Adolescent Sex Offenders Research Articles

Applied Restorative Justice as a Complement to Systemic Family Therapy: Theory and Practice Implications for Families Experiencing Intra‐Familial Adolescent Sibling Incest

This article considers the impact on and therapeutic responses to families where there has been intra‐familial sexual assault (IFSA) by an adolescent member of the family against another younger member of the family. In doing so, the article will specifically highlight the nexus between systemic family therapy ideas and an applied restorative justice response in the form of Youth Justice Conferencing (YJC), as experienced through working as a family therapist in the area of adolescent sexual offending.

Reducing Recidivism in Adolescent Sexual Offenders by Focusing on Community Reintegration

The effect residential treatment outcomes have on recidivism rates for children and adolescents lack attention in the research literature. More importantly, literature is scant as it pertains to community reintegration for adolescent sexual offenders who are discharged from residential treatment programs to community based treatment services. This reintegration process will further build self-esteem and a sense of belonging, thus reducing the likelihood of adolescent sexual offenders isolating from their peer group, becoming frustrated with finding their place in society, and consequently relying on criminal behaviors as a social outlet. Many of the young male adolescent sexual offenders report feeling isolated from their peer group; most internalized phobias and feelings associated with societal labels and stereotypes about individuals who commit sexual crimes. Other important information collected during the qualitative interview process included the adolescent feelings associated with family conflict. Much of the research in reference to adolescent sexual offenders suggests their victims are often family members, siblings, relatives, family friends, and neighbors. This article aims to add the significant issue of treatment interventions for adolescent sexual offenders to the literature base as well as offer helpful strategies to reduce recidivism rates in this population of youth offenders. New findings and outcomes suggest that transition of this unique population should begin at the time of admission into residential treatment as part of discharge planning. This innovative way of thinking and doing will allow the young offenders' time to make the difficult adjustment while receiving intensive residential base intervention services.

What is so special about male adolescent sexual offending? A review and test of explanations through meta-analysis.

We tested special and general explanations of male adolescent sexual offending by conducting a meta-analysis of 59 independent studies comparing male adolescent sex offenders (n = 3,855) with male adolescent non-sex offenders (n = 13,393) on theoretically derived variables reflecting general delinquency risk factors (antisocial tendencies), childhood abuse, exposure to violence, family problems, interpersonal problems, sexuality, psychopathology, and cognitive abilities. The results did not support the notion that adolescent sexual offending can be parsimoniously explained as a simple manifestation of general antisocial tendencies. Adolescent sex offenders had much less extensive criminal histories, fewer antisocial peers, and fewer substance use problems compared with non-sex offenders. Special explanations suggesting a role for sexual abuse history, exposure to sexual violence, other abuse or neglect, social isolation, early exposure to sex or pornography, atypical sexual interests, anxiety, and low self-esteem received support. Explanations focusing on attitudes and beliefs about women or sexual offending, family communication problems or poor parent-child attachment, exposure to nonsexual violence, social incompetence, conventional sexual experience, and low intelligence were not supported. Ranked by effect size, the largest group difference was obtained for atypical sexual interests, followed by sexual abuse history, and, in turn, criminal history, antisocial associations, and substance abuse. We discuss the implications of the findings for theory development, as well as for the assessment, treatment, and prevention of adolescent sexual offending.

Sex Education for Male Adolescent Sex Offenders in a Group Setting Led by General Psychiatry Residents: A Literature Review and Example in Practice

Male adolescents have been credited with a significant percentage of sex crimes in recent years. They are a heterogeneous population with offenses spanning the same range found among adult offenders. A lack of interpersonal social skills relevant to intimate relationships and inaccurate knowledge regarding appropriate sexual behaviors contribute to the sexual offending by some adolescent males. To address these shortcomings, sex education has been proposed as an element of adolescent male sex offender treatment. Although treatment modalities vary, the group format is commonly used with adolescent sex offenders and is conducive to sex education. This article provides a description, including content and methods, of a sex education group conducted in a state psychiatric facility for adolescent male offenders. In addition, it addresses the use of general psychiatry residents to design, develop, and conduct the group as an educational experience in addition to providing a clinical service in a setting with limited financial and staff resources.

