Two Clusters of Child Molesters Based on Impulsiveness

OBJECTIVE:

High impulsiveness is a general problem that affects most criminal offenders and is associated with greater recidivism risk. A cluster analysis of impulsiveness measured by the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale - Version 11 (BIS-11) was performed on a sample of hands-on child molesters.

METHODS:

The sample consisted of 208 child molesters enrolled in two different sectional studies carried out in São Paulo, Brazil. Using three factors from the BIS-11, a k-means cluster analysis was performed using the average silhouette width to determine cluster number. Direct logistic regression was performed to analyze the association of criminological and clinical features with the resulting clusters.

RESULTS:

Two clusters were delineated. The cluster characterized by higher impulsiveness showed higher scores on the Sexual Screening for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI), Static-99, and Sexual Addiction Screening Test.

CONCLUSIONS:

Given that child molesters are an extremely heterogeneous population, the "number of victims" item of the SSPI should call attention to those offenders with the highest motor, attentional, and non-planning impulsiveness. Our findings could have implications in terms of differences in therapeutic management for these two groups, with the most impulsive cluster benefitting from psychosocial strategies combined with pharmacological interventions.

...Nevertheless, our study confirmed our initial hypothesis that a child molester subgroup with the highest impulsiveness levels had the highest SSPI mean score; this was mainly due to individuals in this group having a greater number of victims. Certainly, the BIS-11 does not replace the usefulness of the SSPI, given that these instruments evaluate different constructs. However, the BIS-11 can be used as an adjunctive instrument in research on child molesters. Additionally, given that child molesters are an extremely heterogeneous population, the “number of victims” item of the SSPI should call attention to those offenders with the highest motor, attentional, and non-planning impulsiveness. As the SSPI is an instrument used to evaluate risk of recidivism, higher BIS-11 mean scores may indicate a higher risk of recidivist child molestation.

Impulsiveness may reflect a characteristically impulsive cognitive style or even a personality trait. This could predict vulnerability toward diverse behavioral problems.¹² Likewise, impulsiveness involves multiple components, including rapid responding without thinking, lack of concern for consequences, preference for immediate reinforcement, disregard for rules, proneness to boredom, and failure to inhibit responses. Due to these myriad factors that compose impulsiveness, several existing measures of impulsiveness do not correlate significantly with one another, or show differences in content and convergence. This suggests that each measure is likely investigating different aspects of a multifaceted construct.³⁰Additionally, studies using comparable designs have failed to find correspondence between questionnaire and behavioral measures of impulsiveness.³¹Despite the importance of the concept of impulsiveness to sexual offenses, there have been remarkably few studies on impulsiveness among child molesters as measured by the BIS-11. In addition, when impulsiveness has been studied among pedophilic child molesters, findings have been contradictory; this might be due to different instruments investigating different facets of the same construct. Therefore, more than one instrument is likely necessary to measure impulsiveness in this population...³² 

Full article at:  http://goo.gl/kAWpHw

By:  Baltieri DA1, Boer DP2.

• 1Sexual Disorders Outpatient Clinic, Department of Neurosciences, Faculdade de Medicina do ABC, Santo André, SP, Brazil.
• 2Centre for Applied Psychology, University of Canberra, Australia. 
• Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2015 Apr-Jun;37(2):139-45. doi: 10.1590/1516-4446-2014-1568. Epub 2015 May 1.

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Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse in the Nordic Countries: A Literature Review

This review examined child sexual abuse in the Nordic countries focusing on prevalence rates and victims' age and relationship to the perpetrator. 

The results show a prevalence of child sexual abuse (broadly defined) between 3-23% for boys and 11-36% for girls. 

The prevalence rates for contact abuse were 1-12% for boys and 6-30% for girls, while 0.3-6.8% of the boys and 1.1-13.5% of the girls reported penetrating abuse. 

The findings suggest an increased risk of abuse from early adolescence. In adolescence, peers may constitute the largest group of perpetrators. 

