No abstract

The initial findings from this study suggest that the psychometric properties of the GSKQ are promising. The assumption that lower sexual knowledge may be related to the risk of committing a sexual offence by people with IDs is possibly erroneous, and further research is required to clarify this possibility.

Locus of control has been implicated as an important construct that is related to treatment outcome for several groups of offenders, including sexual offenders.However, little attention has been paid to how this construct is related to sexual offending by people with intellectual disabilities. Given this, forty-one participants with intellectual disabilities were recruited into three groups, 1) sex offenders who had undergone psychological treatment, 2) sex offenders who had no history of treatment, and 3) non-offenders. All participants completed a measure of locus of control and a measure of distorted cognitions. There was a significant difference between those who had and had not completed treatment in terms of cognitive distortions relating to sexual offending. There was no significant difference between the three groups on the measure of locus of control, with all three groups endorsing an external locus of control. Three possible explanations for how locus of control relates to sexual offending by people with intellectual disabilities is explored and discussed in light of the results.