NCJ Number
92452
Date Published
1983
Length
51 pages
Annotation
Practical and humanitarian reasons exist for developing more treatment facilities and diverting more sex offender cases from prison.
Abstract
The extent to which the law should concern itself with the regulation of consensual sexual activities remains controversial. Dramatic differences exist between countries in regard to law and practice concerning abortion, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, pornography, and the age of consent. In many countries, the numbers of reported sex offenses and prosecuted sex offenses have decreased in recent years, most noticeably for crimes such as consensual sexual intercourse with minors, where there is no complaining victim. In England and the United States, however, a significant increase has occurred in serious assaultive sex crimes, notably forcible rape. Children and young persons are involved as participants or victims in a high proportion of sex offenses. Studies of offenders point to the existence of subgroups with very different characteristics. Many offenders, once caught, are never reconvicted. A small minority, especially among exhibitionists and pedophiles, are persistent recidivists. Aggressive, assaultive sex offenders tend to be young, poorly socialized, of low socioeconomic status, and with conviction records for nonsexual crime. Child molesters are less often criminal and rarely violent. Many are social inadequates who choose children because they are easy to persuade rather than from a true pedophiliac fixation. Some of the most violent offenders are motivated by frustration and anger more than lust. Many sex offenders have problems for which treatment techniques, both behavioristic and psychotherapeutic, have been developed. About 135 references are provided. (Author abstract modified)