Aggression and erotic attraction toward children in incestuous and pedophilic men

Twenty-one incest offenders and 22 heterosexual pedophiles were compared to 22 violent offenders, and 17 normal controls recruited from the community. The groups were compared with respect to: 1) the pattern of coercion and sexual behavior used in their offences; 2) erotic attraction to children, pubescent and adult females, based on measures of penile tumescence; and, 3) their propensity for violence. About a third of incest and pedophilic offenders assessed actually penetrated their victims, engaging in both physical (e.g. slapping, hitting) and emotional (e.g. yelling, threatening) coercion in order to obtain compliance from uncooperative children. As predicted, some sexual perpetrators do appear to engage in "gratuitous" violence. The data suggest that 15 (68%) of the heterosexual pedophiles preferred fondling and mutual masturbation with children, while 7 others (32%) were more aroused by scenes depicting forced penetration (both digital and genital), contrary to their initial self-reports. Incest offenders reacted most to sexual interactions with adults but they also showed comparable reactions to consenting sex with children. Both incest perpetrators and pedophiles were less violent generally than the nonsexually violent offenders but more violent than community controls. The results support recent research findings that violence may be a more common and integral part of the sexual behavior of some pedophiles or incest offenders, than previously believed. The data also lend credence to the growing body of evidence which suggests that "violence" in pedophilic offences has been underestimated and needs serious reexamination.     

Pubertal Age in Homosexual and Heterosexual Sexual Offenders Against Children,Pubescents, and Adults

Previous studies have shown that homosexual men erotically attracted to physically mature partners (androphiles) reach puberty earlier, on average, than comparable heterosexual men. This study investigated whether the same early onset of puberty is observed in homosexual men attracted to children (pedophiles) or to pubescents (hebephiles). Subjects were 721 white, male, convicted sexual offenders, originally part of a large-scale study of sexual offending. Homosexual offenders against adults reached puberty earlier than heterosexual offenders against adults, and homosexual offenders against pubescents reached puberty earlier than heterosexual offenders against pubescents. In contrast, there was no difference between the homosexual and the heterosexual offenders against children on this variable. These results suggest that homosexual hebephilia has more etiological factors in common with androphilia than does homosexual pedophilia.     

Relationships between affective components and sexual behaviors in sexual aggressors

The aim of the current study was to verify whether relationships exist in sexual aggressors between affective components (moods and emotions following conflicts) and sexual behaviors (fantasies and masturbatory activities during such fantasies). We therefore developed the Fantasy Report, a self-assessment method for recording affective components and sexual behaviors. Nineteen rapists, 12 heterosexual pedophiles, and 8 homosexual pedophiles filled out the Fantasy Report every 2 days for 2 months. In rapists and heterosexual pedophiles, negative moods and conflicts coincided with overwhelming deviant sexual fantasies and increased masturbatory activities during such fantasies. For the homosexual pedophiles, the data revealed a significant relationship only between affective components and deviant sexual fantasies. The emotions most frequently reported were anger, loneliness, and humiliation by the rapists, loneliness and humiliation by the heterosexual pedophiles, and loneliness by the homosexual pedophiles. These data are discussed on the basis of the Relapse Prevention Model.     

How sex offenders lure children

Fifty-two incest and 50 pedophilic offenders, under sentence, were interviewed with respect to verbal and non-verbal strategies used to sexually seduce children. All sex offenders had received in-hospital treatment for six months to one year and were mostly non-defensive about various forms of enticement, exploitation or entrapment, including threats of harm, used to elicit eroticized responses from female children. A sizable number of incest (61%) and pedophilic offenders (58%) confided they felt powerful and in control. One third of men in each group relied on some element of gratuitous violence (e.g., pushing, grabbing, shoving or spanking) to force compliance from unwilling children. Forty-eight (94%) incestuous and thirty-seven (74%) pedophilic men either pretended, or believed, the child enjoyed sexual activity with them. Most sex offenders exhibited stereotypic thinking about sex with children. All incest offenders and nearly half of the pedophiles assaulted children in their own home. The findings point to the slow, but deliberate, grooming process used by men who erotically prefer children as sex partners over mature adults. Owing to their vulnerability, all children should be taught safety rules in the context of early sex education that promotes self-disclosure of any inappropriate sexual contact by a stranger, family member or trusted caregiver.     

