Summary Capita Selecta: Consequences of Sexual Violence
Understanding Sexual Offending: An evidence-
based response to myths and misconceptions
By Patrick Lussier, Evan C McCuish & Jesse Cale
Chapter 1: Sexual Offending: An Elusive Phenomenon
in Criminology’s Blind Spot
Introduction
- Sexual: intimate, physical, and pleasurable; it suggests an instinct, a physical and emotional
attraction, excitement, a desire or an urge, love, and even life.
- Offending: transgression, to do wrong, to cause discomfort, pain, anger, injury, or death.
North America and other Western countries: social policies and strategies have been mainly reactive
rather than proactive in terms of their response to sex offending.
Myths and misconceptions about victims of sexual offenses (e.g. victim-blaming stereotypes) have
played an important role in shaping negative attitudes and distorted beliefs that have significantly
impacted:
- The sociolegal response to sexual offenses
- The willingness of victims to come forward
Sexual Offending: An Elusive Term
Perspectives on Sexual Offending
Distinguish terms stemming from three main sources:
1. Criminal law and legal studies
Criminal codes and written statutes key reference to name, discuss, and label behaviors as sex crimes
(or not) under the law. A situation and a person’s behavior interpreted according to the criminal code
to determine whether a crime has been committed. Statutes can vary according to:
a. Geography (e.g. from one state to another, from one country to another)
b. Time (e.g. the addition of new crimes or the modification criteria defining what
constitutes a sexual offense or who can be held responsible for a sexual offense)
c. Group status (e.g. differences in laws for youth versus adults, differences in ability to
consent according to age)
Sex crime defined by the rules and regulations stipulated in a code of law of a particular jurisdiction
at a particular moment in time for a particular group of people. Reflection of a society’s attitudes.
2. Medical sciences and psychiatry
Evidence of mental health problems. Mental health guides and manuals to determine whether the
specific thoughts, motives, and actions of a person are manifestations of mental health problems.
Concerned with whether a person is sexually deviant. General agreement and consensus among
medical science experts that certain actions are atypical of expected societal norms, values, and
beliefs. Behaviors regarded as sexually deviant, how they are defined, and associated criteria are
subject to change. Specialized therapies and treatment programs.
3. Social sciences
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,Sexual Offending from a Social Science Perspective
Sexual offending as a social phenomenon. Irrespective of whether or not a crime has been
committed as defined by the criminal code of a particular jurisdiction. Independently as to whether
or not a person meets all criteria of a paraphilia according to a mental health manual. Describing,
measuring, and understanding:
- Various aspects of the phenomenon (e.g. nature of the actions, actors involved, context in
which these actions took place)
- The social construction of the phenomenon across time and place (e.g. what is considered a
sex offense)
- The social costs and consequences of such phenomenon (e.g. the long-term impact of sexual
victimization)
- The societal response to such phenomenon (e.g. the context in which societies decide to
implement sex offender registries)
Sexual assault= sexual contact without the consent of the victim. Not limited to situations where the
abuser penetrates or tries to penetrate the victim or to situations where the abuser uses physical
violence to coerce the victim.
Sexual coercion= all situations and tactics used to coerce a victim into sexual acts.
Sexual abuse= situations where the victim is a child
Phenomenon of sexual offending is multidimensional and encompasses a set of actions and
behaviors that are distinct in form, nature, and context. These behaviors vary in terms of the nature
of the actions taken, the context surrounding these acts, the seriousness of the acts, and their
underlying motivations. Three distinct dimensions of sexual offending:
1. Sexual violence
Set of behaviors that involve sexual contact, with or without sexual penetration, against one or more
victims that did not consent, either explicitly or because they were unable to do so. Imposed via
threats, aggressive behavior, physical violence, or by taking advantage of the victim’s inability to give
consent (e.g. intoxication, young person, intellectual disability). Sexual abuse of children, rape and
sexual assault and sexual homicide.
2. Sexual misconduct
Set of actions and behaviors that violate a particular rule or code of conduct in which one or more
non-consenting victims are involved. Includes unwanted sexual attention and indecent sexual acts.
Inappropriate sexual behaviors in an authoritative or professional context (e.g. military, psychologist,
teacher, sports coach, etc.): situations where a person takes advantage of their position of authority
(e.g. rewards, promotion, threats, demotion, etc.) to obtain sexual gratification. Behaviors that are
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,considered sexual harassment: persistent psychological pressure to obtain sexual gratification or
sexual contact.
3. Sexual exploitation
Behaviors in which the individual takes advantage of or benefits from the body of a minor or an
adult. Online luring and cyberpredation, prostitution and the exchange of sexual favors for money or
other valuable goods (housing, drugs, food), procuring and trafficking, and other commercial sexual
activities involving a minor or a non-consenting adult. Production, distribution/ exchange, and
consumption of child pornography.
Myths, False Beliefs, and Erroneous Conclusions
False beliefs, hasty and erroneous conclusions and myths about perpetrators of sexual offenses.
