NCJ Number
180449
Journal
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology Volume: 32 Issue: 1 Dated: April 1999 Pages: 42-60
Date Published
April 1999
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This article questions the validity of the fixated/regressed scheme used by the Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service in Australia to classify sex offenders who commit child sexual abuse.
Abstract
This system is based on profiles of incarcerated offenders, so it is not consistent with empirical data derived from victim report studies. A number of other studies on the sexual behavior of child sexual offenders. This classification scheme appears to have been influential in the Royal Commission's decision to focus its inquiry into pedophilia on the activities of homosexual, fixated offenders. As a result of this focus, the Royal Commission engaged in very little analysis of the extent of child sexual abuse within the family and abuse of female children in general. The fixated/regressed offender typologies do not explain the vast majority of offenders against both boys and girls. Therefore, some of the Royal Commission's recommendations concerning improvements in the policing of pedophilia in New South Wales are questionable. It appears that future policing decisions in New South Wales will focus mainly on the investigation and prosecution of the so-called fixated homosexual offender and thus that more resources will focus on preventing the sexual abuse of boys rather than girls. Therefore, policing will ignore the vast majority of cases of child sexual abuse of both girls and boys in the general community. Table, notes, appended list of topics examined by the Royal Commission, and 50 references (Author abstract modified)