New Measures of Defensiveness,Empathy, and Cognitive Distortions for Sexual Offenders Against Children

Treatment of child molesters emphasizes three interrelated constructs: denial, empathy, and cognitive distortions. Thirty child molesters, 30 nonsexual offenders, and 30 controls answered three new tests of denial, empathy, and cognitive distortions anonymously; 30 other child molesters were instructed to fake good, and 44 child molesters who were seeking parole were also tested. The Sexual Social Desirability Scale (SSDS) measures attitudes about sex, sexual activities, and intimate sexual relationships. All offender groups attributed significantly more (p .05) positive characteristics to themselves than did controls. All sexual offender groups denied significantly more (p .05) negative characteristics than did the control and nonsexual offender groups. Even sexual offenders asked to fake good did not significantly differ in denial from those sexual offenders who answered anonymously or those in assessment for parole. For sexual offenders, denial was not significantly affected by demand characteristics. The Empathy (Empat) scale tested for lack of empathy specific to sexual abuse victims and general lack of empathy. Sexual offenders, even those faking good, showed less sexual abuse empathy than controls (p .05). In contrast, sexual offender scores of general empathy equaled controls'. The Child Molester Scale (CMS) was developed in an attempt to reduce the effects of socially desirable responding. Sexual offenders assessed for parole reported significantly more (p =.0026) cognitive distortions regarding adult–child sexual activity than did the control group but not less than nonsexual offenders. The SSDS, Empat, and CMS were significantly correlated.     

Offender and Victim Characteristics of Registered Female Sexual Offenders in Texas: A Proposed Typology of Female Sexual Offenders

Victim and offender characteristic of all registered adult female sexual offenders in Texas (N = 471) were examined. The most common offenses the females were arrested for were indecency with a child--sexual contact, sexual assault on a child, and aggravated sexual assault on a child. The majority (88%) of the females were Caucasian and the ages ranged from 18 to 77 (M = 32). The results of Hierarchical Loglinear Modeling yielded a complex relationship between offender and victim characteristics; thus, identification of preferred victims is mitigated by more than one variable. Additionally, the employment of cluster analysis yielded 6 types of female sexual offenders. The most common group includes 146 offenders, heterosexual nurturers. They were the least likely to have an arrest for a sexual assault. The victims were males who averaged 12 years of age. The other types of offenders included, noncriminal homosexual offenders, female sexual predators, young adult child exploiters, homosexual criminals, and aggressive homosexual offenders.     

Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Sexual and Nonsexual Violent Offenders

According to a literature review by Marshall (1996), presently available data have not clarified the proportion of sexual offenders who would meet diagnostic criteria for addictive problems. Our own literature review failed to find published studies comparing sexual offenders to nonsexual violent offenders on standardized measures of substance abuse. Our study is a preliminary investigation of the differences between sexual offenders (rapists: n = 72; child molesters: n = 34) and nonsexual violent offenders (n = 24) on measures of alcohol and drug abuse. The findings indicate that sexual offenders were more likely to abuse alcohol than were nonsexual violent offenders. Nonsexual offenders were significantly more likely to have had a history of other forms of substance abuse. The results are considered in terms of theories of alcohol's contribution to aggressive behavior and sexual aggression. Implications for assessment and treatment of sexual offenders are discussed.     

Identifying sexual preferences in intrafamilial and extrafamilial child sexual abusers

Twenty-seven erotic and sexually neutral movie clips were shown to 191 men, consisting of 62 heterosexual intrafamilial child sexual abusers, 57 heterosexual and 25 homosexual extrafamilial child sexual abusers and 47 community controls. The stimuli depicted males and females from ages 6 to 25 years. Maximum penile volume changes were recorded during the 30 second stimulus presentations. Analyses showed that the phallometric test had high internal consistency (alpha=0.93) and revealed the expected erotic preference profiles for controls and extrafamilial offender groups. The homosexual group reacted most to 13–15 year old boys which made them more easily discriminated from the other groups. The intrafamilial offenders, however, overlapped considerably with controls and only 10% showed a pattern of penile responses expected for the classical pedophile, i.e., largest responses to female children. The pattern of results supported the accumulating evidence that child sexual abusers are heterogeneous in terms of their sexual preference profiles.     

Factors Related to Recidivism Among Juvenile Sexual Offenders

This recidivism study retrospectively examined the juvenile court case records of 170 first-time juvenile sexual offenders in a 5-year observation period. Cox regression, a model of event history analysis, was used to test hypotheses and to build multivariate competing risk models predictive of criminal recidivism. The multivariate analyses found that nonsexual offense recidivism was significantly (p < .01) associated with (a) prior nonsexual offenses and (b) failure to complete treatment. Sexual offense recidivism was significantly associated with larger numbers of female victims, but results were inconclusive due to the small size (n = 13) of the sexual reoffending sample.     

