Essay on The Reasons Sex Offenders Offend

Scully and Marolla uses Scott and Lyman’s typology accounts to analyze the rapists’ motives and actions. When the rapists were interviewed, they were put into two categories: admitters and deniers. Admitters confessed that their sexual act was forced on their victims; while deniers admitted to the act, but still not defining their act as rape. When these rapists confessed, Marolla and Scully concluded that admitters used numerous excuses and deniers used justifications. It has been reported that thirty-four percent of deniers has said their victims were initially unwilling. A great deal of the findings were key to their research. Some of them included that both admitters and deniers were under stress at the time of their rape. Through the deniers’ justifications, they have found that these men committed their wrongdoings because their value system did not give them a reason not to do so. Also their denials came from rape stereotypes that still denied the existence of a victim. Justifications were a common typology that was shared throughout both parties: admitters and

There are various theories when it comes to a perpetrator who commits a sexual assault and/or rape. These theories explain why the person decides to conduct in such behavior and the reason why it cannot be so easy for them to stop.

Each of these theories had led to many new theories used today, such as the Rational Choice theory, Biosocial and Psychological Theory, Critical Theory, Cultural Deviance Theory, Life Course Theory, and many more. The one thing in common with every theory is that they all explain at least one behavioral factor that leads to crime. Today, all these theories, and more, are researched and taken into account when trying to understand why a criminal does what they do.

Many etiological theories exist attempting to explain the root causes of sexual offending. Although few provide substantial evidence and no definitive conclusions have been made, the social learning theory has been proposed to account for sex offending behaviors. Specifically, the social learning theory, or victim-to-victimizer theory, suggests sexually abused children learn these behaviors and are much more likely to perpetrate abuse when they’re older (Seto & Lalumiere, 2010). The following studies have provided substantial support for the social learning etiology. Through the use of a meta-analysis, Seto and Lalumiere (2010) concluded that sexual offending is tied to prior sexual abuse. Burton, Miller, and Shill (2002) discovered

“Before the rape I felt good. My life was in order. I was getting ready to get married. Afterward everything changed. I kind of lost who I was as a person…

Sexual abuse is a heinous act that causes extreme suffering for a victim while providing pleasure for a perpetrator. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, approximately 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls are abused sexually before the age of 18 (n.d.). The question of why an individual would commit such a heinous act has various answers, almost all of which depend on the background of the individual. A common speculation is that abusers themselves were once abused by someone else. This idea branches off of the Positivist Theory of crime. The theory basically states that prior influences or experiences in life will ultimately decide how people will act in the future (C. Bartol & A. Bartol, 2017). Their history of abuse influenced them to become abusers. While this may be one viable explanation to this behavior, there are many other answers that are just as feasible in explaining this behavior. This includes the topic of serious mental illnesses and other behavioral disorders. Regardless of background influences, the true intent of the abusive individuals may be almost impossible to draw out, especially since most guilty individuals want to escape from the consequences associated with the crime that they commit (Inbau, Reid, Buckley, & Jayne, 2013). Unless a perpetrator admits to committing the crime, piecing the story together and understanding the influences that played a role in the actions committed by them is more feasible in terms of learning the truth. Whatever the

The Pathways Model is formed through a process of “theory knitting” (Ward and Siegert, 2002, pg.322) The researchers integrated the strengths of three theories that explain child sexual abuse to form a complex and multifactorial model. Unlike the other two theories, Routine Activities Theory and the Judgment Model of Cognitive Distortions, the Pathway Model acknowledges that multiple factors cause child sexual abuse. The Pathways Model outlines four clusters associated with child offenders, each cluster has its own primary causal mechanism, thus making the Pathways Model diverse. Moreover, the Pathways Model highlighted the fact that all four clusters interact with each other and for a sexual offense to take place all four need to be present.

A Hanson and Morton-Bourgon study found that over a 15 year time period, the rate for recidivism was a terrifying 35% for child molesters of boy victims and 24% for rapists. It is vital to consider that there is an abundance of victims whose trauma prohibits them from coming forward therefore a thoroughly accurate representation of repeat offences is severely limited. Brent Peter Cowan is a prime example of a sex offender, whose minimal

“Prosecutorial Remedies and other tool to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act “were passed in 2003. This Act allowed people to search different state borders for information on sex offenders in other cities and states. Some effective community notification strategies are alerting the public through News, press releases, newsletters, and sometimes door-to- door warnings of the sex offenders in the area serves a good purpose. Now days states are mandated by the Federal government to put the sex offender registry online so that anyone web access can stay notified.

To the ordinary citizen, when a person breaks the law, they are titled as a criminal and receive a direct punishment from the state for their wrongdoing. This punishment is seen as straightforward and simple when in reality it is far from it. For instance, if a person were to be convicted of burglary and received a punishment of 6 years in a state penitentiary, the average citizen would think nothing of it. In reality, that punishment carries much more weight as time goes along with extended “invisible” punishments called collateral consequences. These punishments are not seen by the average citizen because they manifest outside of traditional sentencing and can stay with the offender permanently. Some of these consequences are restrictions

There has been much debate about why people commit sexual crimes. As far as to what causes people to become sex offenders, there is no real answer to this question. No single factor can fully interpret why someone commits a sexual offense, though it is believed that some combination of factors may combine to increase sexual deviancy dramatically. These factors include biological, circumstantial, environmental, and sociocultural aspects of the person, describing the development of abnormal sexual expression through the same mechanisms by which conventional sexuality is also learned (Terry and Tallon). There are a number of sub-theories which have been designed to explain the onset of sexual deviancy. However, because no one can pinpoint the dynamics of sexual deviancy, different theories have been developed to study and account for the development of sexual aggression and behavior. An explanation of the main theories is offered below:

The acceptance of rape myths and sexual scripts are also major contributors to the thriving rape culture. Rape myths are the false but commonly-held beliefs about rape, and they are closely related to sexual scripts, the culturally established prototypes for how sexual encounters should proceed. Both of these elements support the act of rape and promote the victim blaming and normalization that rape culture entails. Key rape myths include: 1. Husbands can’t rape their wives, 2. Men must engage in sex once sexually aroused 3.Women ask to be raped 4. Rapist are different from most other men 5. Women enjoy rape 6. Women lie about being raped. These incorrect principles can be traced to the patriarchal system that accepts and fosters rape as an

     Cohen, Seghorn, and Calmas (1969) described three types of child molesters derived from their clinical studies. One type had a history of relatively normal functioning and the incident of molestation appears to reflect a reaction to a severe threat to their sense of sexual adequacy. Another type had a history of poor social-sexual functioning and is regarded as primitive and immature in terms of social-sexual skills. The last type they found in their study had offenses involving cruel and vicious assaults on children and the act of molestation is regarded as more aggressive then sexual. (Mc Creary, 1975)

There have been hundreds to thousands of treatments that have been conducted, some similar and others drastically different. In this paper, I will go over just a few of the more important types of treatments. Brown et al, (2017) demonstrates three types of treatments. Pharmacological treatment, behavioral therapy, and most importantly cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). With pharmacological treatment’s their purpose is to reduce sex drive. The most common types of drugs used are antiandrogen, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and gonadotropic releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists. to go into more detail antiandrogen’s like cyproterone acetate (CPA) and medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA)

The main debate amongst the explanation is the key motivation that drives the offender to commit rape. Previously, majority of social scientists’ perspective of rape is seen as a sexually motivated crime; for instance, males are given the opportunity to fulfil their sexual desires that cannot be met legally, thus