Week 18: Sexual Offending

• Sexual Offences Act 2003

  Rape

  • Penetration without consent of the vagina/mouth/anus by the penis
  • Consent is when a person agrees by choice to the sexual activity and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice

  Some other offences

  • assault by penetration
  • sexual assault
  • voyeurism and 'upskirting'
• Age of consent and offences against children

  uk = 16

  penetration, sexual contact, and inciting children to engage in sexual activity is illegal when victim is under 13

  Penetration, sexual contact, and inciting children to engage in sexual activity is illegal when victim is under 16 and perpetrator is 18 or older
• Some other offences


  sexual contact with someone 16/17 may be illegal where there is an abuse of trust

  familial child sexual offences

  grooming

  offences against persons with a mental disorder impeding choice

  indecent images of children
• Europe


  consent varies between 14 (e.g. Portugal, Germany, Italy) and 18 (Malta, Turkey, Vatican City)
• United States


  age of consent varies between 16 and 18 depending on the state
• Sexual offending and the law - implications for research

  studies may treat as criminal, individuals who would be acting lawfully in other jurisdictions
• World Health Organization (2012)


  Multi-country studies show that global rates of sexual victimisation vary considerably

  • Lifetime prevalence of sexual partner violence by women aged 15-49 ranged from 5%-59%
  • 0.3% to 12% women reported sexual violence by non-partner since age 15
  • Global rates of victimisation of other genders even harder to estimate
• Stolenborgh et al. (2014)


  Meta-analysis puts global rates of child sexual abuse (victims under 18) at 4-19% for boys and 11-22% for girls
• Wortley (2009) - Myth: Parents should primarily worry about "stranger danger"


  56.5% of CSA perpetrators lived with victim

  36.9% knew child

  6.5% were strangers

  69% of offences happened in the home
• Wortley (2009) - Myth: Organised "paedophile rings" are responsible for a large amount of sexual offences


  prior to arrest 8% talked to other individuals who sexually offended

  4% were members of what could be called a paedophile group
• Wortley (2009) - Myth: Gay people pose a greater risk to children


  Belief declined considerably since the 1970s

  Stated orientation

  • 76% female only
  • 8% male only
  • 13% both

  Victims

  • 72% female
  • 28% male
• Paedophilia


  WHO (1997)

  • "a sexual preference for children, boys or girls or both, usually of prepubertal or early pubertal age"
• Hebophelia = around puberty
• Ephebophilia = adolescent
• teleiophilia = adult
• child molestation ≠ paedophilia


  Child molestation

  • anyone who commits a contact sexual offence against a child, whether they have paedophilic interest or not
• Paedophilia and child abuse often divided into two types of offending

  incest/intrafamilial

  • less evidence of paedophilia
  • lower re-offense rates

  Unrelated/extra familial

  • greater risk
• Seto (2008)


  40-50% of individuals who commit a contact offence are paedophilic
• Measuring problematic sexual interest

  traditionally measured by measuring arousal

  Less direct methods are now being developed

  • looking at reaction times to stimuli
  • do people get distracted by stimuli they find sexually appealing (Ó Ciardha & Gormley, 2012)
• Seto et al. (2006)


  people apprehended for indecent images of children show greater paedophilic arousal than individuals apprehended for contact offences
• Seto et al. (2011)


  1 in 8 who look at indecent images of children will have an officially recorded contact offence
• People who look at indecent images of children

  50% self report a contact offence

  • Re-offending with a contact offence is less likely than individuals apprehended for contact offences
• Cortoni, Babchishin & Rat (2016)

  meta analysis of results spanning 12 countries suggests that women account for:

  • 2.2% of sexual offences reported to police
  • BUT 11.6% of offences in victim surveys
• What about sexual offending perpetrated by women?

  many co-offend with male co-perpetrator

  Victims overwhelmingly male

  Considerably lower rates of paedophilia

  Why the under reporting?

  • social and cultural construction of women may see female abuse as less harmful
• Sexual aggression towards adults

  tend to think of a stereotype of the predatory stranger-rapist when we consider sexual assault and rape

  However

  • marital rape
  • acquaintance rape
  • date rape
  • multiple perpetrator rape
  • Fraternities and campus-based sexual assault
  • gangs
  • rape in war
  • prison rape
• Factors implicated in sexual aggression towards adults


  hostile masculinity

  Sociosexual orientation

  Endorsement of rape myths

  Alcohol use

  Antisociality

  Sadism

  (Abbey, Jacques-Tiura, & LeBreton, 2011; Knight and Sims-Knight, 2003; Malamuth & Hald, 2017)
• Components of the Integrated Theory of Sexual Offending


  • Neuropsychological functioning
  • Brain Development
  • Ecological Niche
  • Biological functioning
  • Clinical symptoms / state factors
  • Sexual Offending
  • Maintenance / escalation
  • Social Learning
• Brain development


  • Latest research appears to point to pre-natal influences on sexual offending
  • Especially as a possible cause for the risk factor of paedophilia
  • But also evidence for genetic influence on child molestation and rape (Långström, Babchishin, Fazel, Lichtenstein, Frisell, 2015)
  • However, it is not a smoking gun! (see Gannon, 2021)
• Neuropsychological functioning


  • Desire
  • Belief
  • Action
• Clinical symptoms / state factors

  • State or risk factors that you might see clinically
• Clinical Symptoms


  • Deviant arousal
  • Emotional problems – regulating behaviour
  • Social difficulties – need for intimacy/control
  • Offence-supportive cognitions
• Offence-supportive cognitions


  • Basically beliefs that effect how individuals see the world
  • Beliefs about themselves
  • Beliefs about their victims
  • Beliefs about the world
  • But are these beliefs or excuses? (Maruna & Mann, 2006; Ó Ciardha & Gannon, 2011)
• "Over an average follow up time of 76.2 months (SD = 34.2), sexual recidivism was 9.5% for treated and 14.1% for untreated individuals …This represents an absolute decrease in recidivism of 4.6% and a relative decrease of 32.6%."
• Individuals apprehended for a sexual offence are more likely to be convicted for a non-sexual crime (see also Hanson & Morton Bourgon, 2005).
• Desistance


  A slowing down or a complete cessation of offending behaviour
• Theories of desistance


  • Natural desistance – crime is a young man's game
  • Cognitive transformation – recreating their identities through gradual or sudden change
  • Informal social control – stability, marriage, employment
• Large study appeared to show that treatment does not work (Mews et al., 2017)
• Several studies have shown that treatment reduces sexual reoffending by about 27%-43% (Gannon et al, 2019; Marshall et al, 2013)
• Effective treatment


  • Prioritise higher risk individuals
  • Target criminogenic needs
  • Use procedures shown to be effective with particular targets
  • Responsive
  • Strengths-based (see Bonta & Andrews, 2007)
• Ecological Niche


  Refers to the social context of the individual - own history of abuse (Glasser et al., 2001)

  • 35% of male abusers had been victims
  • 11% of male non-abusers had been victims

  Cultural norms facilitating sexual violence

  • rape myth acceptance

  Group processes

  • multiple perpetrator rape
  • Rape in war