Julie Carpentier

Correlates of Recidivism Among Adolescents Who Have Sexually Offended

The present study investigates the recidivism rates of a sample of 351 male adolescents who sexually offended, and were assessed at an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Montreal, Canada, between 1992 and 2002. The mean age of the participants was 15.8 years (SD = 1.8). Data on adolescent and adult recidivism were collected in Summer 2005 from official criminality sources in Canada. Over an 8-year follow-up period, 45% (n = 158) of the participants were charged with a new criminal offense, 30% (n = 104) were charged with a violent offense, and 10% (n = 36) were charged with a sexual offense. Cox regression results suggest that overall, violent, and sexual recidivism can be predicted by a variety of developmental, social, and criminological factors. Paternal abandonment, childhood sexual victimization, association with significantly younger children, and having victimized a stranger were associated with a higher risk of sexual recidivism. Previous delinquency, attention deficit disorder, and childhood sexual victimization were found to increase the risk for both violent and overall recidivism. Also, the use of violence during a sex crime and victimizing a stranger were associated with violent recidivism, and school delay and association with delinquent peers were predictive of overall recidivism. The results confirm that a significant proportion of adolescents who have sexually offended pursue a criminal activity beyond adolescence, although few specialize in sexual offending.

The Prevalence of Paraphilic Interests and Behaviors in the General Population: A Provincial Survey

Paraphilic sexual interests are defined as unusual or anomalous, but their actual occurrence in nonclinical samples is still unknown. This study looked at desire for and experience of paraphilic behaviors in a sample of adult men and women in the general population. A secondary goal was to compare the results of two survey modes—traditional landline telephone versus online. A total of 1,040 persons classified according to age, gender, education, ethnic background, religious beliefs, area of residency, and corresponding to the norm for the province of Quebec were interviewed. Nearly half of this sample expressed interest in at least one paraphilic category, and approximately one-third had had experience with such a practice at least once. Voyeurism, fetishism, frotteurism, and masochism interested both male and female respondents at levels above what is usually considered to be statistically unusual (15.9%). Interestingly, levels of interest in fetishism and masochism were not significantly different for men and women. Masochism was significantly linked with higher satisfaction with one’s own sexual life. As expected, the online mode generated more acknowledgment of paraphilic interest than the telephone mode. These results call into question the current definition of normal (normophilic) versus anomalous (paraphilic) sexual behaviors.

Juvenile Sexual Offenders Correlates of Onset, Variety, and Desistance of Criminal Behavior

The aim of the study was to identify the factors associated with age of onset of sexual aggression, and variety and desistance of criminal activity, among adolescent sexual aggressors. The sample consisted of 351 adolescents (M age = 15.8 years, SD = 1.8) who were assessed in an outpatient psychiatric clinic between 1992 and 2002. Recidivism data were collected after a mean follow-up period of 8 years. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses demonstrated that some variables related to childhood and adolescent development discriminated among participants who went on to follow different criminal activity trajectories. Indices of early antisocial behaviors (aggressive behavior, antisocial traits) were associated with early activation of a pattern of sexual offending as well as a polymorphic criminal career in adolescence. Findings supported previous research indicating that most adolescent sexual offenders who persist in a criminal career commit a variety of offenses and do not specialize in sexual crimes.

Discriminant factors for adolescent sexual offending: on the usefulness of considering both victim age and sibling incest

Understanding the pathways and circumstances of juvenile sexual offending is of utmost importance. However, juvenile sexual offenders (JSO) represent an especially diverse group of individuals, and several categorizations have been proposed to obtain more homogeneous subgroups. Victim age-based and family relation-based categorizations are particularly promising because they seem theoretically and clinically relevant. Empirical results however are still inconsistent, and most studies have not considered these two dimensions jointly. The first goal of this study was to further examine the value of subgrouping JSO according to the age of their victim. A second goal was to determine the supplementary value, if any, of considering sibling incest. Based on a sample of 351 male JSO, it was first confirmed that sexual abuse of children was more strongly related to asociality (social skill deficits) than sexual abuse of peers, the latter being more closely associated with antisociality (general delinquency). The relevance of considering mixed-type JSO (with both child and peer victims) separately was also confirmed. More importantly, multivariate statistical analyses demonstrated that adding sibling incest to the equation was useful. JSO of intra-familial child were significantly more likely to have been victimized during their own childhood compared to JSO with extra-familial victims. Nevertheless, adolescents who had committed sibling incest obtained middle ground results on most variables (except for crime severity), suggesting that they constitute a distinct but not extreme, subgroup. This study confirmed the utility of using both the age and the family relation with the victim in characterizing juvenile sexual offending.