Sexual Offenders’ State-of-Mind Regarding Childhood Attachment: A Controlled Investigation

Attachment experiences have been regarded as significant by researchers and clinicians attempting to explain the etiology of sexual offending. Although initial studies have revealed some promising evidence, there are a number of theoretical and methodological problems with this preliminary body of work. While addressing these limitations, the goal of the present study was to investigate state-of-mind regarding childhood attachment among subtypes of sexual offenders, comparing them to both a sample of nonsexual offenders and to the documented patterns of nonoffenders. Sixty-one sexual offenders (extrafamilial child molesters, incest offenders, and rapists) and 40 nonsexual offenders (violent and nonviolent) were administered the “Adult Attachment Interview.” Results indicated that the majority of sexual offenders were insecure, representing a marked difference from normative samples. Although insecurity of attachment was common to all groups of offenders, there were important differences in regard to the specific type of insecurity. Most notable were the child molesters, who were significantly more likely to be Preoccupied. Rapists, violent offenders, and, to a lesser degree, incest offenders were more likely to be Dismissing. Although still most likely to be Dismissing, nonviolent offenders were comparatively more Secure.     

Assessment of sex offenders using standardized slide stimuli and procedures: A multisite study

Thirty sex offenders were assessed for age and gender preference with a set of standardized erotic slides and an assessment protocol which specified each step in the procedure. This procedure was intended to be a normative study to be carried out at multiple sites in the United States and Canada. It was hypothesized that (1) the procedure would discriminate child molesters as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, (2) the procedure would differentiate child molesters from normal subjects, and (3) both of these hypotheses would be confirmed at all sites. Data are reported here for 20 of the 30 subjects tested in groups labeled heterosexual pedophilia, homosexual pedophilia, heterosexual incest, and rape. Although the groups were quite small and measured response levels were low, good discriminations were obtained between groups and stimulus categories. It was concluded that the obtained data confirmed Hypothesis 1 and partially confirmed Hypothesis 2. Although the assessment protocol had to be altered to suit local conditions, it proved adequate and could serve as a guide in future standardization studies. Of particular interest was the finding that a 30-sec slide exposure was effective in producing discriminations in the critical categories related to the tested hypotheses.The Farrall Instruments MSS-2000 slide set is no longer commercially available. Although a number of these sets are available at assessment centers around the world, this limits the replicability of the findings reported in this article.     

Sibling Incest A Descriptive Study of Family Dynamics

This study investigates the characteristics of families in which a member was identified as a victim of sibling incest. Four agencies in a southeastern city provided a convenience sample of 14 family case records from November 1986 through April 1988 for review. Sixteen children were identified as victims of sibling incest, including three boys and 13 girls between the ages of 2 and 10 years (mean = 6.75 years). Perpetrators included 1 girl and 14 boys between the ages of 13 and 17 years (mean = 15.06 years). The incestuous relationship had a major impact on families, especially the children. Many offenders and victims, in addition to experiencing emotional, school, and legal problems, were removed from their homes.     

Implications for Treatment of Sexual Offenders of the Ward and Hudson Model of Relapse

A group of 59 child abusers were classified as having either an avoidant (n = 15) or an approach (n = 44) goal regarding deviant sexual activity with children. Level of distorted beliefs about sexual activity with children (cognitive distortions) and distorted beliefs about their own victims (victim blaming attitudes) in both groups were measured before and after treatment. Results indicate that there was an overall reduction in the level of these distorted beliefs at the posttreatment stage in the approach group. Reductions were not found in the avoidant offenders as men in this group did not have distorted beliefs prior to treatment. Results are discussed in terms of appropriate targeting of treatment.     

Denial Predicts Recidivism for Some Sexual Offenders

This study examined whether there were variables that moderated the relationship between denial and recidivism among adult male sexual offenders. The first study (N = 489) found that the relationship with sexual recidivism was moderated by risk (as measured by the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism) but not by psychopathy (as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised). Contrary to expectations, denial was associated with increased sexual recidivism among the low-risk offenders and with decreased recidivism among the high-risk offenders. Post hoc analyses suggested that the risk item most responsible for the interaction was “relationship to victims”. For incest offenders, denial was associated with increased sexual recidivism, but denial was not associated with increased recidivism for offenders with unrelated victims. These interactions were substantially replicated in two independent samples (N = 490 and N = 73). The results suggest that denial merits further consideration for researchers as well as those involved in applied risk assessment of sexual offenders. This article is based in part on research presented at the 19th Annual Research and Treatment Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers in San Diego, CA in November, 2000. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Correctional Service Canada or the Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada.     

Offense History and Recidivism in Three Victim-age-based Groups of Juvenile Sex Offenders

This study compared subgroups of juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) who victimized children (child offenders), peers (peer offenders), or both children and peers (mixed offenders) on sexual and nonsexual offense history, treatment outcomes, and recidivism to determine if these are distinct and valid subgroups. Though the group of mixed offenders was small, results showed that they exhibited a more diverse and more physically intrusive sexual offense history than the other JSOs and were less likely to successfully complete treatment. Sexual and nonsexual recidivism rates of mixed offenders did not differ from the other subgroups despite subgroup differences in juvenile sexual and nonsexual criminal records. However, differences in sexual recidivism rates of child versus peer offenders were found when the mixed offenders were either excluded from the sample or combined with child offenders. The results highlight the need to include mixed offenders in future research examining the etiology of sexual offending, treatment, and recidivism of JSOs.     

