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Michael Salter (academic)

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Michael Salter
OccupationAssociate professor
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of New South Wales
ThesisAdult accounts of organised child sexual abuse in Australia (2010)
Academic work
DisciplineCriminology
Sub-disciplineRitual abuse, Cybercrimes
Institutions
Websitehttps://www.organisedabuse.com

Michael Salter is a University of New South Wales researcher.[1] He wrote Organized Sexual Abuse (2012), a book that discusses anecdotal accounts of ritual sexual abuse, "mind control", sadistic torture and satanic rape from 21 people and a personal friend of his.[3][4][5] Salter has also written about the topic of antisocial and criminal behaviors on social media, which he discusses in his 2017 book Crime, Justice and Social Media.[6]

Research

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Organized and ritual sexual abuse

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See also: List of satanic ritual abuse allegations

In 2012, Salter published Organised Sexual Abuse, a book that has been described as examining a typology of sexual abuse perpetrated by two or more people in settings including satanic child rape gangs, sexual abuse rituals and organized sexual murder groups, which Salter calls "organized sexual abuse".[3][4][5] Initially defined in the 1990s by Jean La Fontaine, the contentious typology of organized of sexual abuse has not been extensively studied by scientists, and empirical research on the topic is scarce.[7][8][9]

The book includes limited information about its methodology.[3] Most of the data analyzed in the study was drawn from face-to-face and telephone interviews with the 21 participants. Transcriptions of the semi-structured conversations were then anonymized and common themes that Salter identified were catalogued into distinct categories, which Salter used to construct his conclusions based on psychoanalytical, sociological and criminological theories.[5][3][4]

Aside from the 21 participants, the book also discusses the history of Salter's teenhood friend "Sarah", who he said was a victim of organized sexual abuse during her childhood and adulthood. According to Salter, Sarah was persecuted by an organized sexual abuse group, who continued to track her movements even after she had moved to another city, and "neither the police nor any other agency intervened to protect Sarah despite repeatedly being notified of her plight".[5][3][4] The book does not include any perspective from third-party experts or any persons other than the alleged sexual abuse victims, for which reason it has been criticized.[3] A review on the Modern Law Review stated that Salter's personal experience with his teenhood friend, whose accounts of organized sexual abuse influenced him into choosing his field of research, made him a partial researcher, as opposed to an impartial one.[5]

According to Salter, ritualistic sexual abuse is a class of organized sexual abuse that involves supernatural and religious themes.[10] In his book, accounts from his research participants commonly allege instances of "mind control" by abusers who often see themselves as "kings" or "warlocks".[11] The book also discusses allegations of child murder by what Salter says are organized groups of child sexual abuse, as well as theories regarding masculinity and violence.[4][3][5] It also contains some critiques of the Australian justice system[5] and the false memory movement.[3]

Social media

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In 2017, Salter published Crime, Justice and Social Media, a book that examines antisocial behaviors on social media including revenge pornography and harassment. It also analyses the ways in which various social media companies have attempted to mitigate such issues. An academic review stated that the book "provides a sophisticated account of online abuse, humiliation and justice-seeking initiatives and is an excellent addition to Routledge’s New Directions in Critical Criminology series."[6]

Other academic publications

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In 2023, Salter published a research which reported that 10% of men have sexual feelings for children, and that one in fifteen would engage in a sexual act with a child if they knew that no one would ever find out. The study drew its conclusion from a sample of 1900 Australian men who responded to the survey. It was funded by Westpac, and the survey was co-designed by Australian Federal Police and the Attorney-General's Department.[12]

In 2024, Salter co-authored an academic review that criticized the terminology often used by researchers of child sexual abuse prevention. An analysis of the review stated that it had misrepresented the academic field, misquoted its researchers and selectively omitted academic articles from the analysis. The evaluation stated that the review had employed "a form of unreliable circular referencing", one instance of which included a statement referenced to a Daily Dot article that linked to several personal tweets from one of the authors. It also criticized the review for heavily relying on non-academic sources such as The Daily Mail, Fox News and The Post Millennial, which it said was evidence of the authors' confirmation bias.[13][14]

