Why Do Sex Offenders Do The Things They Do?

Roughly 79.4% of adolescent sex offenders experienced sexual abuse while only 46.7% of nonsexual offenders reported abuse (Burton, Miller, & Shills, 2002).

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

Sexual assault occurs every two minutes in the United States. Sexual violence against women is still endemic in the United States. Statistics show nearly one in five women have been sexually assaulted. Managing sex offenders is still an issue in the criminal justice system. Repeat offenders are extremely difficult to monitor. The national legislature monitoring system contains an absence of effective research in monitoring sex offenders. Sexual offender registration and notification Act (SORNA) operates in all the US states and territories. The objective is to monitor and track sex offenders by law enforcement. Also they provide information to the public and the communities about the offenders. For example, the National registry allows the public to be informed of a registered offender and their demographics.

There have been many federal acts passed in correspondence with sex offenses that illicit feat with the public. There are many different types of ways in which Levenson & colleagues’ (2007) describes the perceptions that the public has based on certain factors. For instance, in relation to the perception about the sex offender notification system, a survey produced results of around 80 percent in favor of these registries, because these individuals felt safer in their communities knowing who was in their neighborhood. Further, due to this fear that resonated in the early 1990’s communities do have tools such as residential restrictions, civil commitment, notification procedures, etc. that aid in the protection. However, there are myths associated with sex offenders, for example legislation often states that the reasoning for new laws and regulations is due to the high recidivism rates. However, sex offenders have significantly lower recidivism rates than believed. Also, there are countless people who do not believe that sex offenders can be assisted with techniques from a psychological standpoint. Most people think that these offenders cannot be treated, however, there is research being conducted that is promising. Finally, there is a common misconception that sex offenders kill their victims, especially children more often than other killers, however this is not true.

Sex offenders have been a serious problem for our legal system at all levels, not to mention those who have been their victims. There are 43,000 inmates in prison for sexual offenses while each year in this country over 510,000 children are sexually assaulted(Oakes 99). The latter statistic, in its context, does not convey the severity of the situation. Each year 510,000 children have their childhood's destroyed, possibly on more than one occasion, and are faced with dealing with the assault for the rest of their lives. Sadly, many of those assaults are perpetrated by people who have already been through the correctional system only to victimize again. Sex offenders, as a class of criminals, are nine times more likely to repeat their

The number of registered sex offenders have increasingly grew over the years. Every day you see a man or women added to the registry for crimes against women and mostly children. The sex offender registries biggest and main focus is to keep the people in the community in each city and state informed and protected. ”Sex offenders and sex crimes provoke a great deal of anxiety in our society.” Baker, J, Brannon, Y, N., Fortney. , Levenson, J.S. (“Public Perceptions about Sex Offenders and Community Protection”). The sex offender registry is based solely on protecting the public from being a victim

Sex offender treatment programs target factors for sexual reoffending they include cognitive distortions and schemas, emotion dysregulation, deviant sexual behaivor, and deficities of interpersonal skills and empathy (Schaffer, Jeglic, Moster, & Wnuk, 2010).

In this paper I will discuss the typical profiling of sex offenders and how one cannot simply point them out in a crowd. I will discuss why sex offenders do not stand out from “normal” people. I will discuss a little bit of why these people do the things they do and what kind of cure there is for these crimes, if any. It is important to know why we cannot assume one is bad news, such as a sex offender and to find out for sure. The true meaning of “you cannot judge a book by its cover” will be revealed in this paper with many examples.

