Sexual offenses against children: Patterns and motives

Children are the quintessential innocent victims; therefore, special opprobrium is reserved for offenders who sexually abuse them. This article describes the more prominent typologies of pedophilic sex offenders and discusses the role of child pornography in child sexual abuse of actual children. It next examines the often overlooked population of women offenders who sexually abuse children. Attention then turns to the sexual abuse of children in child care settings and by members of the clergy; practical recommendations are provided for reducing the risk of this kind of institutional child sexual abuse. Theoretical conceptualizations of child sexual abuse are considered, in the three main categories of cognitive–psychodynamic theories, neuropsychological conceptualizations, and contributions from the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Finally, recommendations are made for developing a way of handling sex offenders, including sexual offenders against children, that balances the fair administration of justice with society's obligation to protect vulnerable potential victims.     

Child Sexual Abuse within Educational Settings: A Qualitative Study on Female Teachers Who Sexually Abuse Their Students

ABSTRACT

Despite growing interest, research on female sex offenders has been limited. Previous research on female sex offenders has focused on understanding behaviors, patterns, and motivations of female sex offenders overall, but only a handful of studies have specifically focused on teachers who are convicted of sexually abusing underaged students. For the present study, we examined the nature of child sexual abuse among a sample of female teachers, focusing specifically on the onset, situational context, and conclusion of these sexual abuses. We examined interviews conducted with 35 female sex offenders who used their position as a teacher to engage in a sexual abuse of underage students from 1995 to 2016 in a southern state. Based on the narratives of both victims and offenders, our findings indicated several categories of female teacher offenders including predatory, sexual friendship, and emotionally dependent. We hope the findings of the current study will help inform educational policy in efforts to prevent the occurrence of these abuses in the future.     

Sexual dysfunction in women sexually abused as children

Women who were sexually victimized as children report problems in relating to both men and women. Studies have found that victims are less satisfied with their current sexual relationships and with the quality of their relationships with men in general. Fear of sex, arousal dysfunction and desire dysfunction were the most common sexual disturbances found in incest victims.The purpose of this paper was to examine the differences in sexual functioning in abused women who perceived themselves to be adjusted to the trauma of their sexual abuse and those who did not.A sample of 57 nonclinical adult women who had been sexually abused as children was studied. Data were analyzed by means of cross-tabulation, chi square statistics, analysis of variance, and multiple regression.Orgasm was experienced by 63% of the women. There was a significant interaction among ability to be an orgasmic, sexual esteem and adjustment to abuse. Over 56% of the women experienced physical discomfort during intercourse and 36% indicated that they needed sex therapy. The implications of these and other findings are discussed.     

Parenting behaviors of women who were sexually abused as children in their families of origin.

This research explored links between a childhood history of family sexual abuse and current parenting behaviors of mothers of school-age children, using observations of family interaction and interviews with the mothers. Videotaped family interaction tasks, analyzed with Benjamin's Structural Analysis of Social Behavior, showed that women who had been sexually abused in their childhood families were more self-focused, rather than child-focused, compared to nonabused women. In interviews, the women who had been abused gave strong evidence of greater reliance on their children for emotional support. These findings lend support to theoretical and clinical impressions of highly permeable intergenerational boundaries, including parent-child role reversal, in family systems marked by child sexual abuse, even when the abuse occurred in the previous generation.     

Female perpetrators of child sexual abuse: A review of the clinical and empirical literature

Although women have long been viewed as offenders in cases of physical child abuse, it is only recently that clinicians and researchers have begun to seriously consider the problem of female-perpetrated sexual abuse of children. The purpose of the present paper is to review existing clinical and empirical literature on female sex offenders, in order to develop a summary profile of female perpetrators that may be of value to professionals involved in the assessment and treatment process.     

