Sexual Offenders: Who Are They and How Are They Assessed?

1. Sexual Offenders Chapter 6

2. What is a sexual offender? • Sexual assault is usually defined as the “use of force or threat to compel sexual acts” • sexual offenders are a highly heterogeneous group • Rapists • Child molesters • Exhibitionist • Frotteurist • Voyeur

3. Paraphilia • Recurrent, intense sexual arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors generally involving • non human objects • suffering or humiliation of oneself or partner • children or other non-consenting persons • Occurs over a period of 6 months • Focus of sexual arousal

4. Terminology • Child molester • any adult who has perpetrated a sexual crime against someone under the age of consent (generally around 16-18 years of age) • Pedophile • someone involved in sexual activity or experiencing significant stress over sexual urges or fantasies involving a prepubescent child (usually under 13)

5. Assessment of Sexual Offenders • Phallometric Measures • Physiological device that records deviant response patterns and usually consists of • stimuli, monitoring equipment, and recording instruments • Underlying notion was that sex offenders are motivated to engage in their antisocial behavior by their deviant preferences • Accuracy of measures has been challenged

6. Psychological Assessment • Cognitive distortions • Self-serving thoughts patterns that reduce normal barriers to committing acts • Victim Empathy • Sexual Fantasies

7. Identification of Risk Factors • Meta-analyses on sexual offending have identified several interesting findings • Strongest predictor of sexual recidivism is phallometric responses toward children and deviant preferences • Empathy for victims, denial of sexual offense, low motivation for treatment, and sexual abuse as a child were unrelated to sexual recidivism • Sexual offenders are less likely to recidivate for sexual offenses than non sexual offenses • Sexual recidivism rates vary with time: 10-15% after 5 years, 20% after 10 years, and 30-40% after 20 years • these are likely underestimates

8. Risk Assessment Instruments for Sex Offenders • SVR-20 • SORAG • Static-99 • Made up of parts of the RRASOR and Structured Actuarial Clinical Judgment

9. Treatment and Management of Sexual Offenders • Are Sexual Offender Treatment Programs Successful? • Hanson et al. (2002) found 12.3% sexual recidivism rates for treated sex offenders and 16.8% for untreated sex offenders • Many problems with sex offender treatment literature • Poor comparison groups • Small number of studies • Poor research designs

10. Components of Potentially Successful Programs • Cognitive-behavioral • denial and minimization, crime specific distortions, victim empathy • Target underlying deficits • self-esteem, social skills, anger, drinking, assertiveness, social perception, performance evaluation, and intimacy deficits • Relapse prevention • Pharmacological

11. Special Groups of Sexual Offenders • Juvenile Sex Offenders • almost 20% of those arrested for sexual assault are below 18 • general recidivism is much higher • tend to engage in a variety of nonsexual antisocial behavior • commit a wide range of sex offenses • many adult sex offenders start in adolescence • little is known about female juvenile sex offenders

12. Female Sex Offenders • Compose less than 2% of all sex offenders and less than 2% of all female offenders • Between 6-60% of female victims and 14-27% of male victims report a female perpetrator • Underreporting makes study difficult and most studies have small sample sizes • Higher rates of sexual abuse, trauma, psychopathology • Little research on exclusive treatment of female sex offenders

13. Clergy as Sexual Offenders • John Jay Report: confidential, population-based survey of diocese, clergy, and victims 1950-2002 • 3-6% perpetration rates among Catholic clergy across diocese, 4% overall • most allegations were against parish priests • most are 25-39 at the time of the first allegation • 1/3 had substance abuse problems • 6.8% reported they had been abused • About 3% had 10+ allegations • Police investigated 15%, 5% were criminally charged, and 2 % convicted • 40% of incidents occurred in home or parish residence

14. Sexual Offender Legislation • Registration & Notification Laws • Check-in with local law enforcement • Residency Laws • Prohibit offenders from living with certain distances of areas deemed high risk • Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) Laws • intended to continue a sex offender’s confinement if mentally ill and dangerous • usually aimed at the most dangerous