Validated reports of sexually abused children from 1975 through 1977 were examined. Considered were the victim's age, sex, ethnic group, type of abuse, living arrangement, and relationship to perpetrator. Basic sources of data were the Texas Department of Human Resources' CANRIS reports and the U.S. Bureau of the Census population estimates. Validated sexual abuse consistently ranked third in physical abuse type and more than doubled between 1975 and 1977. Victims' mean age decreased each year and most were eleven years or over. Most sexual child abuse victims in Texas were of the Anglo ethnic group, living in their own home, and victimized by a parent. More than 85 per cent were female. Further research was recommended.

The incidence of sexual assault inundates the courts with many cases each year. Given the unique nature of the crime, judges and juries are faced with an array of different scenarios to which they are required to make fair, justifiable and consistent decisions. I examine child sexual assault cases of Dallas County 1999-2005, I look at both legal and extralegal factors including case characteristics, institutional characteristics and characteristics of the defendants and the victims. First, I examine the impact of the independent variables on sentence length using regression analysis to determine influences on sentencing for judges and juries. Second, I examine the same factors using Probit analysis to determine which characteristics make a life sentence more probable for those decision-makers.