Gender differences in comorbid disorders among offenders in prison substance abuse treatment programs

This study examined gender differences in a range of lifetime psychiatric disorders in a sample of 272 offenders newly admitted to a prison substance abuse program. Although these men and women did not differ in severity of substance use in the six months prior to incarceration, women were significantly more likely than men to report a lifetime psychiatric disorder and a lifetime severe disorder. Furthermore, gender differences emerged in the pattern of lifetime psychiatric comorbidity. Women reported greater lifetime major depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, eating disorder, and borderline personality disorder; men were more likely than women to meet criteria for antisocial personality disorder. Additionally, female offenders were found to have a higher degree of internalizing disorders than male offenders, but there were no gender differences in degree of externalizing disorders. The study concluded that women offenders newly admitted to a prison substance abuse program present with a greater psychiatric vulnerability and a different pattern of psychiatric comorbidity than their male counterparts.     

Women accused of sex offenses: a gender-based comparison

Sexual offenses committed by women are likely underestimated and under-reported. This exploratory study compares and contrasts women accused of sexual offenses and their male counterparts. Data were retrospectively compiled on all alleged female and age-matched male sex offenders who were referred for psychiatric evaluation to a large Midwestern city's court psychiatric clinic over a six-year period. Data were abstracted regarding their crimes, charges, demographics, social history, medical history, legal history, violence history, substance use, sexual history, psychiatric history and their victims. Like the men, women were most frequently referred for sexual predator classification evaluations. Ages ranged from 19 to 62 years, and the majority had children. Most had prior arrests. One-third had a past history of psychiatric hospitalization, and most were given a non-paraphilic psychiatric diagnosis. The majority of the women reported past histories of sexual or physical victimization. While there were many similarities between female and male sex offenders in this psychiatric sample, women more frequently had victims of both genders.     

Gender Differences in Victimization and the Relation to Personality Disorders in Forensic Psychiatry

Gender differences in victimization were retrospectively examined in 218 male and 218 female patients who have been admitted to one of four Dutch forensic psychiatric hospitals between 1984 and 2014. Case files were studied and variables relating to victimization and psychopathology were coded. It was found that the prevalence rates of victimization were higher among female patients than among male patients, both during childhood and adulthood. Childhood sexual abuse was found to be more prevalent among women than men, however, no differences were found for emotional and physical abuse or neglect during childhood. Women with a history of emotional or sexual abuse were significantly more often diagnosed with borderline personality disorder than women without childhood victimization. Men with a history of physical abuse were significantly more often diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder than men without childhood victimization. Clinical and policy implications of this study for forensic practice are discussed.     

Child molestations by homosexual foster parents: Illinois, 1997--2002

Do those who engage in homosexuality disproportionately sexually abuse foster or adoptive children as reported by child protective services? Illinois child services reported sexual abuse for 1997 through 2002. 270 parents committed "substantiated" sexual offenses against foster or subsidized adoptive children: 67 (69%) of 97 of these mother and 148 (86%) of 173 of these father perpetrators sexually abused girls; 30 (31%) of the mothers and 25 (14%) of the father perpetrators sexually abused boys, i.e., 92 (34%) of the perpetrators homosexually abused their charges. Of these parents 15 both physically and sexually abused charges: daughters by 8 of the mothers and 4 of the fathers, sons by 3 of the mothers, i.e., same-sex perpetrators were involved in 53%. Thus, homosexual practitioners were proportionately more apt to abuse foster or adoptive children sexually.     

Sexual sadism and sadistic personality disorder in sexual homicide

Controversies exist about the diagnostic validity of sexual sadism and its relation to sadistic personality disorder in sex offenders. The aim of this study was to investigate which diagnostic, developmental, and criminal characteristics differentiate sexual sadistic from non-sadistic sexual homicide perpetrators. Psychiatric court reports on 166 men who had committed a sexual homicide were evaluated regarding psychiatric, sexual and criminal history. Sixty-one offenders (36.7%) with sexual sadism (SeSd) were compared with 105 (63.3%) offenders without this diagnosis (NSeSd). Besides the sexual sadistic symptoms, there were seven factors that discriminated best between the two groups (sexual masochism, sadistic personality disorder, isolation in childhood, multiple sexual homicide, previous rape, previous tendencies for similar behavior, and long duration of the homicidal act). Sexual sadism is connected with circumscribed other characteristics and has to be considered in risk assessment and treatment of sex offenders.     

