The overlapping problems of prosecution sample bias and systematic exclusion of familial child sex abuse victims from the criminal justice system.

Jennifer Freyd’s (2003) comment on Goodman et al. (2003) makes at least two essential observations: First, that Goodman’s characterization of their findings as not supporting the position that CSA is “commonly” repressed or forgotten by the victim is curious. Second, that Goodman et al. understate the limited value of their study in that a prosecution sample is not generalizable to a non-prosecution population. Freyd’s critique, which focuses not on the way the data was measured but the narrative explanation of the significance of the findings, raises interesting questions. Most CSA cases accepted for prosecution are, as Freyd (2003) notes, particularly strong in terms of evidence and provability. Having risen to the level of