Juvenile sex offending is not a new phenomenon but is one of limited research, with only a slight increase in research in the past decade. This meta-analysis used 5 articles to determine which holds a greater influence on juvenile sex offenders, biological or social factors. Biological factors were divided into impulsiveness, psychosis/mental health diagnosis (excluding paraphilic disorders), and sexual deviance/paraphilia. Social factors were divided into antisocial behavior, prior criminal activity, prior exposure to sexual activities/pornography, and history of being sexually abused. This meta-analysis found that biological factors have a slightly greater effect on Juvenile sex offenders, but it was not significant.

Juvenile sex offenders represent a serious and violent group of delinquents. Despite the severity of their crimes, the literature focusing on risk factors that influence recidivism and the types of re-arrest after incarceration is lacking. This research study examined 499 determinately sentenced juvenile sex offenders that were released from the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. This sample was then followed for three years upon their release. This analysis revealed that 51.5 percent were re-arrested for any offense while 45.91 percent were re-arrested for a felony offense. This study identified a number of risk factors relative to JSO recidivism. These factors include having a history of emotional abuse, race being African American, being gang affiliated, having a larger number of previous adjudications, and having higher counts of institutional misconduct infractions. Those JSOs older at intake and release, and those who were incarcerated for longer periods of time were less likely to re-offend upon release. Lastly, this study ends with suggestions for future research as well as policy implications geared toward juvenile sex offenders.

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Traditionally, juvenile sex offenders have been ignored in the literature. More recently the research has expanded particularly in the area of assessment and treatment. This study focused on the assessment of sexual arousal to deviant stimuli using the penile plethysmography (PPG) since it likely plays a significant role in juvenile sex offending behaviors. The goal of this study assessed its validity and reliability using Becker et al.'s set of PPG scenarios with a population of juvenile sex offenders. Significant differences were found between groups of (a) admitters versus partial admitters and (b) offenders with and without male victims. This study also examined the latent structure of the PPG results and found three dimensions: arousal to male stimuli, arousal to females and paraphilias, and arousal to non-sexual acts. These findings provide important implications for assessment of juvenile sex offenders and add to the clinical utility of PPG assessments.

Over the last decade there has been a substantial research effort directed toward understanding recidivism and risk prediction among adult sex offenders. In contrast, the juvenile sex offender field has received much less empirical attention. Consequently, there are very few risk assessment instruments designed for use with young persons who have committed sexual offences. Available measures do not appear to take into account the higher rates of non-sexual recidivism typical of this population. This thesis aimed to identify risk factors for sexual and non-sexual recidivism among juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) and explore their utility in the context of a risk assessment instrument. In Study One, a meta-analysis was conducted on JSO research to examine risk factors for sexual recidivism. The meta-analysis involved 17 studies and 22 predictor constructs. Seven variables emerged as reliable predictors of sexual recidivism: an index sexual offence involving a stranger victim, a history of physical abuse in the offender's background, the presence of sexual deviance, a non-contact index sexual offence, sexually offending against a greater number of victims, a history of sexual offending, and a history of non-sexual offending. In Study Two, a meta-analysis was performed on JSO research to identify risk factors for non-sexual recidivism. The meta-analysis involved 14 studies and 19 predictor constructs. Six variables emerged as reliable predictors of non-sexual recidivism: a history of non-sexual offending, a history of sexual abuse (negative relationship), the presence of an antisocial orientation, an index sexual offence involving a child victim (negative relationship), a history of physical abuse in the offender's background, and the use of threats/force in the index sexual offence. Taken together, the two meta-analyses were able to identify risk factors specific to sexual recidivism (e.g., sexual deviance) and non-sexual recidivism (e.g., antisocial orientation) as well as risk factors common to both outcomes (e.g., a history of non-sexual offending). These studies therefore made an original and significant contribution to the understanding of recidivism among JSOs. Based upon the meta-analyses, Study Three involved the construction of a risk assessment checklist that could be easily scored from file information. The Juvenile Risk Assessment Checklist (J-RAC) contained 11 items based upon the most consistent operationalisations of the predictors that emerged from the meta-analyses. The J-RAC is unique in the JSO risk assessment field as it contains two scales designed to provide separate estimates of the risk of youth engaging in further sexual and non-sexual recidivism, respectively. The J-RAC was scored based on file information from 82 youth who had been found guilty of sexual offences and referred to a treatment service in Queensland, Australia. The majority of the items possessed good inter-rater reliabilities and the two scales both possessed high inter-rater reliabilities. An existing JSO risk assessment instrument, the Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol Version 2 (J-SOAP-II; Prentky & Righthand, 2003), was also administered and the J-RAC possessed significant correlations with the majority of the J-SOAP-II scales. The J-RAC was also found to significantly discriminate between juveniles in detention and juveniles in the community, with those in detention found to be at higher risk on both scales. Thus, the reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the J-RAC was established. Consistent with current adult sex offender recidivism theory, the findings demonstrated the distinct roles of sexual deviance and antisocial orientation in the prediction of sexual and non-sexual recidivism of JSOs, respectively. The current thesis goes some way towards advancing a theory of juvenile sex offender recidivism by drawing upon the variables that emerged as reliable risk factors in the two meta-analyses. While the J-RAC could not yet be considered an actuarial instrument capable of assigning low, medium and high risk levels, the results of the research conducted in this thesis are encouraging. The utility of the J-RAC may be further enhanced through the aid of prospective research that incorporates substantial numbers of juvenile recidivists.

