Assessment of Juvenile Sexual Offenders: Reliability and Validity of the Abel Assessment for Interest in Paraphilias

Empirical tests of the reliability and validity of the Abel Assessment for Interest in Paraphilias (AAIP) as used with juvenile sexual offenders were performed. Test–retest reliability, screening validity, and diagnostic validity were assessed using several analytical approaches. The temporal stability, sensitivity, and specificity of the AAIP as used with adolescents in residential and day treatment were not demonstrated. The results indicate the need for further refinement of the AAIP.     

Apport des outils de jugement clinique structuré pour la mise en place d’un programme de soins individualisé des auteurs de violences sexuelles

Objectives

It has been well established that standardised evaluation tools better predict violence or sexual recidivism risk than general clinical examination only (Monahan, 1984 ; Pham and Réveillère, 2015). Several specific scales have been validated, but their use is not widespread in France despite their clinical interest. In particular, clinical structured judgment tools such as HCR-20 (Webster et al., 1997) and RSVP (Hart et al., 2003) are easy to implement in clinical settings, especially since their predictive power is enhanced by a multiprofessionnal scoring (Ducro, 2009).

A neuropsychological study of older adult first-time sex offenders

Background/Aims: The issue of whether sex offenders have cognitive deficits remains controversial. The objective of this study was to compare the neuropsychological function of older adult first time sex-offenders (FTSO), who had not previously been charged with a sexual offence prior to the age of 50, to historical long-term sex offenders (HSO) and non-sex offenders (NSO). The hypotheses were (a) that FTSO would demonstrate greater deficits in executive function, decision-making, and memory compared to non-sex offenders; and (b) the HSOs would present similar neuropsychological deficits to non-sex offenders.

Method: A battery of neuropsychological measures was administered to 100 participants comprising 32 FTSOs, 36 HSOs, and 32 NSOs.

Results: Both FTSOs and HSOs showed significant impairment on tests of executive function (including verbal fluency, trail-making, and the Hayling test of response inhibition) as well as on tests of verbal and verbal memory compared to NSOs; however, there was no difference between the two sex offender groups.

Conclusions: Older adult sex offenders, overall, demonstrated poorer neuropsychological performance than older adult non-sex offenders did, although there was no difference between older first-time and historical offenders. Cognitive deficits may increase the risk of sexual offending due to impaired capacity in self-regulation, planning, judgment, and inhibition. A proportion of older adult sex offenders may be harboring acquired frontal lobe pathology.     

Understanding criminal behavior: Empathic impairment in criminal offenders

Criminal offenders (CO) are characterized by antisocial and impulsive lifestyles and reduced empathy competence. According to Zaki and Ochsner, empathy is a process that can be divided into three components: mentalizing, emotional sharing and prosocial concern. The aim of our study was to evaluate these competences in 74 criminal subjects compared to 65 controls.

The CO group demonstrated a lower ability in measures of mentalizing and sharing, especially in recognizing the mental and emotional states of other people by observing their eyes and sharing other people’s emotions. Conversely, CO subjects showed better abilities in prosocial concern measures, such as judging and predicting the emotions and behavior of other people, but they were not able to evaluate the gravity of violations of social rules as well as the control group.

In addition, logistic regression results show that the higher the deficits in the mentalizing component are, the higher the probability of committing a crime against another person. Taken together, our results suggest that criminal subjects are able to judge and recognize other people’s behavior as right or wrong in a social context, but they are not able to recognize and share the suffering of other people.     

Patterns of offending among people with intellectual disability: a systematic review. Part I: methodology and prevalence data

A systematic review of research on offenders with intellectual disability (ID) was conducted. In the present study, the first of a two‐part presentation of the findings, the authors outline the methodology of the review and present data on the prevalence of offending by adults with ID. The review highlights the methodological problems of the research and the low level of rigour in many of the studies. The organization of the penal and ‘care’ systems are seen to have a huge impact on research findings. In addition, studies which adopt an IQ‐based concept of ID show low rates of offending, whilst those which use wider definitions (e.g. attendance at special school) show higher ones. There is also preliminary evidence for believing that the prevalence of arson and sexual offences may be higher relative to other kinds of crimes for people with ID than for other offenders.     

A reconstructive hermeneutic analysis: the distinctive role of body- and movement-based interventions with male offenders

ABSTRACT

Body- and movement-based interventions are more and more being recognised as a therapeutic and pedagogical method. For an evidence-driven practice, scientific insight about how those interventions assist the process of change is essential. The present analysis provides a scientifically sound overview regarding therapeutic mechanisms of change when working with body- and movement-based interventions with male offenders. Based on the reconstructive-hermeneutic analysis, 23 publications were analysed regarding therapeutic factors and their orientation. Eight bodily therapeutic factors (BTF) and nine bodily orientations (BO) of body- and movement-based interventions were identified. An initial framework for the application of body- and movement-based interventions with male offenders in consideration of their processes is presented. This work suggests that body- and movement-based interventions are associated with defined bodily therapeutic factors and orientations. Further scientific research for further and practice-relevant theories in this field is suggested.     

Group differences in abuser and abuse characteristics in a British sample of sexually abusive adolescents

This paper differentiates four subgroups on the basis of victim characteristics within a sample of 100 British sexually abusive male adolescents aged between 11 and 18 years. The groups were compared in terms of their background characteristics and sexually abusive behavior. Results indicated that when subgroups were delineated on the basis of victim characteristics, they could be reliably differentiated on several abuser and abuse characteristics. Findings were generally consistent with those described in the North American literature. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to etiology and to the development of a taxonomic classification system for British sexually abusive adolescents.