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In this paper we employed a prospective design to examine the effect of child sexual abuse (CSA) on life-course offending by comparing victims to both their siblings and random controls in the Netherlands. Information on victimization was gathered from court files and on offending from official criminal records. We found that victims of CSA were more at risk of offending than random controls, but so were their siblings. Only female victims were more likely to offend than their own siblings. The increased risk for offending was not specifically found for sexual offenses, instead it was found for various types of offenses. The found difference between female victims and siblings held true for abuse perpetrated by someone outside the family. We therefore conclude that family and environmental factors are the most important to explain offending among male CSA victims, while these factors alone are not enough to explain the effect of CSA on offending for females.

This study aimed to examine the association between different characteristics of sexual abuse and adverse family outcomes in later life. Through archived court files, a large sample of Dutch men and women who have been sexually abused as a child could be identified. Outcome variables were assessed 33 years after the abuse, when the victims were 44 years of age on average. Being abused by a nuclear family member was associated with teen pregnancies, young marriage, and divorce. Younger ages at time of abuse were related to decreased marriage rates. Penetration, violence, and repeated victimization were not related to adverse outcomes. We found that these effects were not the same for males and females. Furthermore, compared to the average Dutch population, CSA victims experienced more divorce, and female CSA victims were more often childless, had more children, and more often were teenage parents.

In this chapter we address differing definitions on homicide, available data sources and the quality of the data. Apart from complications with translation‖the translation of the term “homicide” in another language does not necessarily cover the exact notion of homicide in the English context‖definitions of homicide between countries are different for various reasons. First, the notions of premeditated and intentional homicide are not everywhere used in the same way, and in particular intentional homicide is not in every country seen as an essential element of homicide as it is in the definition used for international data sources. Second, there are several “special” forms of homicide, such as euthanasia and abortion, that may or may not be part of the definition of homicide. For national data sources it is shown which elements are part of the homicide statistics and which elements could be included or excluded dependent on the definitions used by international data sources. The quality of homicide data is dependent on reliability and completeness. Whether to include attempted homicides is an important issue here; but the questions whether missing persons could be the victim of a homicide or whether the cause of death is correctly established are relevant. Also, the way statistical (counting) rules are applied have an impact on the results.