Reuben A. Lang

The Prevalence of Sex Offenders With Deviant Fantasies

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, and contemporary psychological theory have assigned a central role to deviant sexual fantasy in the genesis, maintenance, and treatment of sex offenders, but empirical studies to support that role are few in number. In this article, 201 male admitting sex offenders and controls were compared on the Clarke Sex History Questionnaire Fantasy Scales. Almost all respondents reported having fantasies of adult females, but only one third of the sex offenders reported having deviant fantasies. The frequencies of deviant fantasies for all groups tended to be low, and controls had more fantasies in general than sex offenders. Results were not influenced by response set, naive lying, age, education, or intelligence. The results suggest that the number of sex offenders reporting deviant fantasies is too low for fantasy to have etiological significance, and it only has limited utility in diagnosis and treatment in general.

Personality and Criminality in Violent Offenders

Four groups of serving prisoners, 29 murderers, 30 assaulters, 51 armed robbers, and 25 nonviolent controls, were compared on measures of personality, demographic variables, and past history of violence. The measures were selected to examine the range of personality dimensions and factors considered important in violent offenders, to compare their relative value in predicting violent offenses, and to determine if nonhomicidal assaulters and armed robbers share features in common with murderers. Between-group differences occurred mainly on the hostility and violence measures. Results showed that murderers, on the whole, more often distorted their clinical profiles by minimizing their aggressiveness or propensity for violence. The history of violence variables were “better” predictors of group membership than personality indices. Overall, defensiveness emerged as a major characteristic of the murderer. In contrast, the armed robbers and assaulters tended to distort primarily their self-confidence and level of self-consciousness. The findings call into question the usefulness of personality measures in assessing and understanding the violent individual.

An examination of brain damage and dysfunction in genital exhibitionists

Fifteen male exhibitionists were compared to 36 nonviolent, nonsex offender controls on CT brain scans, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R), and the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery (HR). The exhibitionists differed from controls only on HR subtests Tactual Performance Total Time, Trail Making Test A, and Aphasia Screening Test. Global differences between the two groups in structural brain damage and functional impairment were not found. Contrasting results of brain damage in exhibitionists and other sex offender groups are discussed.

Personality and Sexual Anomalies An Examination of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory

Test properties of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) were examined in a sample of 419 sex offenders and controls in three different settings. The offender group included sexual aggressives, pedophiles, incest perpetrators and miscellaneous cases. Nineteen of the 20 scales of the MCMI had alpha reliability over 0.60 and for 13 scales it was over 0.80. The scales showed satisfactory discriminant validity from age but 9 scales showed a moderate influence of intelligence scores and education. Criminal history did not influence scale results. The scales unfortunately did show significant correlations with MMPI validity scales. Although the scales were not susceptible to naive lying, they were influenced by social desirability especially. Four factors were extracted in principal axes factor analysis that accounted for 91.2% of the total variance. The first factor explained 58.2% of the variance and was labeled general psychopathology. The other three factors suggested psychotic tendencies, extraversion and the bipolar dependency-antisocial tendencies. When the groups were compared, almost all scales significantly differentiated them. When the MMPI F-K Scale was forced to enter a stepwise discriminant analysis first, five scales still were significant; Narcissistic, Schizoid-Asocial, Alcohol Abuse, Paranoid, & Dependent-Submissive scales. The MCMI taps important dimensions in sex offenders but suffers from validity problems.

Pornography and sexual offences

A total of 279 men were asked about their purchase of erotic magazines, rental of videos and attendance at erotic movies. There were 131 sex offenders and 50 community controls from Alberta and 97 sex offenders from Ontario. In line with results from previous commissions on the subject, community volunteers reported greater exposure to erotica than sex offenders but there were no group differences in regular use of erotica. There were also no group differences in the types of erotica to which the respondents were exposed. The adult female was the main subject of materials to which most men had been exposed. An examination of age, education, intelligence, admission to the offense, and validity scales of the MMPI showed that the best predictor of erotica use was lower intelligence. Of the 15% of sex offenders against children who used erotic materials in their offence, conventional adult female erotica was used, usually to stimulate the childs curiosity. Theories of erotica use in sex offences and methods of study are reviewed.

Personality and sexual anomalies

Test properties of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) were examined in a sample of 419 sex offenders and controls in three different settings. The offender group included sexual aggressives, pedophiles, incest perpetrators and miscellaneous cases. Nineteen of the 20 scales of the MCMI had alpha reliability over 0.60 and for 13 scales it was over 0.80. The scales showed satisfactory discriminant validity from age but 9 scales showed a moderate influence of intelligence scores and education. Criminal history did not influence scale results. The scales unfortunately did show significant correlations with MMPI validity scales. Although the scales were not susceptible to naive lying, they were influenced by social desirability especially. Four factors were extracted in principal axes factor analysis that accounted for 91.2% of the total variance. The first factor explained 58.2% of the variance and was labeled general psychopathology. The other three factors suggested psychotic tendencies, extraversion and the bipolar dependency-antisocial tendencies. When the groups were compared, almost all scales significantly differentiated them. When the MMPI F-K Scale was forced to enter a stepwise discriminant analysis first, five scales still were significant; Narcissistic, Schizoid-Asocial, Alcohol Abuse, Paranoid, & Dependent-Submissive scales. The MCMI taps important dimensions in sex offenders but suffers from validity problems.

Sex hormone profiles in genital exhibitionists

Sixteen male genital exhibitionists were compared to nonviolent nonsex offender controls with respect to 9 serum hormones: cortisol, prolactin, dehydroepiandrosterone, estradiol, luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, androstenedione, testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin, and two indices of free testosterone. There were group differences in estradiol, total testosterone and percent free testosterone. Exhibitionists had lower estradiol and testosterone but higher overall free testosterone. The results were unrelated to substance abuse, age, or education. Sex hormone abnormalities in exhibitionists and in other sex offender groups are discussed.