Differences and similarities between violent offenders and sex offenders

OBJECTIVES: To investigate differences and similarities between violent offenders and two types of sex offenders, rapists and child molesters, in terms of their personality, the nature of the victim, the role of alcohol, and their confession to their crime. METHOD: Thirty-six adult sex offenders, 23 child molesters, and 32 violent offenders were compared on personality measures, their relationship with the victim, the presence of alcohol intoxication, their confession rate and retraction at trial, and the reasons they gave for having confessed to the police. RESULTS: Child molesters and adult sex offenders (rapists) were significantly more introverted than the violent offenders. The child molesters had higher social desirability scores than the other groups, they tended to assault relatives and friends, they were rarely intoxicated while committing the offense, and they had strong internal need to confess to the police. Rapists and violent offenders were more commonly intoxicated during the commission of the offense; the former tended to assault acquaintances, where violent offenders most commonly assaulted strangers. Exactly half of the rapists retracted their confession when the case went to trial; in contrast none of the other offenders retracted their confession. CONCLUSIONS: The results show that there are significant differences as well as similarities between the three groups of offenders, which have implications for assessment and treatment.     

‘I wish color had no history’: an exploration of identity through student performance poetry

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on multiracial student experiences using co-created ethnographic data with two students’ spoken word poetry. The students considered their own history, their origins and discovered a complexity – and found that their struggle was not exclusively internal. External expectations of singular categorizations and social understanding of behavior played a role in students’ identity construction. The students exhibited an internalization of expectations, as they reflected on their developing identities in their writing. They also indicated that they found ways to resist the expectations and forms of power. The results further discussions related to the modern understanding of identity fluidity and raises the question of why identity, in the modern context, continues to be seen as fixed. The research enabled students to reflect on the complex nature of identity and present a nuanced picture of their unique identity struggles, and their awareness of the social constructs and expectations of others.     

Associations between sexual abuse and family conflict/violence, self-injurious behavior, and substance use: the mediating role of depressed mood and anger

Objective

To examine whether depressed mood and anger mediate the effects of sexual abuse and family conflict/violence on self-injurious behavior and substance use.

Methods

A cross-sectional national survey was conducted including 9,085 16-19 year old students attending all high schools in Iceland in 2004. Participants reported frequency of sexual abuse, family conflict/violence, self-injurious behavior, substance use, depressed mood, and anger.

Results

Sexual abuse and family conflict/violence had direct effects on self-injurious behavior and substance use among both genders, when controlling for age, family structure, parental education, anger, and depressed mood. More importantly, the indirect effects of sexual abuse and family conflict/violence on self-injurious behavior among both males and females were twice as strong through depressed mood as through anger, while the indirect effects of sexual abuse and family conflict/violence on substance use were only significant through anger.

Conclusions

These results indicate that in cases of sexual abuse and family conflict/violence, substance use is similar to externalizing behavior, where anger seems to be a key mediating variable, opposed to internalizing behavior such as self-injurious behavior, where depressed mood is a more critical mediator.

Practice implications

Practical implications highlight the importance of focusing on a range of emotions, including depressed mood and anger, when working with stressed adolescents in prevention and treatment programs for self-injurious behavior and substance use.     

Cognitive distortions and blame attribution in sex offenders against adults and children

OBJECTIVE: Sexual offenders tend to hold attitudes and beliefs which minimize and justify their offending behavior. It was hypothesized that distorted thinking supporting sexual offending and blame attribution would differ depending on the offence characteristics of different groups of sexual offenders. METHOD: Two groups of sexual offenders separated on the basis of the age of their victims (sex offenders against children, 36; sex offenders against adults, 30) were compared on measures of cognitive distortions relating to sex with children and rape and a measure of blame attribution which assesses external, mental element, and guilt feeling attributions. RESULTS: Child sexual offenders endorsed more cognitive distortions relating to sex with children, but there were no group differences in cognitive distortions relating to rape. Those who offended against adults reported more external attributions and child offenders reported more guilt feeling attributions. Mental element attribution related to alcohol intoxication and use of violence in the offence, but was not related to group differences. CONCLUSIONS: Results are interpreted as suggesting that child sex offenders support their offending by more enduring distorted cognitions, while those who offend against adults use blame attributions associated with the particular offence.