In his response, Salter stated that the context around the review's quotes did not alter its conclusions, and that some academic papers were omitted from the analysis due to the study's exclusion criteria, while others had been appended to the article.[15]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Professor Michael Alan Salter". University of New South Wales.
  2. ^ Salter, Michael (2018). "Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organised Abuse Special Interest Group". ISSTD News.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Maitra, Dev (2015). "Book Review of 'Organised Sexual Abuse' by Michael Salter". British Journal of Community Justice. 12 (3): 106–107. ISSN 2755-4147.
  4. ^ a b c d e Boateng, Francis D. (2015). "Michael Salter, Organized sexual abuse". Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology. 48 (2): 297–299. doi:10.1177/0004865815575115. ISSN 0004-8658.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Weare, Siobhan (2013). "MichaelSalter, Organised Sexual Abuse, Oxford: Routledge, 2013, 208 pp, hb £75.00". The Modern Law Review. 76 (5): 943–948. doi:10.1111/1468-2230.12043_2. ISSN 0026-7961.
  6. ^ a b Wood, Mark (2017). "Book review: Michael Salter, Crime, Justice and Social Media". Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal. 13 (3): 380–383. doi:10.1177/1741659017698531. ISSN 1741-6590.
  7. ^ Weare, Siobhan (2013). "MichaelSalter, Organised Sexual Abuse, Oxford: Routledge, 2013, 208 pp, hb £75.00". The Modern Law Review. 76 (5): 943–948. doi:10.1111/1468-2230.12043_2. ISSN 0026-7961. As Salter himself notes, empirical research on organised sexual abuse is scarce.
  8. ^ Boateng, Francis D. (2015). "Michael Salter, Organized sexual abuse". Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology. 48 (2): 297–299. doi:10.1177/0004865815575115. ISSN 0004-8658. Though sexual abuse in general has received much scholarly attention, organized sexual abuse has not been studied extensively.
  9. ^ Gerke, Jelena; Fegert, Jonas; Rassenhofer, Miriam; Fegert, Jörg M. (2024). "Organized sexualized and ritual violence: Results from two representative German samples". Child Abuse & Neglect. 152: 106792. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106792. Since the 1980s organized sexualized and ritual violence has been a polarizing issue in research and the media. While scientific studies on child sexual abuse, trauma consequences, and evidence-based therapeutic methods are well-established and replicated, the field of especially so-called ritual violence and the 'false memory debate' has seen limited progress in the last 30 years.
  10. ^ Matthew, Laurie; Barron, Ian (2023-07-04). "Ritual Abuse Survivors' Perspectives on Research Participation: An Exploratory Mixed Methods Online Study". Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. 32 (5): 637–653. doi:10.1080/10538712.2023.2211578. ISSN 1053-8712.
  11. ^ Boateng, Francis D. (2015). "(Book review) Michael Salter, Organized sexual abuse". Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology. 48 (2): 297–299. doi:10.1177/0004865815575115. ISSN 0004-8658. A discussion of ritual and torture in organized abuse is offered in chapter 9. This analysis is also based on participants' accounts of their experiences. A common theme emerging from the accounts is that ritual abusers and perpetrators of 'mind control' often consider themselves 'kings' and 'warlocks'.
  12. ^ Fitzsimmons, Caitlin (2023-11-19). "The shocking number of Australian men sexually attracted to children and teens". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  13. ^ Harper, Craig A.; Lievesley, Rebecca; McKillop, Nadine; Price, Stephanie; Murphy, Rachel; Woodward, Ellie; Dymond, Harriet; Götzl, Christian (2025-04-11). "Misrepresenting the "MAP" Literature Does Little to Advance Child Abuse Prevention: A Critical Commentary and Response to Farmer, Salter, and Woodlock". Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. doi:10.1177/15248380251332197. ISSN 1524-8380.
  14. ^ Conte, Jon R. (2025-04-11). "Commentary and Call for Papers". Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. doi:10.1177/15248380251332196. ISSN 1524-8380.
  15. ^ Salter, Michael; Woodlock, Delanie; Farmer, Christina (2025-04-11). "The Terminology of "Minor Attracted People" and the Campaign to De-stigmatize Paedophilia Originated in Pro-pedophile Advocacy". Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. doi:10.1177/15248380251332198. ISSN 1524-8380.
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