This research examines the effect of gender on perpetration characteristics and empathy in a sample of juvenile sex offenders in Massachusetts using feminist criminological and gendered theory perspectives. Through the use of ordered logistic regression, I evaluate whether or not a perpetrator’s gender has an impact on the characteristics of the offense (such as the use of penetration, fellatio, genital touching, or masturbation) or the levels of empathy and remorse experienced by the offender. The results show that gender only has a significant effect on penetrative acts and remains non-significant for the remaining variables. I have concluded that the non-significance of gender lessens the dissimilarities between juvenile male and female offenders, suggesting that the female offenders are less influenced by gendered socialization. Future research should focus less on the differences between boys and girls and more on those variables that are significant: prior victimization, behavior problems, and problems in school.

The present research was archival in nature. It was divided into three phases involving a comprehensive psychometric examination of a newly developed risk assessment measure designed to assess risk for sexual violence, guide treatment planning, assess readiness to change, and evaluate whether positive changes in risk are linked to reductions in recidivism risk among sexually offending youth–the Violence Risk Scale: Youth Sexual Offender version (VRS:YSO). Phase I focused on an examination of the basic psychometric properties of a young offender version of the Violence Risk Scale–Sexual Offender Version (VRS–SO; Wong et al., 2003), subsequently referred to as the VRS:YSO. The tool revision was based on a thorough review of the literature on male youth and adults who have sexually offended and selected readings on youth violence, as well as a review of a measure designed to assess risk for violence among violent youth (i.e., the VRS:YV). The developers of the VRS–SO completed the structural revisions to the tool. The resulting risk assessment measure included six static and 17 dynamic risk variables that are empirically and/or theoretically associated with an increased risk for sexual violence among youth. As part of its initial psychometric examination, the VRS:YSO was rated retrospectively from the comprehensive files of 99 male sexually offending youth who had received outpatient sex offender services (i.e., assessment and/or treatment) from the Saskatoon Health Region, Child and Youth Services (CYS)–Young Offender Program (YOP) from 1995 to 2008. Overall, the VRS:YSO showed good-to-excellent interrater reliability, sound item properties (i.e., internal consistency and item-total correlations), and a factor structure that is consistent with research on sexually offending youth and adults, as well as other measures designed to assess risk for sexual violence in youth. Phase II focused on the validation of the VRS:YSO through examining the concurrent, postdictive, predictive, and incremental validity of the measure. Moreover, the psychometric properties of existing specialized risk assessment measures (i.e., J-SOAP-II, ERASOR, and J-SORRAT-II) were examined to inform the limited, albeit growing, literature on risk assessment with sexually offending youth. All measures were rated from the same comprehensive youth files as in Phase I. Youth were followed-up for an average of 11.83 years (SD = 3.42, range = 3.89-17.41) starting from their first contact with the community post-adjudication (i.e., release from custody or commencement of a community sentence). Overall reconviction rates were 8% for sexual, 24% for any violent (sexual and nonsexual), and 37% for general (any) offending. In sum, there was good preliminary evidence for the concurrent and, to some extent, postdictive validity of the VRS:YSO. Furthermore, there was good evidence for the predictive validity of the measure, particularly with respect to any violence (sexual and nonsexual) and general (any) recidivism. There was also encouraging evidence, albeit offset seemingly by a small post-treatment N and thus restricted power, on the potential value of the therapeutic change score in the prediction of recidivism risk. These findings supported the value of the VRS:YSO as a new specialized risk assessment measure for sexually offending youth, particularly as it uniquely includes a systematic rubric for assessing change. Moreover, there was good evidence for the predictive validity of the J-SORRAT-II and certain components of the J-SOAP-II for sexual recidivism. There was also good evidence for the predictive validity of the J-SOAP-II and the ERASOR for violent (sexual and nonsexual) and general (any) recidivism. Lastly, Phase III examined the role of psychopathy-related personality features (as measured by the PCL:YV) in the criminal and treatment outcomes of youth who have sexually offended. The PCL:YV was rated from the same comprehensive youth files (in conjunction with the other measures referenced above). Overall, the PCL:YV significantly predicted violent (sexual and nonsexual) and general (any) reoffending, particularly among offenders with any peer/adult victims, but not sexual reoffending. Increasing psychopathy-related personality features were significantly associated with non-completion of treatment. Clinical implications of research findings, along with limitations and future research directions for each of the three phases of this research were discussed.

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The problem that motivated the study was that the way in which juvenile sex offenders are configuring themselves, and the way that self-development is currently understood, potentially has negative implications for the way they may be treated in therapy. The Gestalt paradigm was the lens through which this phenomenon was explored. The research method was from a qualitative perspective and was an explorative and descriptive analysis of the factors that contribute to this self-configuration. Data was collected by way of unstructured and semi-structured interviews and systematically represented by the emergent themes. Results showed the factors that contribute to the self-configuration of the juvenile sex offender. Recommendations were made to the juveniles, their caretakers and the social workers. The researcher concluded that the Gestalt approach to self-configuration, with its emphasis on the field and relationships, provides a coherent lens through which to approach the phenomenon of juvenile sex offenders. / Social Work / M. Diac. (Play Therapy)