NCJ Number
195593
Journal
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment Volume: 14 Issue: 3 Dated: July 2002 Pages: 225-239
Date Published
July 2002
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Adult sexual abusers of children who have been sexually victimized themselves may have specific treatment needs that are not being addressed by current models of offense-focused interventions; this study addressed this concern by analyzing the pertinent characteristics of a group of convicted adult sexual abusers of children.
Abstract
The study sample consisted of all the convicted perpetrators of child sexual abuse in southeast London (England) who were routinely referred to the Challenge Project, a community assessment and treatment program for sex offenders. Over a 7-year period, 178 participants were assessed. Data on sexual victimization obtained from interviews were available for 156 of these participants; the remaining 22 were excluded from the analysis. A range of background and offending variables were examined. The study found that sexual abusers of children who had themselves been sexually victimized as children were significantly more likely to have experienced a range of childhood abuse and related difficulties. They were more likely to have a range of psychosexual difficulties, to report greater levels of deviant offense-related attitudes on psychometric measures, to be recidivists, and to offend against boys. Both emotional abuse/physical neglect in childhood and having homosexual contacts in adulthood significantly contributed to a predictive model, reliably distinguishing between sexually victimized and nonsexually victimized child sexual abusers. This study advises that victimization issues can be raised in offense-focused treatment programs, but treatment practitioners must assess whether additional work is required to assist the offender in efforts to resolve early trauma. 3 tables and 51 references