Lecture 9: Sexual Offenses committed by Women

Do women get more lenient sentences?

• Significantly more likely to receive non-custodial sentences rather than incarceration, including fines, conditional release, and probation

• More likely to receive shorter sentences

Chivalry hypothesis

Women are treated with leniency in the justice system due to gendered beliefs that they are less dangerous & inherently non-criminal

Cognitive Dissonance

Female sexual offending contradicts entrenched gender stereotypes (e.g. women as nurturing, passive, non-sexual), creating discomfort

Women are responsible for blank of officially reported sexual offenses

4-5%

self-report prevalence rates of female sexual offending are

blank than official statistics

6x higher

Data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) indicates that as many as blank of men who are sexually victimized report their perpetrators were female

20%

Male-coerced/male-accompanied

• Male-coerced: Passive-dependent women in a relationship with an abusive man, abuses own children only in the presence of the male partner

• Male-accompanied: more active role, over time may perpetrate the abuse on her own

Predisposed

• Target young, prepubescent children

• Experience traumatic abuse in childhood + abusive relationships in adulthood

• Deviant sexual fantasies

Experimenter/Exploiter

Adolescent female (<16) who exploits a younger male in her care (<6). Most victims were male relatives

Psychologically disturbed

Exhibits psychotic features (delusions, hallucinations)

Teacher/Lover

• Also called heterosexual nurturers, adolescent abusers and criminally limited hebephiles

• Initiates and carries out the abuse of an adolescent

• View the victim as a willing participant in a consensual relationship

• Believe their sexual encounters with the victim are an act of kindness

• Offender is often struggling with peer relationships

Typologies

• Heterosexual nurturers

• Young adult child exploiters

• Criminally-limited hebephiles

• Young adult child molesters

81.2% of respondents reported blank

FPSA in childhood

38.4% reported blank

FPSA in adulthood

9.6% reported both FPSA in both blank & blank

childhood; adulthood

Most women do not have blank

prior sex offenses

Characteristics of solo perpetrators

• More likely to have a psychiatric diagnosis, and history of mental health and substance use issues

• 11x more likely to experience a mood disorder than those with co- offenders

• More negative mood states

• Higher levels of sexual dissatisfaction and abusive fantasies prior to the offense

• Greater frequency of cognitive distortions (e.g., entitlement)

• Prior childhood sexual abuse

• Motivated by and experience sexual arousal during the offense

Co-offending: blank of those with male

co-offenders report being coerced

less than half

Female SOs (FSO)

• Childhood and adulthood trauma histories

• Less discriminating of victim gender

• Victims under 15 years old

• Abuse biological children

• Use of foreign objects

• Coercion: exploitation

• Co-offending

Male SOs (MSO)

• More severe

• Victims have larger age range

• Abuse stepchildren and distant relatives

• Anal penetration

• Coercion: gifts as bribes

Motivations of Female Sex Offenders

• coercion

• pleasing male partner

• meeting one’s needs

• jealousy & gaining power/revenge

Five Broad Domains

1. Intimacy and relationship issues

2. Cognitive processes

3. Emotional processes

4. Sexual dynamics

5. Social functioning

Static risk factors - Female

• Poor attachment to a primary caregiver

• Parental rejection and/or neglect

• Past emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse

• Previous convictions

• Unstable prior relationships

Dynamic risk factors - Female

• Low interpersonal functioning

• Self-esteem, confidence, assertiveness

• Social isolation

• Poor emotional regulation

• Offense-supportive cognitions

• Depression

Protective Factors

• Prosocial attitudes

• Awareness of offending and its consequences

• Interpersonal and problem solving skills

• A series of positive goals and interests

• Positive and prosocial

Gender-specific sex offender program goals

1. Establishing trust, supportive relationship

2. Promoting autonomy and self-efficiency

3. Working on a positive self-concept

4. Building on assertiveness and social competency

5. Promoting emotional management

6. Establishing healthy sexual development, expression and boundaries

7. Reducing self-destructive behaviours

Treatment problems with this group of offenders

• Lack of gender – specific assessment tools

• The heterogeneity of the target group

• Males commit more sexual assault crimes

• No specific risk factors have been found, it is believed they are the same as male risk factors though

  • Antisocial peers

  • Cognitions

  • Intimacy deficits