Rape and sexual assault in investigative psychology: the contribution of sex offenders' research to offender profiling

Research on sex offenders has mainly guided clinical practice for risk assessment and therapeutic intervention. However, the current scientific knowledge on these offenders and their crimes is, in many aspects, of great importance to criminal investigations. Consequently, there is a need to build bridges between investigative psychology and the research being conducted on sex offenders. Four areas of research on sex offenders that have clear implications to investigative psychology can be identified: (1) the consistency or ‘crime‐switching’ patterns of sex offenders; (2) the recidivism patterns of different types of sex offenders; (3) the police response to specific victim characteristics; and (4) the A → C equation of sexual assaults. This paper argues for a need to establish a dialogue between these two fields of research so that knowledge about sex offenders keeps growing whilst being able to inform policing practices in investigative psychology. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maximizing therapeutic effects in treating sexual offenders in an Australian correctional system

In Australia, the community response to sexual offenders is marked by uncertainty as to whether offenders should be incarcerated as punishment or provided treatment in order to reduce the likelihood of re-offense. The incarceration of sexual offenders results in particular management, ethical, and political issues. Nevertheless incarceration can provide leverage to encourage the offender to participate in treatment while delivering punishment for wrongdoing and acting to protect the community. In the state of Victoria the CORE Sex Offender Programs have developed a statewide strategy in the public correctional system in order to assess, manage, and treat male sexual offenders. However, such offenders are notoriously reluctant to engage in treatment to address offending behaviors. A critical element of the strategy has been the Victorian Adult Parole Board, an entity that can determine that an offender needs to engage in treatment before he is considered for parole. Using the therapeutic jurisprudence framework as outlined by Wexler (1990), strategies to minimize the anti-therapeutic effects of the Victorian Adult Parole Board and maximize the therapeutic effects of the CORE Sex Offender Programs are highlighted.     

An Exploration of Stigma in the Lives of Sex Offenders and Heroin Abusers

Research was conducted on variations and commonalities of sexual offenders and heroin abusers and how they manage stigma in their everyday lives. Interviews with 13 sex offenders (SOs) and 44 heroin abusers (HAs) were conducted in New York City. Results suggest that both SOs and HAs disclose or conceal their stigmatized status based on their relationship to others and the situations in which they anticipate social condemnation. Both groups have formed intra-group hierarchies based on status, where child molesters and heroin abusers receive the most disdain. Some heroin abusers manage their stigma by engaging in behavior that we term redemptive passing, in which stigmatized individuals attempt to pass as non-stigmatized through deceptive means in order to make amends for prior harms they have caused. The stigmatization of sex offenders and heroin abusers has important implications for health, as members of these groups are less likely to seek treatment in order to distance themselves from their stigmatizing status.     

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.     

Sex offenders, sentencing laws and pharmaceutical treatment: a prescription for failure

The phenomenon of adults who have sexual interests involving children as partners, or pedophiles, is considered among the most sociopathological of human conditions. Considerable literature is devoted to issues and problems associated with or related to pedophilia, including prevalence, etiology, treatment, and outcome studies. The sexual victimization of children, based upon data gathered from a number of sources, suggests an intractable problem that is national in scope. Recent manifestations of society's efforts to deal with the sexual victimization of children include the enactment of criminal sentencing laws that mandate the treatment of offenders with certain pharmaceutical agents, such as medroxy-progesterone acetate ("MPA"). Because sentencing laws as a rule vary widely from state to state, there is considerable variation as to who is subject to MPA treatment laws, and how such laws-including specific provisions, such as clinical criteria, if any, required for treatment; type and period of treatment plans; informed consent; etc-are implemented. Most important, these sentencing laws may have remarkably little relation to what is widely considered effective treatment for pedophilia disorders. We examine in detail the most recent sentencing laws pertaining to treatment of persons who have been convicted of sex offenses involving children as victims. Our critique may offer insight and suggestions as to how such sentencing laws can be more suitably tailored to the treatment needs of persons with pedophilia disorders.     

