NCJ Number
169157
Journal
Journal of Offender Rehabilitation Volume: 23 Issue: 3/4 Dated: special issue (1996) Pages: 85-101
Date Published
1996
Length
17 pages
Annotation
Recognizing that many male sex offenders who victimize children often say they were sexually abused in childhood, this study tested three versions of the abuse-to-abuser hypothesis: (1) the age at which men are abused as children determines the age of their sexual victims: (2) sexually abused men are likely to re-enact the type of abuse they experienced; and (3) men who were sexually abused as children are more likely to sexually abuse same-sex victims.
Abstract
A consecutive series of 100 men accused of sexually abusing children was reviewed. Subjects completed a standardized, semi-structured interview. Men with personal histories of sexual abuse (assaulted offenders) and men without sexual abuse histories (non-assaulted offenders) were compared in terms of victim age, offense type, and victim sex using t-tests, correlation coefficients, and Chi-square tests. Of the total sample, 20 percent reported past childhood sexual abuse. There were no significant differences between the personal age of abuse of assaulted offenders, victim ages of assaulted offenders, or victim ages of non-assaulted offenders; the mean age was approximately 8 years in each case. There was a statistically nonsignificant trend for offenders who were genitally assaulted as children to be more likely as adults to commit genital assaults on children. Further, no significant differences were observed between assaulted offenders and other offenders in terms of the frequency of male victims. Significantly more offenders who denied pedophilic interests, however, also denied childhood sexual assault histories. The study found no support for an association between age of abuse of the offender and the victim. The authors recommend further research on the relationship between seriousness of the offender's own abuse and offense seriousness. 31 references, 1 table, and 2 figures