Family secrecy: a comparative study of juvenile sex offenders and youth with conduct disorders

The reported research was designed to compare adjudicated male juvenile sexual offenders and youth with conduct disorders on five aspects of family secrecy and deception. Twenty-nine male juvenile sex offenders and 32 comparison youth from three child welfare agencies in New York State participated in the study. Research assistants, blind to the hypotheses of the study and status of the youth, coded agency records for five variables identified a priori as a basis of comparison. Analyses revealed that the two groups were different on three of the five and on the total number of items scored. Families of juvenile sex offenders told more lies, had more family myths, and were more likely to be involved in taboo behavior. Logistic regression revealed that this factor of family deception significantly increased the odds of sexual offending over and above other measures of family pathology. These data support the hypotheses of the study and have implications for both clinical practice and future research in this area.