The Sexual Histories and Fantasies of Youthful Males: A Comparison of Sexual Offending,Nonsexual Offending,and Nonoffending Groups

The present clinical and theoretical literature suggests that adolescents' sexual histories and fantasies are factors contributing to the onset and perpetuation of criminal sexual behaviors. However, few data exist either to support or to refute such assertions. The purpose of the present study was to describe the self-reported sexual histories and fantasies of four groups: 104 incarcerated adolescent sexual offenders between 10 and 15 years of age, 198 16- to 20-year-old incarcerated sexual offenders, 124 incarcerated youth without a history of sexual offending, and 135 male nonoffending undergraduates. Youthful sexual offenders reported fewer consenting sexual experiences and more involvement in nonconsenting and paraphilic behaviors than both incarcerated nonsexual offenders and college males. Moreover, both sexual offenders and incarcerated nonsexual offenders reported more atypical and voyeuristic experiences, and fewer nondeviant sexual fantasies than college males. These results are discussed in terms of both social deficit and deviant conditioning models of sexual offending, leading to speculation that, contrary to clinical lore, criminal activity may be associated with suppressed levels of nondeviant fantasy rather than elevated levels of deviant fantasy.     

Onset,Persistence, and Versatility of Offending Among Adult Males Convicted of Sexual Offenses Against Children

Official sexual and nonsexual offense histories and confidential self-report data on sexual offending were obtained on 207 adult males serving sentences for sexual offenses against children (98 intrafamilial, 72 extrafamilial, and 37 mixed-type offenders). The mean self-reported age when offenders first had sexual contact with a child was 32.2 years (median = 31 years; range = 10-63 years). The mean age at first conviction for any offense was 30.5 years (median = 27 years, range = 12-66 years), and the mean age at first conviction for a sexual offense was 37.3 years (median = 37 years; range = 15-76 years). Sixty-nine percent (n = 143) of the combined sample had at least one previous conviction, and 80% of these (n = 114) had first been convicted for a nonsexual offense. ANCOVA revealed a systematic pattern of onset with first convictions for any offense preceding first sexual contact with a child. Taken together, results indicate that, in general, adult child molesters (a) begin sexual offending in their 30s, (b) have already become involved in nonsexual crime by the time they first have sexual contact with a child, (c) are criminally versatile, and (d) vary considerably in their persistence with respect to both sexual and nonsexual offending.     

The Impact of Health Care Reform: A Survey of Victim and Offender Treatment Providers

Health care reform and, especially, managed care may have important consequences for providers of mental health treatment to sexual assault victims and sexual offenders. This study is an initial effort to identify the impact of changes in health care delivery systems on specialist providers. A survey was mailed to 380 therapists in Washington state who were identified as having specialized expertise in either victim or offender treatment. Of the total sample, 39% (N= 135) responded, including 64 providers of treatment to sexual offenders and 86 providers of treatment to victims of sexual abuse. A substantial minority of subjects (46%) reported having made changes in the type of client or treatment approach or seeing fewer clients (43%). A majority (68%) stated that requirements for documentation or reports had increased. Overall, three-quarters of respondents reported that managed care had at least a moderate level of impact on their practice. Differences between providers of treatment to victims and providers to offenders emerged only in the perceived degree of impact on practice, with therapists who work with victims reporting significantly greater impact. Comments from providers revealed that reductions in the number of sessions, increases in administrative expectations, and compromised confidentiality were considered significant threats to the delivery of effective services. It is suggested that the impact of health care reform is more likely to be experienced by victim treatment providers. Offender evaluation and treatment have rarely been covered by commercial insurance and are often sought because of external pressure. As a result, managed care will have less effect on current offender treatment practice.     

Plethysmographic Assessment of Incarcerated Nonsexual Offenders: A Comparison with Rapists

Plethysmographic testing was completed on 100 research participants from the same medium-security prison population, 50 of whom were incarcerated for nonsexual offenses. In order to strengthen the validity of the research, only participants who achieved full arousal were included in the sample, and the percentage of full erection scores, as well as the Rape Index, were examined. The resulting sexual arousal profiles revealed striking similarities between rapists and control participants, indicating that deviant arousal alone did not distinguish these sexual offenders from nonsexual offenders. The only marked difference between the two groups was in the almost-perfect ability of control participants to inhibit deviant arousal and the weak ability of sexual offenders to accomplish this. The suggestion was advanced that a determination of an offender's ability to inhibit deviant arousal may be the only aspect of plethysmographic testing which has practical application in the assessment of rapists.