systemic includes focusing on organisational factors that enabled abuse (such as culture and policy). Understanding abuse as organised considers actors as agents involved in networks of ties that facilitate abuse (Burcher, 2018). This chapter first outlines why the movement of perpetrators to developing nations is important for understanding clerical CSA as organised crime. Factors that may have allowed organised clerical offending in developed nations to occur in undisrupted ways are then discussed, including, a reliance on faith-based organisations (FBO’s) to provide services to vulnerable populations, limitations to criminal and civil justice systems, and a weakened media. These factors have been important in disrupting clerical CSA in developing nations