A rhetoric of retribution and redemption: Burke's terms for order in the drama of child sexual abuse

Law consists of a series of stories, narratives that embody the values and integrity of a culture. We define crimes, and label the individuals who commit them, along a continuum that moves from the merely unacceptable to the monstrous. One of the most heinous crimes in American society is considered to be child sexual abuse. The sexual abuser of children is firmly established in the public imagination as a modern-day bogeyman, and approaches to prevention and punishment reflect this artificially accelerated panic. Although public policies and correctional measures ostensibly are geared at preventing the crime, they reflect a fundamental misunderstanding as to the motivation of many offenders and the way in which child sexual abuse is perceived as a source of social anomie. This paper uses Kenneth Burke's interpretative framework to examine the social and legal perceptions and treatment of child sexual abusers. First discussed are Burke's conceptions of identity and orientation, which form the basis of human motivation and thus can illuminate the source of offenders' impulses. Next, Burke's “terms for order” are used to show the ways in which the dominant hierarchy compels us to scapegoat and sacrifice in the quest for social redemption.