Diagnostic issues,multiple paraphilias,and comorbid disorders in sexual offenders: Their incidence and treatment

This paper critically appraises the criteria for DSM diagnoses of the paraphilias relevant to sexual offenders. It is concluded that these criteria leave a lot to be desired and that a more helpful approach would be to rate the features of each type of sexual offender along dimensions ranging from normal to seriously problematic. Next consideration is given to the evidence on the incidence of multiple paraphilias and comorbid disorders. It is not yet completely clear from this evidence that sexual offenders typically have multiple sexual outlets although some obviously do. What is clear is that incidence of comorbid disorders is sufficiently high to warrant concerns about how to effectively address these additional disordered aspects of sexual offenders in treatment. Finally, suggestions are offered about how to address in treatment both multiple paraphilic offenders and those with associated comorbid disorders.     

Sexual predator commitment laws: lessons for law and the behavioral sciences

Sex offender commitment laws use a mental health commitment model to lock up the "most dangerous" sex offenders after their prison sentences expire. In Kansas v. Hendricks, the United States Supreme Court rejected the major constitutional challenges to these laws. The Hendricks case clarifies important ambiguities about the use of civil commitment to enforce "police power" interests, as opposed to "parens patriae" interests. Hendricks also clarifies the role of "treatment" in justifying civil commitment. While there remain some important legal issues to be resolved, the future direction of sex offender commitment schemes will turn most significantly on policy decisions. The behavioral sciences can play an important role in shaping these decisions. The most significant questions concern whether expensive commitment programs are the most effective use of scarce treatment and supervision dollars. Additional research should be directed to improving dynamic predictors of recidivism, operationalizing "inability to control" standards, judging the "social meaning" of commitment laws, and assessing the potential treatment disincentives of these laws.     

The future of involuntary civil commitment in the U.S.A. after Kansas v. Hendricks

This article examines new sexual predator commitment laws enacted recently in the United States to civilly commit dangerous sex offenders after they have served their prison sentences. It then examines Kansas v. Hendricks, a Supreme Court case that upheld these laws as constitutionally permitted. The article next describes the broad parameters that demarcate the government's civil commitment authority identified by the Supreme Court in that case. The author concludes that Hendricks establishes that the state has expansive civil commitment power much greater than our previous understanding. The government may use civil commitment solely to protect the public from dangerous individuals without proving a medically recognized mental disorder, recent evidence of dangerousness, or a treatment purpose or possibility. Moreover, this quarantine system may be justified by proving the same unlawful behavior for which the individual has already been criminally punished.     

Exploring the personal and social context of female youth sex offenders

This study explored the personal and social context of young female sex offenders, probing their risk profiles for prospective treatment interventions. A convenience sample of eight young South African female sexual offenders participated in the study (black = 88%, Indian = 12%, age range = 14–20 years). They completed semi-structured interviews on their perceptions of the influences to commit a sexual offence. The data were thematically analysed. Emergent themes on factors associated with sexual offending included: peer influence, poor child monitoring, parental neglect, unproductive sexual health education, as well as insight into the participants’ maladaptive beliefs and distorted thinking.     

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.     

“Coming Clean” on Duty of Care: Australian Print Media’s Representation of Male Versus Female Sex Offenders in Institutional Contexts

Public opinion about sexual abuse of minors is greatly shaped by mass media and the way individual cases are reported. This paper examines Australian print media??s representation of sex offenders, focussing particularly on the sex of the offenders and aiming to shed light on some of the misconceptions and deep-rooted prejudices within the population at large. Given the multi-faceted nature of sexual offences, this paper focuses on sexual offences committed by both males and females against minors in the context of a companion breach of duty of care. In order to explore the effect that linguistic tools can have in the Australian print media??s way of reporting sexual abuse cases, twenty-nine newspaper articles published in Australian dailies were selected for analysis. The analysis of these articles reveals a marked bias in the manner in which sexual offences perpetrated by males, as opposed to females, are reported, suggesting a male monopoly on sexual abuse. We argue that this biased representation, which hinders adequate profiling of sexual offences against minors, may stem from an androcentric view of sexuality and from the systematic denial of female agency when it comes to sex.     

