NCJ Number
128872
Date Published
1990
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Using data from existing research and the authors' own study, this paper profiles female sex offenders, compares female and male sex offenders, and briefly considers offender treatment and victim characteristics.
Abstract
The authors' 1987 study involved interviewing and testing 16 adult females referred to outpatient treatment for adult female sexual offenders in Minneapolis. The typology of the female sexual offender that emerged from this study and other similar studies consists of three categories in which the female acts alone and two categories in which the perpetrator is often in the company of others. The "intergenerationally predisposed" offender has a history of severe sexual and physical abuse as a child and shows similarities between the abuse she has suffered and the abuse she has perpetrated. The "experimenter/exploiter" tends to be 16 years old or younger and generally chooses a young male child (6 years old or younger) as her victim. The "teacher/lover" becomes sexually involved with vulnerable teenage males at a time of relationship dissatisfaction or conflict with peer-aged significant others. "Male-coerced" female sex offenders are coerced by male partners into sexually abusing predominantly their own children. The "psychologically disturbed" female sex offender suffers from out-of-control libidinal impulses. 19 references