Improving therapeutic engagement with adolescent sexual offenders

This article reports a test of multisystemic predictors of therapeutic engagement (TE) with adolescent sexual offenders (ASOs), and an evaluation of clinical efforts to improve TE with this client group. First, clinicians rated their TE with 105 Australian court-referred male ASOs (M = 15.53 years; SD = 1.30 years), who participated in treatment between 2001 and 2005. For this cohort, correlation analysis showed impulsivity/antisociality, negative peer relationships, and indigenous race to be associated with poorer TE. Multiple regression analysis identified impulsivity/antisociality and indigenous race as significant unique predictors. Clinical efforts subsequently focused on improving TE, particularly with higher-antisocial youth and with indigenous youth and their families. Clinicians then rated TE with a second, independent cohort of 54 court-referred male ASOs (M = 15.44 years; SD = 1.22 years), who participated in the modified treatment between 2006 and 2009. A two-way ANCOVA, controlling for impulsivity/antisociality, indicated significant improvements in TE for both indigenous and non-indigenous ASOs. Despite these general improvements, indigenous ASOs remained comparatively less engaged than their non-indigenous counterparts.

Introduction to this issue: adolescent sexual offending

This is the first of two consecutive issues of Behavioral Sciences and the Law devoted to the topic of adolescent sexual offending. Adolescent sexual offending is a topic that has attracted growing attention over the last few years. This increase in attention has not necessarily been fueled byintellectual curiosityor adesire to assist in the classification of adolescents who have committed sexual offenses; instead, it appears to be directly related to new legislation designed to protect the public from adolescent sex offenders. The primary example of this legislation is the Sex Offender Registration and

Assessing risk in adolescent sexual offenders: recommendations for clinical practice

Accurately predicting the likelihood that an adolescent with a sex offense history will reoffend is a precarious task that carries with it the potential for extreme consequences for the adolescent offender (e.g., lifelong public registration). Recently implemented laws regarding adolescent sex offenders are dramatically upstream of current knowledge. Several of these laws were ostensibly based on the misassumption that clinicians could accurately identify adolescents at the greatest risk for sexual recidivism. However, predicting which adolescents are at greatest risk to sexually recidivate is severely constrained by limited knowledge about which predictors are most accurately linked to sexual recidivism and uncertainty over how to best make use of instruments designed to predict recidivism. This paper reviews research on risk assessment and provides a set of recommendations for conducting risk assessments with adolescent sex offenders.

Discriminative and Predictive Validity of the Penile Plethysmograph in Adolescent Sex Offenders

The current study addresses the discriminative and predictive validity of the penile plethysmograph (PPG) in a sample of 132 male adolescent sex offenders who were admitted to a sex offender treatment program. The subjects were assessed pretreatment and posttreatment, under two different instructions sets: an Arouse condition, where subjects allowed themselves to become aroused; and a Suppress condition, where subjects attempted to suppress or control their arousal. Under the pretreatment Arouse condition, the group with male child victims demonstrated significantly greater arousal to child stimuli than the group with female nonchild victims. However, the group with female child victims could not be differentiated from the group with female nonchild victims. Under the Suppress condition, there was no evidence of discriminative validity for any of the PPG indices. As for predictive validity, posttreatment arousal to male and female children was significantly related to sexual offense recidivism. Posttreatment inability to suppress deviant arousal to male and female children was also significantly related to sexual offense recidivism over the 6-year follow-up period. In light of these findings, the implications for adolescent sex offender research and treatment are discussed.

Wilderness therapy within an adolescent sexual offender treatment programme: A qualitative study

Wilderness therapy is a core component of the adolescent sexual offender treatment programme offered by the SAFE Network Inc. However, little is known about how wilderness therapy contributes to the overall outcomes of adolescents completing the programme. This paper presents an exploratory investigation of the function and process of wilderness therapy within SAFE's treatment programme. Thematic analysis based on participant observation, semi-structured interviews with adolescent participants and semi-structured interviews with therapists involved in the programme was conducted. The analysis found four interdependent themes related to function and process of wilderness therapy: enhanced relationships, view of self, intensity of the experience and aiding disclosure. These themes are discussed in relation to the literature relevant to wilderness and group therapy.

Advantages of Group Therapy for Adolescent Participants in the Same Gang Rape

This paper deals with the issue of including in the same therapeutic group in a prison setting two (or more) young people who participated in the same gang rape. We provide a background for group therapy with adolescent sex offenders and point out the characteristics of group rape. In addition, we describe the uniqueness of working in a prison as opposed to working in the community or other settings outside the home. Characteristics of adolescent sex offenders and the group process provide a rationale against the inclusion in the same therapeutic group of two youths who committed a rape together. However, our observations during eight years of clinical experience and research in the prison clarify why it can and should be done.

