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Despite recent attention both to sex offenders and violent delinquents, there is little empirical knowledge on the causes and correlates of juve nile sex offenses. Juvenile sex offenders (N = 34) were identified among a sample of chronic violent offenders (N = 242) from official records and face-to-face interviews. Juvenile sex offenders were 14. 1 percent of the sample. Sex offenders more often lived with their birth parents while violent offenders often lived in single parent families. Sex offenders had fewer nonviolent offenses, but more often had been incarcerated. Sex offenders had lower self-reported delinquency, fewer drug and alcohol problems, and less often were gang members. Their families, their sib lings and friends had less justice system involvement. However, sex offenders more often came from families with spousal violence, child abuse, and child sexual molestation, according to both official and self reports. They appear to be more sexually and socially isolated, less often have girlfriends or report sexual activity, interest or experience. They had stronger beliefs in the law, but fewer internal behavioral controls. Juve nile sex offenders appear to be a "hidden" population, more closely resembling normative populations than delinquent populations on a vari ety of social factors and attitudinal variables. Further research is needed on broader populations of sex offenders to expand and validate these preliminary findings.

Research and theory on violent behavior have treated aggression between intimates and aggression between strangers as separate phenomena. Major criminological works on violence and aggression have generally overlooked violence in the home. As a result, independent and distinct bodies of theoretical and practical knowledge exist regarding family violence and aggression toward strangers, and the relationship between family violence and violence directed against strangers is little understood. Estimates of the intersection of these behaviors vary extensively. Severity of domestic violence is associated with violence outside the home. Exposure to violence as a child consistently emerges as a strong explanatory factor for both domestic violence and the behavior of “generally” violent men. Behavior patterns appear to shift over time, from domestic violence only to violence toward both strangers and family members. However, an integrated theory of violent behavior by males provides explanations of both stranger and family violence. Early childhood socialization toward violence, modified by social and cultural supports during adolescence and adulthood, suggests a social learning paradigm. Hypotheses are developed that integrate and unify theories of stranger and family violence.

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