The sexually abused-sexual
abuser hypothesis posits that persons, especially males, who are sexually
abused as children are at particular risk of sexually abusing others later in
life. We tested this hypothesis by prospectively examining associations between
maltreatment and offending in a birth cohort of 38,282 males with a
maltreatment history and/or at least one finalized offense. We examined these
associations within the context of the wider birth population.
Proportionally
few boys were the subject of official notifications for sexual abuse (14.8% of
maltreated boys, and 1.4% of the birth population); proportionally very few of
these sexually abused boys (3%) went on to become sexual offenders; and,
contrary to findings typically reported in retrospective clinical studies,
proportionally few sexual offenders (4%) had a confirmed history of sexual
abuse.
Poly-victimization (exposure to multiple types of maltreatment) was
significantly associated with sexual offending, violent offending, and general
(nonsexual, nonviolent) offending. We found no specific association between
sexual abuse and sexual offending, and nor did we find any association between
sexual abuse and sexual offending specifically within the poly-victimized
group.
The total number of sexual abuse notifications did make a small unique
contribution to the variance in sexual offending compared to other offending.
Implications concerning maltreated boys and male sexual offenders are discussed.
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- 1Griffith University, 176 Messines Ridge Rd, Mt Gravatt, QLD, Australia.
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