Applying Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Adolescent Sexual Offenders

Attentional bias toward child images is assessed among adolescent sexual offenders and nonsexual offenders using the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) method, which measures the effects of "attentional blink." Twenty adolescent sexual offenders against children and 26 nonsexual offenders are asked to identify a child or animal image and then a second image in streams of 10 images. A stronger attentional blink effect is expected for offenders against children after viewing child rather than animal images. However, the expected differences between offender groups are not found. It is questioned whether the RSVP images can elicit a response in adolescent sexual offenders indicative of DSI. The clinical utility of applying the RSVP assessment with adolescents rather than adults is also queried because (a) adolescents' cognitive abilities may not allow them to conceptualize and concentrate on the assessment in its present form and (b) deviant sexual interest may be evident to different degrees in adolescent sexual offenders.

Intrafamilial adolescent sex offenders: Family functioning and treatment

This paper examines the families of intrafamilial adolescent sex offenders attending a community-based treatment program. Qualitative and quantitative data were used to measure family functioning before and after 12 months of treatment. Families were characterised as disorganised, uncommunicative and adversarial. Most of the young offenders, many of whom were themselves victims of abuse, came from step, blended or foster families. Seventy-four percent had no, or minimal, contact with at least one biological parent. Conflicts between family members were rarely resolved satisfactorily. After treatment, interviewees reported better family communication and fewer conflicts; there were also significant improvements on a measure of family functioning. Adolescents and their parents reported improvements in self-control, social skills and emotional regulation. Improvements were more likely when at least one parent was engaged in treatment. These findings emphasise the need for treatment to target parents as well as the adolescent offender when intrafamilial sexual abuse occurs.

It's All About Me

This study investigated the scope of cognitive distortions and their relationship to empathy among adolescent sex offenders. Self-report measures of sex-specific and generic self-serving cognitive distortions as well as empathy were administered to 175 male sex offenders aged 12 to 20 incarcerated at a juvenile correctional facility. Generic distortions (e.g., attribution of carelessness to theft victims) were elevated and correlated with sex-specific distortions (e.g., attribution of promiscuity to rape victims). Sex-specific and generic distortions were each inversely associated with unique variance in empathy. Relationships of the distortions to particular contexts of victimization and empathic distress (i.e., for their own sexual abuse victim, another offender's sexual abuse victim, or an accident victim) were also explored. Results suggested that adolescent sex offenders' self-serving cognitive distortions may pervasively neutralize concerns for victims and, therefore, that treatment programs should aim to remediate not only their sex-specific but also their generic self-serving cognitive distortions.

Children with Sexual Behavior Problems

ABSTRACTJudges are encountering more cases (both dependent and delinquent) involving juveniles under the age of 12 who have acted out sexually. The youth's own trauma history and protection issues often complicate the cases. This article reviews the research about treatment for children with sexual behavior problems (SBP) and discusses guidelines for making placement decisions in order to assist judges to determine an appropriate level of response in cases of children with SBP. To this end, information about typical sexual development with strategies for determining whether a sexual behavior is problematic or developmentally appropriate is provided. Children with SBP are contrasted with adolescent and adult sexual offenders. Assessment and treatment guidelines based on the current state of clinical research are provided, noting that a number of treatments have demonstrated efficacy with SBP in children. Information to facilitate decision making regarding residential placement, school participation, and family reunification is provided. Public policy should be based on scientific results and reflect the very low risk posed by children with SBP when making decisions about application of the Adam Walsh Act and national lifetime registries in general.

Adolescent Sex Offenders' Rankings of Therapeutic Factors Using the Yalom Card Sort

ABSTRACT Following 11–98 weeks of inpatient residential treatment, 69 male adolescent sex offenders completed the 60-item, 12-factor Yalom Card Sort. The rank orders were compared to adult sex offenders and a psychiatric adult outpatient group. Relative to adult psychiatric outpatients, the adolescent sex offenders had rated Instillation of Hope three ranks higher; Family Reenactment, four ranks higher; and Interpersonal Learning (input), eight ranks lower. In comparison to adult sex offenders, both Instillation of Hope and Universality were rated three ranks higher, and Interpersonal Learning (input) was rated four ranks lower. Rankings were correlated with age and treatment length. As age increased, the ranking of Family Reenactment decreased and as treatment length increased so did the importance of Group Cohesiveness. Implications for adolescent sex offender treatment are discussed.