Child versus peer/adult offenders: A critical review of the juvenile sex offender literature

Sexual offenses are serious crimes and it is believed that adolescents perpetrate 20% of all sexual assaults and 50% of all child sexual abuse (Barbaree & Marshall, 2006). To better understand the etiology of juvenile sexual offending, researchers have explored differences between those who offend children versus those who offend peers/adults. This paper critically reviewed 21 studies that compared juvenile sex offenders who abused children with those who abused peers/adults on a variety of variables including victim, offense, and offender characteristics; psychosocial variables; and predictors and rates of recidivism. Strengths and weaknesses of these studies as well as future directions for the literature are discussed. Common methodological limitations of victim-age based comparisons of juvenile sex offenders included inconsistent definitions, low-powered studies, lack of standardized measures, and recidivism data based solely on conviction rates. Overall, many inconsistent findings limit our ability to give overarching conclusions; however, the research does suggests that not only is it important to examine child and peer/adult offenders, but mixed offenders (i.e., offender with both child and peer victims) as a distinct group need to be included in comparisons as well.     

An implicit test of the associations between children and sex in pedophiles

Pedophiles are motivated to disguise their thoughts and feelings about their sexual beliefs and attraction toward children. New developments using implicit measures of associations have been successful in accessing socially stigmatic beliefs, even in cases in which the participant is resistant to this disclosure. Using an implicit measure, the authors show that pedophiles have an association between children and sex, whereas nonpedophilic offenders have an association between adults and sex. The task can therefore identify a core cognitive abnormality that may underpin some pedophilic deviant sexual behavior.     

Exploring the Online Communicative Themes of Child Sex Offenders

This exploratory study aimed to examine online communications between contact reality and non‐contact fantasy child sex offenders (CSOs). This research wanted to ascertain whether it was possible to differentiate between these offenders based on the content of their online communications, something which has not previously been examined. The sample consisted of five contact reality and seven non‐contact fantasy offenders, all convicted of a Child Sex Offence. Content analysis revealed 26 them. Results showed that non‐contact fantasy offenders discussed Adult sexual relationships significantly more than contact reality offenders. All other comparisons were non‐significant. The themes were then grouped into five higher order themes: (i) Adult relationships, (ii) Child sexual interest, (iii) Media, (iv) Sexual self, and (v) Rapport. The average largest proportion of the online communication related to Child sexual interest (34%) followed by Rapport (28%). There were no significant differences between the two types of offenders in relation to these five higher order themes. Explanations for the findings are discussed with implications for police investigations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Child sexual abuse and the Catholic church: An historical and contemporary review

Although the recent revelations of clergy sexual abuse suggests an unusual and recent epidemic among the Catholic church, the historical record suggests this difficulty has plagued the church over the centuries. The recent effort of investigative reporters and adult survivors alleging sexual abuse by clergy, has led to an increased public awareness of the extent of illegal sexual activity occurring in the church. Opinion polls of Catholics in the United States have evidenced a critical view of the Church's administrative response to the crisis. Recently, criminal and civil cases have successfully challenged the negligence of the church hierarchy and the sexual misconduct by some of its members. Judicial decisions, however, tend to not hold churches liable for the sexual acts of their clergy. Despite continuing press coverage and civil/criminal litigation, research on priest offenders is virtually nonexistent The claims of unprecedented treatment success with clergy offenders has not been supported by published data. Given the high recidivism rates of sex offenders, the Catholic church should reconsider its policy of placing known sex offenders back into active ministry.     

Treatment of incest and pedophilic offenders: A pilot study

Twenty-nine incest and 22 heterosexual pedophilic offenders, under sentence, participated in a study of therapeutic outcome. Results showed the two groups were remarkably similar in their pretreatment level of psychosocial functioning. However, pedophiles had a significantly higher recidivism rate than incestuous men. Incest offenders, on the whole, changed most relative to single or married pedophiles. Pedophiles appeared more treatment resistant in dealing with their disturbed family relations, verbal hostility, irritability, and feelings of anger that, in part, underlie their sexual anomaly. At follow-up 36 months later, only 2 incest and 4 pedophilic men had recidivated. The discussion links these findings with earlier research and proposes a multimodal, group-oriented approach to treating sex offenders.     

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.