Sensitivity and specificity of the phallometric test for pedophilia in nonadmitting sex offenders

The specificity of phallometric testing for pedophilia has been calculated using sex offenders against adult women. Does the offender's actual number of prior sexual contacts with women affect such estimates? To answer this, the authors' studied 82 male sex offenders against adult women, 172 offenders against unrelated children, and 70 offenders against their own biological children or stepchildren. Phallometric testing included visual and auditory depictions of prepubescent, pubescent, and adult males and females. The results for offenders against women showed that those who had had sexual contact with the greatest number of women (consenting or nonconsenting) had the lowest probability of being diagnosed as pedophilic. Specificity, calculated for those who had sexual contact with the most women and thus the most evidence of attraction to them, was 96%. Sensitivity, calculated analogously for men with the most offenses against children, was 61%.     

The Effect of Adolescent Sex Offender Abuse History on Counselor Attitudes

Counseling students' judgments of adolescent sex offenders with sexual or physical abuse histories were examined. Sexually abused offenders were more desirable as prospective clients than were nonabused offenders. Sexually abused counselors desired to see physically abused offenders as clients over sexually abused offenders. Implications for counseling are presented.     

Are sexualized women complete human beings? Why men and women dehumanize sexually objectified women

Focusing on the dehumanization of sexually objectified targets, study 1 tested the extent to which objectified and non‐objectified male and female publicity photos were associated with human compared to animal concepts. Results confirmed the hypothesis that, among all targets, only objectified women were associated with less human concepts. This pattern of results emerged for both male and female participants but likely for different reasons. Study 2 directly looked at female and male participants' affinity with sexually objectified women. Results indicated that the more women distanced themselves from sexually objectified women the more they dehumanized them, whereas men's sexual attraction moderated their tendency to dehumanize female targets. In study 3, this latter motivation was operationalized as the activation of a sex goal and showed to trigger man's but not woman's dehumanization of female targets. Overall, the present set of studies show that only sexually objectified women are dehumanized by both men and women but for different reasons. Whereas sexual attraction shifts a men's focus of a female target away from her personality onto her body triggering a dehumanization process, women are more inclined to dehumanize their sexually objectified counterparts the more they distance themselves from these sexualized representations of their gender category. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Online "predators" and their victims: myths, realities, and implications for prevention and treatment

The publicity about online "predators" who prey on naive children using trickery and violence is largely inaccurate. Internet sex crimes involving adults and juveniles more often fit a model of statutory rape--adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers--than a model of forcible sexual assault or pedophilic child molesting. This is a serious problem, but one that requires approaches different from those in current prevention messages emphasizing parental control and the dangers of divulging personal information. Developmentally appropriate prevention strategies that target youths directly and acknowledge normal adolescent interests in romance and sex are needed. These should provide younger adolescents with awareness and avoidance skills while educating older youths about the pitfalls of sexual relationships with adults and their criminal nature. Particular attention should be paid to higher risk youths, including those with histories of sexual abuse, sexual orientation concerns, and patterns of off- and online risk taking. Mental health practitioners need information about the dynamics of this problem and the characteristics of victims and offenders because they are likely to encounter related issues in a variety of contexts.     

False recognition in women reporting recovered memories of sexual abuse

False recognition—the mistaken belief that one has previously encountered a novel item—was examined in four groups of subjects: women reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, women who believe that they were sexually abused as children but who cannot recall this abuse (the "repressed" group), women who were sexually abused as children and always remembered the abuse, and women with no history of childhood sexual abuse. Subjects were administered a Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm. The results suggest that the recovered-memory group was more prone to false recognition than the other groups. In addition, women reporting recovered and repressed memories showed greater reduction in false recognition across study trials than did other subjects, perhaps reflecting strategic changes in performance.     

