Introducing the APOD: Analysis of patterns of denial among males accused of sexual offending

Abstract

Sex offenders have great incentive to deny and/or minimize their offense, and both researchers and treatment providers regularly encounter their socially desirable response patterns. Despite the importance of distinguishing those who are lying about their innocence from those who are truly not culpable, law enforcement agencies and clinicians have few resources, other than the polygraph, to discern false denial from truthful, actual denial using scientifically supported methods. The Analysis of Patterns of Denial (APOD), a checklist of denial techniques, was developed to assist in making this distinction. It was developed by comparing a sample of guilty persons who denied their offense conduct with persons who were falsely accused (i.e., accused and investigated but later convincingly cleared by polygraph, a DNA non-match, and/or confession by another person). Items that satisfactorily discriminated between the two groups were retained in the final checklist. The APOD is intended to help those who work with sex offenders identify denial response patterns to more accurately determine if an alleged sex offender is being truthful or deceptive.