Professor Ben Mathews

Biography

Dr Ben Mathews is a Research Professor in the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, Principal Research Fellow in the QUT Faculty of Business and Law, and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health.  He was a Professorial Fellow to the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Dr Mathews has published 3 books, 20 government reports, 125 refereed scholarly articles and book chapters, and 50 law reform submissions on issues concerning children and the law, and over 100 national and international conference presentations, with a focus on multidisciplinary research at the interface of child maltreatment and law. He has successfully completed 12 major projects, and has obtained over $5m in external competitive funding from agencies the Australian Research Council (Discovery and Linkage Projects), the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Government, State Governments, and the WHO.

Dr Mathews is an internationally renowned researcher on child maltreatment  conducting innovative, transformative research to assist in preventing, detecting, and responding to child abuse and neglect.  He is especially recognised for his research into how legal and social systems can best prevent, identify, and respond to child sexual abuse.  His work here has made key advances in three domains, to demonstrate: (1) which legal mechanisms best identify cases of child sexual abuse (duties to report suspected cases, and reporter education); (2) how the concept of “child sexual abuse” should be defined; (3) why statutes of limitation should not apply to civil lawsuits for injuries caused by sexual abuse, including by institutional defendants.

He is currently leading the Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS).  This is the first national study of the prevalence of child abuse and neglect in Australia, its associated mental and physical health outcomes, associated health risk behaviours, and burden of disease.  This is a 5 year study (2019-23), funded by the NHMRC. Published works from the ACMS are accessible on the project website, and the major findings will be published in April 2023.

His research findings are heavily cited and have influenced major reform of legislation, policy and practice in multiple jurisdictions, especially concerning the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect, and civil statutes of limitation for child abuse claims. His research was selected as QUT's law discipline impact case study for the 2018 Australian Government Excellence in Research for Australia assessment exercise, which was awarded the maximum rating of high in both impact and engagement.  In 2019, he received the QUT Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research.  He has provided technical advice to governments in multiple jurisdictions in Australia, to the Government of Ireland, and to members of the UK House of Lords. He conducted three research projects for Australia's Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. His research has influenced legislative and policy reform, especially in the fields of civil statutes of limitation for child sexual abuse claims, and mandatory reporting laws.  In 2019 in London, he delivered the two keynote seminars to the England and Wales Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse, which have animated reforms now in progress.

Current major research areas involve five key topics concerning law and children:

1. Definition and measurement of the national prevalence and health outcomes of child abuse and neglect, and public health law analysis for improved prevention
2. Child abuse and neglect and legal and regulatory approaches for prevention, detection and response (mandatory reporting laws, systemic responses to child maltreatment, civil liability and legal remedies for child abuse, institutional child abuse, child and youth serving institutions and optimal prevention methods; sexual abuse, redress schemes, statutes of limitation, law reform, policy reform, regulatory reform; internet sexual violence);
3. Child sexual abuse prevention in general, with a particular focus on schools and other child and youth-serving organisations, and regulatory compliance after the Royal Commission;
4. Children and medical law (children's health generally, consent to treatment, medico-legal issues);
5. Children's rights (generally, and including cultural violence e.g., female genital mutilation/cutting).

External research funding. Dr Mathews has obtained over $5 million in external funding, and has successfully led numerous externally-funded projects since 2005. Major projects in the last five years include:

1. The first national study of child abuse and neglect in Australia: prevalence, health outcomes, and burden of disease. Mathews, Pacella, Dunne, Scott, Finkelhor, Meinck, Higgins, Erskine, Thomas. NHMRC Project Grant. ($2.3m).
2. Prevalence and outcomes of institutional child sexual and physical abuse. Australian Government, Department of Social Services. 2020-23. Mathews, Haslam, Dunne, NHMRC team. ($308,000).
3. Child maltreatment and its association with involvement in the criminal justice system, and adult intimate partner violence. Australian Institute of Criminology. 2020-23. ($50,000).
4. Disrupting Child Sexual Exploitation: The DICE Project. ARC Linkage Grant 2021-23 ($637,834: Humphreys, Mathews, Ross, Heward-Belle, Gold, Miller, Shoobridge, Pearce).
5. Scoping Study for ACMS Second Wave. Australian Government. QUT Investigators: Mathews, Walsh, Duthie, Haslam, Jowett, Emzin. Other investigators: Higgins, Scott, Finkelhor, Lawrence, Pacella, Meinck, Erskine, Thomas, Malacova. 2023.
6. Preventing Child Sexual Abuse in Youth Serving Organizations: A Policy Evaluation. Letourneau, Kaufman, Shields, Mathews. Bloomberg American Health Initiative. 2018. ($217,000).
7. Research on reporting of child maltreatment. (Mathews). New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services. 2018. ($52,000).
8. Research on legislation for access systems. (Mathews). New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services. 2018. ($92,000).