What We Know About the Characteristics and Treatment of Adolescents Who have Committed Sexual Offenses

Abstract

This review examines recent empirical research literature on several aspects of adolescents who commit sexual offenses and their treatment. Presumed etiologies for the behavior are examined, along with research into personal characteristics, comparisons with non-offending groups, psychological, family, and behavioral characteristics, comorbid psychiatric conditions and arousal patterns. Outcomes following treatment are briefly reviewed. Although it is clear that considerable information has been gathered regarding male adolescent sexual offenders and limited information is available regarding female adolescent sexual offenders, many critical questions remain unanswered. The review concludes with suggestions for future research.

A Developmental Taxonomy of Juvenile Sex Offenders for Theory, Research, and Prevention

“…Moffitt (1993) argued that for LCPs, rape and sexual assault would be another manifestation of their antisociality through a complex process of heterotypic continuity (also see Lussier et al, 2007). This is reminiscent of the antisocial JSO group identified by Becker (1998) and Butler and Seto (2002). The LCP syndrome is unlikely to characterize all JSOs.…”

“…Although some researchers have concluded that the "typical" JSO does not exist (MiccioFonseca & Rasmussen, 2009), clinical and empirical research provides evidence of a number of distinct groups of offenders, and several classification schemes have been proposed (e.g., Becker, 1998;Becker & Hicks, 2003;Veneziano & Veneziano, 2002). The proposed classification schemes have been based on (a) personality profiles (Worling, 2001); (b) offending characteristics, such as victim age, use of violence, and presence of co-offenders (Bijleveld & Hendriks, 2003;Graves, Openshaw, Ascione, & Ericksen, 1996;Hunter, Figueredo, Malamuth, & Becker, 2003;Långström & Grann, 2000); (c) offending history, such as the presence of nonsexual delinquency (e.g., Butler & Seto, 2002); and (d) underlying motivation of the sex offences (e.g., Knight & Prentky, 1993).…”

General Characteristics of Child Sexual Offenders in Hatay, Turkey

“…Studies dealing with psycho-social statues of child sexual offenders revealed that these individuals are affected by lack of social communication skills, behavior and impulse control disorders, mood disorders, attention deficit, and depressive symptomatology [22]. A study by McElroy et al [23] showed that the most common psychiatric problem was drug addiction (83%) followed by paraphilia (58%), impulse control disorders (39%), anxiety disorders (36%), mood disorders (22%), and eating disorders (17%).…”

Confronting Child and Adolescent Sexual Abuse

“…Most of the clinical sample studies on which current knowledge is based have focused on the clinical characteristics of offenders, treatment issues, risk predictors, and recidivism rates (Becker, 1998). The clinical literature has generally considered teenage and preteen offenders as differ ent offender types: teenage sex offenders are predominately male (more than 90 percent), whereas a significant number of preteen offenders are female (Silovsky and Niec, 2002 The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)…”

“…Some offenses occur in conjunction with serious mental health problems. Some of the offending behavior is compulsive, but it more often appears impulsive or reflects poor judgment (Becker, 1998;Center for Sex Offender Management, 1999;Chaffin, 2005;Hunter et al, 2003).…”