| Zusammenfassung: | This dataset relates to quantitative information about sexual offences, their reporting and prosecution, which has been abstracted from the Annual Criminal Justice Statistics for England and Wales 1918-1970 (Command Papers series). The dataset was created as part of the ESRC-funded project ES/M009750/1 ‘Historicising “historical child sexual abuse” cases: social, political and criminal justice contexts’. This research project will carry out rapid deck-based research, using very significant sets of online sources that are already available in digital form, but whose potential for research into the history of child sexual abuse has not been realized. It will cover four significant areas: (1) We will construct quantitative profiles of the extent of the reporting and convictions of sexual offences from 1918 to 1990, making use of the published Criminal Justice Statistics for England and Wales; (2) We will carry out a qualitative longitudinal study of the role of the national and local newspaper press in reporting cases of child sexual abuse, and in shaping social attitudes towards young people and sexuality in the period 1918-1990. The newspaper press was a crucial arena through which public opinion was shaped and shifting moralities were discussed and debated for much of the twentieth century. Whilst the press cannot be viewed as an unproblematic barometer of opinion, it provides historians with an important lens through which to access a range of viewpoints and to chart dominant tropes and narratives. A survey of the newspaper press also enables us to access reports of the decisions that were made in the court-room and thus to further explain the trends for reporting and conviction that analysis of the criminal justice statistics reveal; (3) We will examine the shifting viewpoints of key professional groups, including social workers and lawyers, by undertaking a survey of publications associated with these occupational groups; (4) We will begin a mapping of organisations, bodies and associations who have commented on and campaigned around issues relating to children and sexuality across the broad period 1918-1990. This initial mapping will involve research into the availability of archival and manuscripts sources (including those held in the National Archives and local repositories) and will form the basis of a further funding application. Our time-table is designed to coincide with the undertaking of the public enquiries and the preparation of the further report relating to the NHS and Department of Health Investigations. We will run seminars/workshops for civil servants, lawyers and other professionals involved in these investigations, and make our findings available in a free and easily accessible format as briefings on the History & Policy website. Thus our project will provide essential knowledge to shape discussion, debate, and inform the final public inquiry reports.
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