UNITED KINGDOM
The Conversation

Chris Greer
Professor of Sociology at City University London

Eugene McLaughlin
Professor of Criminology at City University London

For all its extraordinary impact, the Jimmy Savile scandal has not unfolded in an exceptional way. The media and justice systems’ treatment of the affair is only the latest example of a relatively new type of scandal: the institutional child sex abuse scandal.

Institutional CSA scandals emerged only recently as a focus for sustained public concern because of the longstanding taboos that for decades kept child abuse hidden from ‘official’ visibility and marginalised from UK public debate. These taboos were only challenged in the 1980s by sustained feminist campaigning, media coverage, and public testimony from individual survivors, finally making open allegations possible and the pursuit of justice for victims a political priority. Yet because news coverage of abuse continued to focus on the dominant idea…