Ideological thinking has and continues to play a key role in the construction of sexual offending as a
social problem. Ideologies involve three key overarching and interrelated components:
1. Cognitions: ideas, thoughts, and beliefs about a phenomenon
2. Society: social, political, and cultural, often associated with a specific group’s interests
3. Discourse: social practice by which group members articulate and convey their ideology to
other group members, acquire new members, and defend their ideology against outsiders.
Media’s emphasis on covering atypical and often extreme cases with a sensationalistic slant: fuels
these myths and false beliefs. Prevalent myths:
- Once a sex offender, always a sex offender: sexual offending tends to be circumscribed to a
very short period of the life course
- Adolescents who committed a sexual offense adult perpetrators of sex offenses of
tomorrow: rarely continue to sexually offend in adulthood
- Sex crime “specialists”: criminal history of these individuals mainly consists of a variety of
non-sex offenses
- Individuals with “sexual deviance” requiring psychosexological expertise: only rarely
motivated by underlying deviant sexual urges and sexual fantasies
- Representing a high-risk of sexual recidivism: risk of reoffending is relatively low
- Predators who attack strangers using different subterfuges to confuse victims and police:
more commonly committed by people well known to their victim
- The risk of sexual recidivism of individuals convicted for a sexual offense is presented as fixed
and stable over their life course: risk is dynamic and it fluctuates over time
- All perpetrators of sexual offenses require specialized sex offender therapy given their
mental health problems that fuel their sexual and behavioral problems: based on ideological
views about perpetrators of sex crimes.
- Concentrating preventive actions by targeting individuals convicted of a sex crime is seen as a
reasonable, valid, and effective preventative approach: repeat offenders are responsible for a
very small proportion of sex crimes in society
The Relative Absence of Criminology
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, Criminology is concerned with the phenomenon of sexual offending and society’s response to this
phenomenon. General explanations for delinquency and criminal behavior are believed to be
parsimonious and equally applicable to rape and sexual assault as they are to other offences.
Specificity hypothesis= individuals having perpetrated a sexual offense are a distinct group
characterized by unique and distinct motives, individual deficits, and personal experiences and
trauma, all of which set them apart from other offenders.
Conclusion
Sexual offending is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that can take many shapes and forms.
Chapter 2: The Construction of Sexual Offending as a Social
Problem: A Historical Perspective
Introduction
Crime waves= a series of stages by which a social phenomenon becomes a social problem. Sexual
offending issues have become social problems once they have been contextualized by advocacy
claims and culturally resonant news themes that are filtered, shaped, and delivered by the media.
The Sex Offender as a Social Problem
The interplay of social forces has led to the characterization of individuals having perpetrated sexual
offenses in a very specific way. Postwar period: characterization of the “sex offender” has changed
profoundly, and multiple times.
Sutherland: sex offender laws emerged as a result of the following conditions:
1. A community is plunged into a state of fear by a series of a few serious sex crimes occurring
in rapid succession sex crime wave
2. Collective fear can follow if these few events are the subject of heavy and regular media
coverage likely when the behaviors that are the subject of constant media attention,
especially those that are particularly brutal and involve children, are incomprehensible to
citizens. Scattered and conflicting reactions by individuals and groups demanding that actions
be taken to address the problem creates pressure on government officials to act
3. Creation of a committee of experts, in the form of a public inquiry shed light on the
problem and to propose solutions. Experts are appointed by the government and their role is
to accumulate facts, examine how others respond to similar situations elsewhere and, make
some recommendations to address the problem are customarily accepted without further
investigation or critical examination
Societal responses not based on scientific evidence about sexual offending and perpetrators of sexual
offense but on ideological thinking that reflected the predominant social movement of the time.
Since the postwar period, it is hypothesized that offenders have been portrayed as:
1. Sexually deviant individuals who need therapy
2. Angry misogynistic men who need to be punished
3. Sexual predators who need to be contained
Gradual emergence:
4. Sexual violence of the powerful
The Sexual Deviant (1940s–1970s)
Individuals having caused sexual harm were: abnormals, perverts, sex deviates, fiends, monsters or
sex maniacs. Perpetrators were sexually deviant individuals whose sexual offense was a symptom of
mental health problems. Sexual offending was perceived as exceptional, irrational, unpredictable,
and inexplicable phenomena. Sexual psychopaths were not consciously perpetrating their sexual
offenses, rather, they were victims of an uncontrollable disease. It was believed that minor sexual
misbehaviors or sexually deviant acts were precursors of more serious forms of sexual violence. Idea
that the perpetrators’ sexual functioning played an important role in the origin and development of
sexual offending. Predominant idea: a perpetrator’s behavior originated with abnormal sexual
development: experiences of sexual victimization, deviant sexual fantasies, compulsive masturbatory
activities, deviant sexual preferences. Sexual offending perceived as a deviant sexual behavior
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