To effectively explore the relationship between prior victimization and subsequent offending, a subset of literature has been carefully chosen regarding its relevance to the following questions pertaining to child sexual abuse and other risk factors:
1. How does previous child abuse relate to the potential for becoming a perpetrator later in life?
2. What factors influence an individual to ultimately commit sexual offenses?
3. What are the lived experiences of sexually abused-sexual abusers? Are there comparable events between offenders that lead to the likelihood of sexual criminal behavior?
When interpreting the following data and studies, it is important to acknowledge the lack of fixed definitions of key variables and terms. There is …show more content…
(2003) found that the most cited risk factor of becoming a sexual offender later in life corresponded to prior sexual victimization during childhood. Correspondingly, Hilton & Mezey (1996) suggest that there is a progression from sexual victim to sexual abuser, since there is a large percentage of offenders who report having had previous sexual victimization (Glasser et al. 2001). Glasser et al (2001) demonstrates this in their retrospective clinical case note review of 843 subjects attending a specialist forensic psychotherapy centre which reported 59% of victims were also perpetrators (79 of 135). The study broke down the rate according to the participants’ victim experience; in which over three fourths of the participants reported being victims of incest and pedophilia (Glasser et al …show more content…
Salter et al. (2003:472) selected seven key mediated childhood risk factors which include sexual victimization by a female person; experience of physical abuse; witnessing intrafamilial abuse; physical neglect; supervisory neglect; rejection by carers; and discontinuity of care. Jennings et al. (2013) used a similar set of risk factors as the independent variables in their study; including emotional abuse/neglect, physical neglect, witnessed family violence. Both studies found that emotional and physical neglect/abuse and witnessing family violence were significantly associated risk factors. Widom & Ames (1994) study suggested that child sexual abuse victims were at less risk for being arrested for a violent sex crime than children who indicated physical abuse. “By better understanding potential mechanisms underlying continuities in sexual abuse, from adolescence to adulthood, comes the possibility of designing more effective preventive intervention programmes (Salter et al.
1. How does previous child abuse relate to the potential for becoming a perpetrator later in life?
2. What factors influence an individual to ultimately commit sexual offenses?
3. What are the lived experiences of sexually abused-sexual abusers? Are there comparable events between offenders that lead to the likelihood of sexual criminal behavior?
When interpreting the following data and studies, it is important to acknowledge the lack of fixed definitions of key variables and terms. There is …show more content…
(2003) found that the most cited risk factor of becoming a sexual offender later in life corresponded to prior sexual victimization during childhood. Correspondingly, Hilton & Mezey (1996) suggest that there is a progression from sexual victim to sexual abuser, since there is a large percentage of offenders who report having had previous sexual victimization (Glasser et al. 2001). Glasser et al (2001) demonstrates this in their retrospective clinical case note review of 843 subjects attending a specialist forensic psychotherapy centre which reported 59% of victims were also perpetrators (79 of 135). The study broke down the rate according to the participants’ victim experience; in which over three fourths of the participants reported being victims of incest and pedophilia (Glasser et al …show more content…
Salter et al. (2003:472) selected seven key mediated childhood risk factors which include sexual victimization by a female person; experience of physical abuse; witnessing intrafamilial abuse; physical neglect; supervisory neglect; rejection by carers; and discontinuity of care. Jennings et al. (2013) used a similar set of risk factors as the independent variables in their study; including emotional abuse/neglect, physical neglect, witnessed family violence. Both studies found that emotional and physical neglect/abuse and witnessing family violence were significantly associated risk factors. Widom & Ames (1994) study suggested that child sexual abuse victims were at less risk for being arrested for a violent sex crime than children who indicated physical abuse. “By better understanding potential mechanisms underlying continuities in sexual abuse, from adolescence to adulthood, comes the possibility of designing more effective preventive intervention programmes (Salter et al.