Vulnerability to fatal violence: Child sexual abuse victims as homicide participants in Australia

There are specific factors, most that are tragically preventable, involved in the premature violent deaths of people in Australia. This chapter discusses homicide participants, either the victim or perpetrator, who have also been sexually victimised as a child (a child is defined as being under the age of 18 years in this chapter) and will only include deaths perpetrated by adults, not other children. This chapter identifies the causal factors that make survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA) vulnerable to being involved in acts of fatal violence and provide commentary on trends and issues. Discussions of homicide will make reference to the most recent Australia National Homicide Monitoring Program (2012–14) data, and information sourced from national coronial data will provide the three case studies.