Cognitive,Behavioral, and Personality Correlates of HIV-Positive Persons' Unsafe Sexual Behavior1

This study examined sexually risky behaviors of HIV-positive men and women within the framework of social cognitive theory. Condom use was found to be associated with high self-efficacy, positive influeces from social models, and specific condom use expectancies. As risky sexual behavior may be the manifestation of a more general pattern of risk taking that emerges from personality dispositions such as impulsiveness or psychoticism, this possibility was explored with discriminant analyses. Self-reported impulsivity, substance abuse, promiscuity, and deception served as markers of the presumed disposition. While these variables did not reliably distinguish between consistent and inconsistent condom users, they did enhance significantly the classification of individuals who, during the past 6 months, had been sexually abstinent, monogamous, or nonmonogamous. Those who reported more sex partners scored higher on impulsivity, disclosed more involvement with illegal drugs, and showed greater willingness to mislead potential partners about their sexual history than monogamous or sexually abstinent persons with HIV.     

Social learning,sexual and physical abuse,and adult crime

This research examines the relationship between childhood physical and sexual abuse and the types of crimes committed by male adult offenders. We use the method of discriminant prediction to determine whether independent and dependent variables are related in ways that theories predict. Our analyses of data from the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities suggest that offenders model specific behaviors to which they have been exposed. Male offenders who were sexually abused as a child are more likely to commit sexual offenses, particularly sexual offenses against children, than nonsexual offenses. Offenders who were physically abused are more likely to engage in violent offenses than nonviolent offenses. Further analyses show that sexual offenders, and to a lesser extent violent offenders, are likely to specialize in those offenses. Our results are consistent with a social learning approach. They address a heretofore neglected issue: what exactly do children model when they are mistreated. Aggr. Behav. 35:489–501, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Inferring sexual interest from behavioral cues: Effects of gender and sexually relevant attitudes

Research has found that men impute more sexual meaning to others' behavior than do women. However, little research has examined the possibility that men and women share perceptions of the sexual connotativeness of certain behaviors but diverge in their perceptions of other behaviors. In Study 1, 162 male and 186 female undergraduates, predominantly Caucasian, rated the degree to which each of 27 behaviors of male and female targets connoted a desire for sexual intercourse. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed that, whereas men perceived all but two of the female target behaviors more sexually than women, men and women differed in their perceptions of the sexual connotativeness of only about half of the male target behaviors. A factor analysis revealed three factors for both male and female target behaviors, reflecting mundane dating behaviors, romantic behaviors, and sexual behaviors. Relative to women, men perceived only the mundane dating behaviors more sexually, although regression analyses showed these effects to be moderated by subjects' attitudes toward women. Study 2 examined the extent to which sexually relevant attitudes (e.g., sex role stereotyping, adversarial sexual beliefs, and rape myth acceptance) moderate subjects' perceptions of the sexual connotativeness of the behaviors. Men, particularly those who endorsed traditional, sexually relevant attitudes, were more likely than women to impute sexual meaning to the behaviors. The implications of this for dating situations are discussed.The author wishes to thank Mark Leary and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article.     

The impact of a history of sexual abuse on high-risk sexual behaviors among females attending alternative schools

The goal of this study was to explore whether a history of sexual abuse is associated with high-risk sexual behaviors among female adolescents attending alternative schools in a large urban city in the southwestern United States, and to examine the role of depression and substance abuse in explaining this association. One hundred eighty-four sexually active female adolescents constituted the sample for this analysis. Forty-nine (26.6%) reported that they were forced to have sex. Having a history of sexual abuse substantially increased sexual risk behaviors. Adolescents reporting a history of sexual abuse, compared to those who did not report such a history, were significantly more likely to have initiated sexual activity (intercourse) before age 14, to have had three or more sexual partners in the last 3 months, and to have had a history of sexually transmitted diseases. These associations remained significant after controlling for age, ethnicity, and family income. Depression and substance abuse did not explain the association between sexual abuse and high-risk sexual behaviors. It seems reasonable to conclude that adolescents with a history of sexual abuse have greater difficulty practicing safe sexual behaviors than do those who have not been sexually abused. Given the prevalence of child sexual abuse and the extent of its impact, it is critical that intervention strategies for adolescent females address the issue of abuse and help them adopt self-protective sexual behaviors. The findings also highlight the importance of targeting adolescents who attend alternative schools.