Untitled

Abstract

Sexual offenders are extremely reluctant to disclose their offending histories for a variety of psychosocial and legal reasons. The polygraph has shown promise as a intervention for eliciting admissions of past sexual offending behaviors. For 60 adult male sexual offender (35 inmates and 25 parolees), the number of victims and offenses were recorded from the Presentence Investigative Report, Sexual History Disclosure form, and 2 consecutive polygraph examination reports. Dramatic increases in the number of admitted victims and offenses were found for inmates, but not for parolees, across each source. However, there was a substantial decline in the number of victim and offense admissions by the second polygraph examination for both groups, even though 80% of the examination results reveled deception about sexual offending behaviors. Standardized use of sanctions and privileges for deceptive and nondeceptive polygraph results, respectively, are proposed as a way of eliciting full disclosure of offending histories for these offenders.

A paedophile scan to prevent child sexual abuse in child care? A thought experiment to problematize the notion of alignment in Responsible Research and Innovation

“…The pilot was deemed successful as offenders were found twice as likely to disclose contacting a victim or breaching terms of their release during interviewing when connected to a polygraph. Increased disclosure of (child) sex offenders faced with the polygraph has also been found in other studies in Europe and the US (Ahlmeyer et al 2000 , Buschman et al 2010 , Emerick and Dutton 1993 , English et al 2003 , Grubin et al 2004 , Wilcox and Sosnowski 2005 ). However, this is probably due to the sex offenders’ belief that the polygraph is capable of detecting deception, and not to the accuracy of the polygraph itself.…”

An Evaluation of Mandatory Polygraph Testing for Sexual Offenders in the United Kingdom

“…These results allowed no firm conclusions to be drawn, however, about the polygraph since no comparison group was employed. Further, the majority of remaining U.S. studies examining the polygraph in treatment or community supervision contexts have also failed to employ comparison groups (Ahlmeyer, Heil, McKee, & English, 2000; Emerick & Dutton, 1993; English, Jones, Patrick, & Pasini-Hill, 2003; Heil, Ahlmeyer, & Simons, 2003).…”

Case Studies of Men’s Perceptions of Their Online Sexual Interactions With Young People: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

“…The present study used a qualitative approach on a small number of cases due to the extreme difficulty in recruiting participants, which may be related to offenders’ general reluctance to discuss their offenses for a variety of psychosocial and legal reasons (Ahlmeyer, Heil, McKee, & English, 2000; Groth & Lorendo, 1981). Such reluctance may be particularly relevant in the context of research, as the researcher is unknown to the individual.…”