NCJ Number
227316
Journal
Criminology Volume: 47 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2009 Pages: 595-618
Date Published
May 2009
Length
24 pages
Annotation
Based on interviews conducted with offenders, this study tested the hypothesis that offender's strategies of interaction with child victims plays a central role in outcomes of child sexual abuse cases.
Abstract
As expected, the offender's strategy of interaction or manipulation of the child victim had a strong influence on the crime's outcome, especially the willingness of the victim to cooperate. Offenders who desire victim participation in sexual offenses must manipulate or “seduce” their victims in preparation for sexual contact; however, adopting manipulation or seduction as the means for gaining victim acceptance also decreases the risk of penetration. This suggests that offenders who manipulate their victims may be less able to perform penetration than those who do not engage in seductive manipulation of the victim. On the other hand, when offenders engaged in manipulation to gain the victim's participation and the victim resisted, penetration was the most likely outcome. An additional finding was that manipulation decreased the risk of penetration for female victims but not for male victims. This suggests that victim characteristics are more determinative of the outcome than whether a manipulative approach is used. The study suggests how these findings might be used to develop prevention tactics and program content. The study sample consisted of 219 adult males who had been convicted of a hands-on sexual offense against a child 13 years old or younger. All data analyzed were obtained through a semistructured interview conducted with each participant, using the QIDS (St-Yves, Proulx, and McKibben, 1994), which is a computerized questionnaire for sexual offenders. 3 tables, 1 figure, and 42 references