Despite the wealth of research on psychopathy in adulthood, little is known about the developmental antecedents of the disorder. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine developmental risk factors to psychopathy in two adolescent offender populations. In Study 1, subjects were 233 adolescent sexual offenders who had participated in a sex-offender treatment program between 1985 and 1992. Archival data were used to retrospectively complete the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) and to code family background, individual, demographic, and criminological variables. PCL:YV scores were associated with physical abuse, parental social deviance, and adolescent Hyperactivity-Impulsivity-Attention (HIA) problems. In addition, relationships between PCL:YV scores and demographic and criminological variables were similar to those found in adult populations. In Study 2, mothers of 74 adolescent offenders completed questionnaires related to parenting strategies, physical abuse, maternal psychopathy, and child characteristics. The PCL:YV was completed using file information. PCL:YV scores were associated with physical abuse by father, maternal psychopathy, ineffective parenting strategies, and HIA. Results also indicated that the Psychopathy Screening Device, a measure of psychopathy in children, showed low concurrent validity with the PCL:YV. It was concluded that the investigation of risk factors is important to both our understanding of psychopathy and to early identification and treatment of those at risk for the disorder.

Few research studies have examined female sexual offending. Furthermore, most of what we know about sexual offending is based on male perpetrators. Our conceptions of female criminals who act outside their designated sexual scripts are formed by prevailing stereotypes of femininity. This research expands the available literature in the field of sexual offending, while examining how women are constituted when it comes to female child sexual offending. I conduct a critical discourse analysis of court transcripts and electronic news articles of cases involving women as child sexual perpetrators. Three criminal cases are examined from Wisconsin, U.S. The goal is to examine whether, and through what processes, traditional sexual scripts are discursively reproduced in court proceedings and media reporting of female sexual offending. Two cases reveal that women who adhere to their expected sexual scripts despite having committed a sexual offense receive sympathetic responses from legal officials and news journalists. The legal and media responses also ensure these women are able to continue their expected roles as women during and following sentencing. On the other hand, one case reveals that women who overtly contravene their expected gender scripts are legally and morally condemned. The call for strict punishment centred upon removing the female offender’s ability to participate in motherhood, because of the offender’s contravention of expected gender scripts by sexually offending against her own children. Furthermore, the male co-offender in this latter case was not deemed to have contravened his sexual scripts, resulting in less social condemnation. Overall, this thesis demonstrates discursive maneuvering that occurs in female sexual offender cases, in which legal officials and news journalists justify offenses based on prevailing notions of femininity. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-18 15:35:49.686

Willis and Grace (2008, 2009) developed a protocol for measuring quality of planning for community reintegration by sexual offenders, and showed that poor planning was a risk factor for sexual recidivism. The present study evaluated the reliability and predictive validity of Willis and Grace’s protocol with a large, representative sample of child molesters who completed a prison-based treatment programme between 1993 and 2000. Overall, the quality of reintegration planning was good for the sample as a whole, with an average equal to 61.7% of the maximum possible score. Results supported the reliability and predictive validity of the protocol in assessing reintegration quality. Reintegration scores were negatively correlated sexual recidivism and with measures of pre-treatment static and dynamic risk, particularly the Criminality and Treatment Responsivity factors of the Violence Risk Scale: Sexual Offender Version (VRS: SO; Olver, Wong, Nicholaichuk, & Gordon, 2007). Measures of intelligence and treatment outcome were positively correlated with reintegration quality, particularly the Standard Goal Attainment Scaling for Sex Offenders (SGAS; Hogue, 1994), suggesting that offenders who were successful in achieving treatment goals were also likely to have effective reintegration plans. Survival analyses (Cox regression) showed that reintegration planning contributed additional validity for predicting sexual recidivism when static risk but not dynamic risk was controlled. Overall, results support the utility of Willis and Grace’s protocol for measuring quality of reintegration planning. Future research should examine reintegration planning for other types of sexual and non-sexual offenders.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / The high statistics of rape in South Africa and the increasing percentage of sexual offenders in correctional services beseech urgent intervention with this population. Very little is known about the clinical reasoning that informs the planning of treatments for sexual offenders by the health professionals that work with them. In particular, research is needed on what health professionals perceive to be the curative factors in the treatment of sexual offenders. This study explores and describes health professionals’ views on the treatment of sexual offenders. The research is qualitative and exploratory in nature. The sample size consisted of seven health professionals including five social workers and two clinical psychologists who work or have worked specifically with sexual crimes. Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Senate Research Committee of UWC (Ethics Clearance and Project Registration Number: 13/4/20) and all principles of ethics e.g. voluntary participation, confidentiality, anonymity and informed consent, were upheld. Data was collected through in-depth individual interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analysed by two researchers using thematic analysis. Data collection and analysis took place in parallel until saturation was reached. Trustworthiness of the findings was achieved through inter-rater comparison, respondent validation, debriefing and reflexivity. Findings revealed that sexual offender treatment needs to account for the heterogeneity of the population and that treatment providers need providers need to be open and flexible. Treating clinicians must also be prepared to draw on a range of theories to meet the unique needs of each offender. Several curative factors were identified by the participants, including comprehensive assessment, mentoring and supervision on multiple levels, admission of guilt by the sexual offenders, psycho-education and skills training, strong therapeutic alliance, as well as intervention for sexual offender's past / own victimization.