A typology of adolescent sexual offenders: Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory profiles, developmental factors, and offence characteristics

The Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI) profiles of 82 adolescent male sexual offenders aged 13–19 in a community-based treatment sample were analysed to identify different subtypes of offender based on personality variables. Four groups were identified by cluster analysis: a withdrawn, socially inadequate type (n = 25); an antisocial and externalising type (n = 11); a conforming type (n = 20); and a passive-aggressive type (n = 26). Between-group comparisons showed that the proportion of adolescents reporting physical abuse by their parents was significantly different across the four groups. Subgroup membership was unrelated to victim age, victim gender, and offender history of sexual victimisation. Adolescents who had been victims of sexual abuse were significantly more likely to have had a male victim than those offenders without a history of sexual victimisation. The results of this study provide evidence for the heterogeneity of adolescent sexual offenders in terms of personality characteristics and psychopathology, while also suggesting potentially different aetiological pathways and different treatment needs.

An examination of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act as applied to juveniles: Evaluating the ability to predict sexual recidivism.

The recently enacted Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act will expand and standardize the registration of adolescent sex offenders. To evaluate the effectiveness of this and similar legislation, the authors assessed 91 juvenile males who had been adjudicated for a sexual felony offense and 174 juvenile males who had no history of sexual offending with several risk measures. On admission to treatment, all participants were assessed with the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV; A. E. Forth, D. Kosson, & R. D. Hare, 2003). The Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol–II (J-SOAP–II; R. A. Prentky & S. Righthand, 2003), 3 state-developed risk protocols (from Wisconsin, Texas, and New Jersey), and the tier designation embedded in the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2006 (SORNA) were coded from the sex offender participants’ records. Participants were followed for an average of 71.6 months (SD 18.1 months) to determine charges for general, violent, and sexual offenses. Results showed inconsistencies in risk designations between the J-SOAP–II, SORNA tier, and state risk measures, and none, except for the PCL:YV, significantly predicted new general, violent, or sexual offense charges. Policy and legal implications concerning the assessment of adolescent sex offenders are discussed.

Recidivism among juvenile sex offenders after residential treatment

Recidivism after residential treatment for a sex offence was studied for 114 male adolescent juvenile sex offenders. The juveniles had been treated for an average period of two years and four months. The median time at risk after leaving the institution was nine years. Almost a third of the young men re-offended with a serious offence. Eleven % committed a sex offence; 27% committed a non-sexual violent offence; approximately a third of the respondents re-offended with a range of other acts; and 30% did not re-offend at all. Sexual recidivism appears to be related to the prior selection of a (very) young victim, and choice as a victim of a girl from outside the offender's family. Seventy % of sexual recidivism takes place during the first three years after discharge. Violent recidivism is linked with the offender's ethnicity, parental neglect, the quality of relationships with peers and classification by the institution as an opportunistic sex offender. We recommend greater differentiation in treatment offered, and improvement of follow-up provision.

Assessing Risk for Violence in Adolescents Who Have Sexually Offended

As the youth justice system has evolved, clinicians have been increasingly asked to make judgments about the likelihood that a youth who has committed a sexual offense will reoffend. However, there is an absence of well-validated tools to assist with these judgments. This study examined the ability of the Juvenile Sexual Offense Recidivism Risk Assessment Tool—II (J-SORRAT-II), Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY), and Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol—II (J-SOAP-II) to predict violent behavior in 169 male youth who were admitted to a residential adolescent sex offender program. Total scores on the SAVRY and J-SOAP-II significantly predicted nonsexual violence but none of the instruments predicted sexual violence. The J-SOAP-II and SAVRY were less effective in predicting violent reoffending in youth aged 15 and younger than in older youth. The implications of these findings are discussed.

A Structural Examination of the Predictors of Sexual Coercion Against Children in Adolescent Sexual Offenders

The study proposed an etiological model for sexually offending behavior against younger victims. In a sample of adolescent sexual offenders ( N = 329), it tested whether attachment disruptions, specific maltreatment experiences, or combinations of early abuse experiences played a role in the development of certain unique, core personality traits (i.e., sexual inadequacy, psychopathy, child sexual arousal) that mediate the prediction of sexually coercive behavior. Juvenile sexual offenders were administered the Multidimensional Assessment of Sex and Aggression. In a structural equation model, four significant paths and one minimal path emerged that predicted the preference for younger victims. The model supports the contributory role of emotional abuse (i.e., neglect and antipathy) to the development of the latent variable psychopathy analysis inadequacies and suggests unique features in a subgroup of adolescent child molesters. Thus, this model provides data for the preliminary design of a dimensional model of adolescent sexual coercion against younger children.