Sex offenders tend to blend in to society virtually unnoticed until they offend or reoffend (Polizzi, MacKenzie, & Hickman, 1999). Currently, there is a large group of mental health professionals representing a variety of disciplines, including psychology, psychiatry clinical social work, counseling, and medicine, that continue to believe in the potential efficacy of treating sex offenders. Over the past decade, the sex offender treatment field has grown rapidly and the treatment of juvenile sex offenders is on the rise (Parks & Bard, 2006). The rationale for treating juvenile offenders is based on research which indicates that inappropriate sexual behavior patterns develop early and a failure to intervene and change behavior early often means that the offender will continue to escalate his/her inappropriate behavior, which could present an even greater danger to society (Ayland & West, 2006). Vivian-Bryne, (2004) suggests that professionals who treat adult sex offenders report that offenders who are incarcerated will eventually return to the community and therefore, therapeutic measures should be taken to reduce the likelihood that they will reoffend even if those measures have not conclusively been identified as effective. Sexual offenders may find therapy valuable because it can allow them to retrace their upbringing to help them identify and understand the roots of their

Stories of sex offenders have been increasingly a focus of attention by the criminal justice system over the past years. By legal definition, a sex offender “is a person who is convicted of a sexual offense (Sex Offender Law & Legal Definition),” an act which is prohibited by the jurisdiction. What constitutes as a sex offense or normal/abnormal sexual behavior varies over time and place, meaning that it also varies by legal jurisdiction and culture. In the United States of America, for example, a person can be convicted of wide range of sexual behavior that includes prostitution, incest, sex with a minor, rape, and other sex offenses (Sex Offender Law & Legal Definition). As the nature of sex crimes have long held the

When working with this specific population mental health professionals are often called on to evaluate and manage sex offender’s behavior. There are also times when individuals may be asked to give an opinion as to if the offender will repeat the behavior. Often times people that work with this population are referred to as (SOSs) Sex Offender Specialists. They have a specific group of diverse training and background. Some of these trainings incIude but are not limited to cognitive-behavioral, psychopharmacological, and therapeutic orientations.

In order to investigate this phenomenon and address the gap in adolescent sexual offenders having a higher possibility of conduct disorder, the following research study is proposed. The study focuses on the research question: if adolescent sex offenders are more likely to have childhood diagnosis of conduct disorder than that of adult sexual offenders. It is a hypothesis that adolescent sexual offenders have a much lower chance of re-offending if they are not into more types of crimes (Davidson, 2015, p.555). It is also a hypothesis that adolescent sex offenders may have a higher possibility of a childhood diagnosis of a conduct disorder (Morrell & Burton, 2014, p.39).

As many would imagine, juveniles are often hesitant to fully admit the extent of their abuse or the actual number of victims they have created. Juvenile sex offenders who are in denial about their offenses do not typically engage in and comply with treatment (Hunter & Figueredo, 2000; Maletzky, 1991). The first step of treatment is to get the offenders to take full accountability for the actions that brought them to treatment in the first place. This process can take several months. In order to move on in most treatment programs the juveniles must take and successfully pass a full sex history polygraph. Failure to do so can result in removal from program and placement in a higher level of care and noncompliance with a court order.

Many sex offenders are classified as psychopaths. Psychopathy is defined as ‘a distinctive cluster of behaviours and inferred personality traits, most of which society view as pejorative.’ (p.4, Hare, 1995). Psychopaths are particularly challenging to work with, let alone treat. The most well known tool to assess psychopathy is Hare’s (2003) Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R). The PCL-R has been used to predict re-offending, however, it seems to be more accurate for violent and general offenders as opposed to sex offenders (Olver & Wong, 2009).

According to Van Voorhis in chapter 12, “Treating Sex Offenders,” of Correctional Counseling and Rehabilitation, a meta-analysis of 43 research studies on sex offender treatment concluded that, “in total, the researchers compared 5078 treated offenders to 4376 untreated ones and found that the treated offenders had a recidivism rate of 12%, versus 17% for the untreated offenders” (281). Though this does not account for all sex offenders, these statistics presents evidence that rehabilitation is possible. However, it is important to establish separations between types of sex offenders in order to effectively treat the individuals that are capable of recovery. To illustrate Groth, Hobson, and Gary thoroughly explore two distinct typologies in “The Child Molesters: Clinical Observations,” including fixated child molesters, his or her essential sexual orientation revolves around children, and regressed child molesters, occurs when stress regarding the primary sexual attraction to age appropriate peers causes him or her to be intimately involved with children (Groth, Hobson, Gary 3). As reported by the authors, the individual needs to be defined by one of these typologies in order to determine course of treatment considering the uniqueness of each