The results highlight the need for preventive efforts also targeting peer abuse. Future research should include cross-national and repeated studies using comparable methodology.

Purchase full article at:   http://goo.gl/Uo9cEt

By:  Kloppen K¹, Haugland S², Svedin CG³, Mæhle M⁴, Breivik K².

¹ Department of Economics , University of Bergen , Bergen , Norway.

² Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare, Uni Research Health , Bergen , Norway.

³ Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , Linköping University , Linköping , Sweden.

⁴ Department of Social Science , Sogn og Fjordane University College , Sogndal , Norway.

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Unacknowledged Rape: The Influences of Child Sexual Abuse and Personality Traits

Evidence supports that the majority of young women who experience sexual victimization that meets the legal definition of rape do not label their experiences as rape-this has been termed unacknowledged rape. 

In a sample of 77 young adult women, the odds of unacknowledged rape significantly increased as a function of less severe child sexual abuse histories and greater levels of dysfunctional personality traits. Potential explanations for these findings as well as clinical implications are discussed. 

Because of the potential psychological and societal consequences of unacknowledged rape, it is vital that researchers continue to examine this phenomenon.

Purchase full article at:   http://goo.gl/EEAHgn

By:  Wilson LC1, Scarpa A2.

• 1 Department of Psychological Science , University of Mary Washington , Fredericksburg , Virginia , USA.
• 2 Psychology Department , Virginia Tech , Blacksburg , Virginia , USA. 
• J Child Sex Abus. 2015 Nov-Dec;24(8):975-90. doi: 10.1080/10538712.2015.1082002.

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I Knew It All Along: The Sexual Grooming Behaviors of Child Molesters and the Hindsight Bias

Recent high profile cases of child sexual abuse have increased interest in the grooming behaviors of child molesters and why these offenders are not identified sooner. 

This study examined one possible explanation-the hindsight bias. Five hundred and twenty-six undergraduates were randomly assigned to read one of six vignettes and asked to rate the likelihood the person in the story is a child molester. 

Results supported the presence of the hindsight bias, with participants who were given outcome information overestimating the likelihood they would have predicted that the person was a child molester. Also, participants were able to recognize sexual grooming behaviors when the potential child molester was a relative and nonrelative. 

Findings indicated that sexual grooming behaviors may be more easily identified than previously proposed, but individuals greatly overestimate the likelihood they would have predicted a person was a child molester once they are given outcome information.

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By:  Winters GM1, Jeglic EL1.

• 1 Psychology Department , John Jay College of Criminal Justice , New York, New York , USA. 

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Same-Sex and Race-Based Disparities in Statutory Rape Arrests

This study tests a liberation hypothesis for statutory rape incidents, specifically that there may be same-sex and race/ethnicity arrest disparities among statutory rape incidents and that these will be greater among statutory rape than among forcible sex crime incidents. 26,726 reported incidents of statutory rape as defined under state statutes and 96,474 forcible sex crime incidents were extracted from National Incident-Based Reporting System data sets. 

Arrest outcomes were tested using multilevel modeling. Same-sex statutory rape pairings were rare but had much higher arrest odds. A victim-offender romantic relationship amplified arrest odds for same-sex pairings, but damped arrest odds for male-on-female pairings. 

Same-sex disparities were larger among statutory than among forcible incidents. Female-on-male incidents had uniformly lower arrest odds. Race/ethnicity effects were smaller than gender effects and more complexly patterned. 

The findings support the liberation hypothesis for same-sex statutory rape arrest disparities, particularly among same-sex romantic pairings. Support for race/ethnicity-based arrest disparities was limited and mixed.

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By:   Chaffin M1, Chenoweth S2, Letourneau EJ3.

• 1University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, OK, USA mchaffin@gsu.edu.
• 2University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, OK, USA.
• 3Johns Hopkins University, MD, USA. 

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