NCJ Number
246344
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 18 Issue: 6 Dated: November-December 2013 Pages: 732-744
Date Published
2013
Length
13 pages
Annotation
Sexual offenses are serious crimes and it is believed that adolescents perpetrate 20% of all sexual assaults and 50% of all child sexual abuse Barbaree & Marshall, 2006.
Abstract
Sexual offenses are serious crimes and it is believed that adolescents perpetrate 20% of all sexual assaults and 50% of all child sexual abuse Barbaree & Marshall, 2006. To better understand the etiology of juvenile sexual offending, researchers have explored differences between those who offend children versus those who offend peers/adults. This paper critically reviewed 21 studies that compared juvenile sex offenders who abused children with those who abused peers/adults on a variety of variables including victim, offense, and offender characteristics; psychosocial variables; and predictors and rates of recidivism. Strengths and weaknesses of these studies as well as future directions for the literature are discussed. Common methodological limitations of victim-age based comparisons of juvenile sex offenders included inconsistent definitions, low-powered studies, lack of standardized measures, and recidivism data based solely on conviction rates. Overall, many inconsistent findings limit our ability to give overarching conclusions; however, the research does suggests that not only is it important to examine child and peer/adult offenders, but mixed offenders i.e., offender with both child and peer victims as a distinct group need to be included in comparisons as well.