Youth Who Sexual Offended: Primary Human Goods and Offense Pathways

There has been an increased focus on understanding youth sexual offending in recent years, but there has been limited empirical research on the causes, pathways, and treatment of youth who have sexually offended-especially within a non-Western context. The Good Lives and Self-Regulation Models have often been used to understand and rehabilitate adult sexual offenders, but (unfortunately) there is scant research on youth who sexually offended using these models. 

The present study aims to describe the different primary goods that are associated with youth sexual offending behaviors in an Asian context. In addition, the study sought to explore whether the age of victim (child vs. nonchild) and nature of sexual offense (penetrative vs. nonpenetrative) influenced the youth's engagement in offense pathways. The results suggest that pleasure, relatedness, and inner peace were the primary human goods that were most sought after by a sample of 168 youth who sexually offended in Singapore. In addition, offender classification (in relation to the age of victim and nature of sexual offense) influenced the pathways to sexual offending. Therefore, these findings have important clinical implications for assessment, management, and intervention planning for youth who sexually offended.

Table 2.

Characteristics for the Youth Who Sexually Offended.

Variables	M	SD	Range
Age at referral	14.92	1.43	12-18
Number of current offenses	4.76	5.13	1-39
Number of current sexual offenses	3.82	4.71	1-39
ERASOR total score	36.19	6.20	17-52
	n	%
Source of referral
Probation services	120/168	71.4
Youth correctional institutions	34/168	20.2
Child protection services	12/168	7.4
Ethnicity of youth
Chinese	75/168	44.6
Malay	68/168	40.5
Indian	20/168	11.9
Other	5/168	3.0
Intellectually disabled	20/168	11.9
Nature of sexual offense
Nonpenetrative sexual offense	119/168	70.8
Penetrative sexual offense	49/168	29.2
Age of victim(s)
Child	45/168	26.8
Nonchild	123/168	73.2
Offender classification
Nonchild-nonpenetrative	90/168	53.6
Nonchild-penetrative	33/168	19.6
Child-nonpenetrative	29/168	17.3
Child-penetrative	16/168	9.5
Criminally diversea	56/168	33.3
Also committed violent offense(s)b	18/168	10.7
Also committed nonviolent nonsexual offense(s)c	38/168	22.6

aCriminally diverse refers to committing nonsexual offenses in addition to sexual offenses.

bFor example, causing bodily harm, rioting, and robbery.

cFor example, burglary, drug use, fraud, and theft.

Read more at: http://ht.ly/S87PL

By: Chu CM1, Koh LL2, Zeng G2, Teoh J2.

• 1Ministry of Social and Family Development, Singapore Monash University, Melbourne, Australia chu_chi_meng@msf.gov.sg.
• 2Ministry of Social and Family Development, Singapore.