Sex Offending and Sex Offenders: Theories, Factors, and Treatment
by insideprison.com, April 2006
| Sex offenders released in 1994 who recidivated
within 3 years |
| |
All |
Rapists |
Child Molesters |
| % rearrested for any new offence |
43% |
46% |
39.4% |
| % rearrested for a new sex offence |
5.3% |
5.0% |
5.1% |
| source:1
|
Sexual offending has a particularly
powerful impact on communities and traumatizing effect on victims. Equally powerful is the dissemination
of media reports, government publications, television shows,
and films that both construct a public fear of sexual perversion
as well as develop a crippling stigma that is at many times
irreversibly applied.
It may surprise many, however,
that so little of the federal inmate population in Canada
is incarcerated for sexual offences, a number that is currently
hovering around 15% of all federal offenders, according to Correctional
Services Canada. US studies from 1994 report that approximately
5% of all convicted offenders were sex offenders, however this
number varied considerably, with almost 10% in state prisons
and only 1% in federal prisons (BJS 1994). Similarly contrary
to popular belief, only a small percentage of sexual offenders
actually go on to commit new sexual offences. For example, sexual
recidivism rates for sex offenders remain fairly steady
at 13-14%, and are steadily decreasing. Recidivism rates for
any offence, sexual or non-sexual, remain at slightly below
37% (Hanson 2004). While this is not to say that sexual offending
should not be a concern to communities, it dispels many popular
notions that our society is being "over-run" by repeat child
molesters and rapists.
Etiology
Over the years, researchers
have formulated several conceptions of sexual offender typologies.
Four major theories on sexual offending stand out in the research
literature, 2 of which attempt to explain child sexual offending,
and two of which attempt to explain sexual offending in general.
Precondition
Theory
- Developed by Finkelhor
in 1984, Precondition Theory states that in order for sexual
offending to occur, certain preconditions must first be met.
First, offenders must possess either an emotional attachment
or a special communicative connection or understanding with
children. Second, they must be sexually aroused to these children.
Third, they must have social deficits or poor interpersonal
skills that prevent them from forming natural relationships
with other adults their own age. Fourth, they must experience
disinhibition of their impulses, or possess certain dysfunctional
skills that invoke rationalizations, neutralizations or explanations
for their behaviour. When all of these conditions are met,
individuals are at higher risk of committing a sexual crime.
Integrated Theory
- Developed by researchers
Marshall and Barbaree in 1990, this theory attempts to integrate
the many different potential correlates to sexual offending
into a broad framework encompassing biological, psychological,
socio-cultural, and situational components (in short, entitled
bio-psycho-social-situational theory). Biological factors
include hormonal defects; Developmental factors surround control
and abuse issues in early childhood, and highlight a child�s
natural inclination to view violence and sex as the same entity.
Sociocultural factors include the influence of the media and
popular culture, possibly including labeling and symbolism
as a method of forming a sexually-deviant identity. Situational
factors are perhaps the most unstable of all, but also the
most treatable; they include justifications for spousal abuse, domestic violence,
substance abuse, stressful situations, victim access, and
so on.
Quadripartite
Model
- Hall and Hirschman's
popular theory addresses the causes of sexual aggression in
particular. They first claim that sexually aggressive offenders
distinctively employ techniques of "neutralization"
and rationalization, concepts known among many theorists since
the 1960s as necessary prerequisites for allowing repeat-offenders
to continue to commit crime. Originally developed by researchers
Sykes and Matza in the 1960s, these techniques of accounting
for one's criminal impulses include: denying that there was
a victim of one's crime, denying that there was an injury
resulting from the crime, denying that one is even responsible
for committing the crime, condemning those who sanction the
crime, and appealing to one's own concepts of "greater
good," such as the need to satisfy one's tension, provide
for one's family, and so on. For rapists, Hall and Hirschman
note anger management
problems as among the top list of priorities for treatment.
In addition, psychopathic or antisocial tendencies are significant
contributor's to violence, especially
violence against women.
Pathways
Model
- Ward and Siegert
developed their "pathways" model in 2002 to account
for child sexual abuse. They point to problems such as intimacy
deficits, employing deviant sexual "scripts" (for
example, developing chronic behaviour patterns that come to
confuse the achievement of intimacy with the achievement of
sexual intercourse), suffering from emotional dysregulation,
and being antisocial, as probable correlates to committing
child sexual abuse.
Predictors
and Risk Factors of Sex Offending
Presented below in order of
their strength of causal relationship are several major risk
factors for sexual offending, 4 of which are dynamic (can change
over time), and 6 of which are static (do not change over time).
Dynamic
Factors
- Deviant Sexual Interest
- Measured by phallometric
assessment, a method whereby correctional staff strap
an elastic-like penile assessment gauge around the sex offender's
penis, present deviant and non-deviant sexual or erotic
visual or auditory stimuli, and measure any increase in
penile tumescence (erection).
- Attitudes supportive of
sexual offending
- Intimacy Deficits
- Antisocial Personality
and Impulsivity
Static Factors
- Male victims
- Stranger victims
- Age
- Absence of Marital history
- Prior sex offences
Treatment
Treatment for sex offenders consists of cognitive-behavioural
therapy. Sessions are approximately 10-15 hours per week,
consist of group discussions and independent homework, and require
maintenance therapy after treatment concludes. Treatment addresses
faulty cognitions, irrational assumptions and rationalizations
about sexual offending, problems with self-regulation and lifestyle
management, deviant sexual arousal and deviant fantasization,
emotions management, and victim empathy. It also follows a relapse
prevention framework in that it attempts to prevent offenders
from relapsing by making them identify those high-risk situations
that may potentially cause dysfunctional behaviours to be re-invoked.
references
1.U.S. Department of Justice. 2003. "Recidivism
of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994."
2. U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. 1994.
"Sex Offenses and Offenders." http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/soo.htm
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