On the 16 of June 2009 the South African government put into force the National Register for Sexual Offenders in an attempt to alleviate the problem of sexual crime. The aim of this dissertation was thus, to engage in a comparative study on how the National Register for Sexual Offenders will operate in South Africa compared to a similarly implemented register in the UK, with specific references being made to the US. The dissertation also sought to ask the question of whether the implementation of the register could be the solution to protecting children in South Africa. After, an analysis into sexual offender registers abroad, the findings revealed that registers are not proactive, a crime must have already occurred and an offender must be listed on the register, before the register can be of any preventative value. Furthermore, they are expensive to maintain they are punitive and impede on any form of rehabilitation or reintegration of offenders into society. As to whether the register could make South African communities safer, further research showed that the conviction rate of child sex abuse is very low as only one in nine children ever report such abuse and only 4% of these cases will result in conviction. Therefore because the provisions of the register require an offender to be convicted before they are registered, the consequence is that very few sex offenders will be listed on the register. Moreover the provisions of the register are narrow and seek to prevent registered offenders from being employed in positions where they may have access to children. Such an approach fails to recognise that in South Africa the majority of sexual offences involving children occur within the family environment and not at the work place. The conclusion of the research is that the National Register for Sex Offenders is not the solution to protecting children in South Africa and it was recommended that the South African government should look into a more immediate, long term and preventative solution to curbing sexual crime. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Private Law / unrestricted

Traditionally, emphases in the mass media coverage of almost all crimes have been placed on the alleged offender and the victim (and on occasion, their families). As a result, the families of offenders have been either largely ignored or presented unfairly even though their lives have also been devastatingly impacted by the media coverage of their loved one. While scholars have explored the impacts of offending on offenders’ relatives, this exploratory study adds to the literature by focusing on a uniquely marginalized sub-population of relatives of sex offenders in Canada. This study examines some of the collateral consequences of sex offending on the relatives, while focusing primarily on the impacts and effects of media coverage on these relatives. The findings of this study are based on a thematic analysis of nine in-depth semi-structured interviews with partners, mothers and daughters of Canadian adult male sex offenders. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Herbert Blumer’s (1969) symbolic interactionism and Erving Goffman’s (1963) stigma, this research finds that relatives of sex offenders encounter a myriad of consequences and repercussions resulting from a loved one’s sexually offending behaviour. In particular, the interview data suggests that the media coverage of a loved one’s criminalized behaviour exacerbates many of the already difficult and challenging collateral consequences, as well as the overall stigmatizing effects that arise when a loved one engages in sexually offending behaviour. Recommendations, offered by the participants, regarding future media reporting practices are presented, along with important directions for future research within this area of study.

Despite the wealth of research on psychopathy in adulthood, little is known about the developmental antecedents of the disorder. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine developmental risk factors to psychopathy in two adolescent offender populations. In Study 1, subjects were 233 adolescent sexual offenders who had participated in a sex-offender treatment program between 1985 and 1992. Archival data were used to retrospectively complete the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) and to code family background, individual, demographic, and criminological variables. PCL:YV scores were associated with physical abuse, parental social deviance, and adolescent Hyperactivity-Impulsivity-Attention (HIA) problems. In addition, relationships between PCL:YV scores and demographic and criminological variables were similar to those found in adult populations. In Study 2, mothers of 74 adolescent offenders completed questionnaires related to parenting strategies, physical abuse, maternal psychopathy, and child characteristics. The PCL:YV was completed using file information. PCL:YV scores were associated with physical abuse by father, maternal psychopathy, ineffective parenting strategies, and HIA. Results also indicated that the Psychopathy Screening Device, a measure of psychopathy in children, showed low concurrent validity with the PCL:YV. It was concluded that the investigation of risk factors is important to both our understanding of psychopathy and to early identification and treatment of those at risk for the disorder. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The amount of empirical research on men who commit sexual murders is scarce, and no distinction has been made between those who have victimized adults and those who have victimized children. Therefore, to better understand specifically sexual murderers of children (n = 11), comparisons were performed with a group of sexual murderers of adult women (n = 66) on developmental, precrime, crime, and postcrime factors. It appears that sexual murderers of children are more often victims of sexual abuse during childhood and present more often deviant sexual fantasies as compared to sexual murderers of women. The results show also that sexual murderers of children more often use pornography prior to crime, have contact with the victim prior to crime, and commit a crime more often characterized by premeditation, strangulation, the hiding of the body, and its dismemberment than the sexual murderers of women.

No description available.

The phenomenon of youthful sexual offending has received increased attention in recent years in the state of Utah. As a result. programs have been developed to treat the sexual offender within residential treatment centers. However. the efficacy of these programs had not been examined prior to the initiation of this project. The success of the programs has been assessed by examining recidivistic activity as measured by post-treatment criminal histories. The results of this study indicate that the sample of clients departing from treatment in Utah in the year 1995 has a recidivism rate of93.2% for sexual criminal behavior, as of December 1996. Additionally, the recidivism rate of nonsexual criminal activity demonstrated by the sample was 63.6% at the same follow-up. This study demonstrates that those subjects who are able to successfully complete treatment before their departure from the programs have lower recidivism rates. Additionally, the participation by the family both during the treatment process. specifically their involvement in collateral therapy, and after treatment. by having the youth return to the family, correlated with subjects not relapsing into recidivistic activity. This information is important for treatment planning. for legislative planning. and for the continued study or the phenomenon of youthful sexual offending.