Gendered Perceptions of Child Sexual Abusers: The Paradox of the “Vulnerable Other”

Abstract

A growing body of evidence indicates that women who contravene traditional gender-role norms by committing sexual crime toward children are treated more leniently than their male counterparts. Such lenience has been explained by some scholars in terms of the “denial” thesis, which suggests that sexual scripts regarding masculine and feminine norms influence how society reacts to particular kinds of behavior. This study investigates the influence of gender-based attitudes and beliefs on practitioner perceptions of male and female child sexual abusers. It also explores whether and how gender-based ideals impact on practitioner punitiveness and discusses implications for policy and practice.

Keywords

child sexual abuse gender stereotypes Ireland punitiveness criminal justice practice

Introduction

In contemporary society, child sexual abuse is understood as both a moral and a legal issue. However, this has not always been the case as societal attitudes and government legislation regarding adult/child sexual contact have changed dramatically in relatively recent times. Evidence suggests that sexual activity between adults and children dates back as far as ancient Greek civilization (Gray-Fow, 1987). Whereas child sexual abuse has been discovered, forgotten, and rediscovered numerous times since the latter half of the 1800s (Jenkins, 2004); its most recent rediscovery came about in the late 1970s when feminist and decency campaigns began speaking out against incest and voiced concerns about the potential harms of child sexual abuse imagery. Prior to this campaigning, the authorities held a considerably more liberal stance on the issue. This is evidenced by the fact that child sexual abuse imagery was legal in several countries around the world and legislation regarding child “abuse” specifically focused on physical harm and neglect (O’Donnell & Milner, 2007). By the early 1980s, protection of children from sexual exploitation had become a matter of international concern. Consequently, child sexual abuse imagery was outlawed in numerous countries and in 1989 the United Nations drafted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which provides a specific set of guidelines concerning the protection of children from all forms of sexual exploitation. The evolving nature of international legislation surrounding child sexual abuse directly reflects how societal attitudes and beliefs regarding adult/child sexual contact have changed over a relatively short period of time.

Some theorists argue that gender is the single most influential factor in determining criminal justice outcomes, with female offenders receiving more lenient treatment than males (Steffensmeier et al., 1998). While others accept that perpetrator gender does impact criminal justice processing, they also contend that such bias only exists with respect to certain categories of crime, particularly offenses that involve physical and/or sexual violence (Rodriguez et al., 2006). For example, a small body of research suggests that women who contravene traditional gender-role norms by sexually abusing children are treated more leniently than their male counterparts (Mellor & Deering, 2010). Such lenience has been explained in terms of the “denial” thesis, which proposes that traditional sexual “scripts” regarding masculine and feminine norms influence how society reacts to certain types of behavior (Denov, 2001). “Scripts” may be described as “knowledge structures that encode the stereotypical sequence of actions in everyday happenings” (Eysenck & Keane, 2001, p. 254). Traditional sexual scripts regarding femininity typically include preconceptions of sexual passivity, sexual naivety, and sexual purity (Birch, 1993). Thus, notions of females as sexual aggressors, coercers, and initiators are inclined to be absent from societal belief systems regarding women (Byers & O’Sullivan, 1998). Denov (2001) contends that female-perpetrated child sexual abuse (FPCSA) challenges traditionalist beliefs surrounding femininity resulting in cognitive discomfort. To resolve this dissonant thinking, criminal justice practitioners attribute the causes of female perpetration to external factors that are outside of the offender’s control, namely, mental ill-health, substance abuse, victimization, masculine personality traits, and/or poor life circumstances. The shift in focus away from sexual deviance quells the indignation associated with taboo, preserves traditional notions of femininity, and informs lenient criminal justice practices (Denov, 2001).

Objectives

This study aimed to contribute to the current knowledge base by investigating whether gender-role stereotypes impact practitioner perceptions of male and female child sexual abusers, and to explore whether gender-based attitudes and beliefs influence practitioner punitiveness. To achieve this, I provide a brief review of the legislation in place to manage sex offenders in Ireland, highlight how it has evolved in recent years, and present international scholarship surrounding the impact of the “Punitive Turn” on the policy and procedure regarding sex offender management. Next, I describe the methodology chosen and present the results, before situating the findings within the context of gender theory, criminal justice culture, and penal philosophies.

Background Context

The current political and social climate makes Ireland an especially interesting case study when exploring child sexual abuse and punitiveness. Child sexual abuse has received increased media and scholarly attention following a succession of high-profile intrafamilial and institutional abuse cases (involving the Catholic Church) in the 1990s, namely, the Kilkenny Incest Case (South Eastern Health Board 1993), the Report into the Operation of Madonna House (Department of Health and Children, 1996), The “West of Ireland Farmer” Case (Bruton, 1998), The Report of the Roscommon Child care Case (Health Service Executive, 2010), The Report of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation (Murphy et al., 2009), and The Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Ryan, 2009). As a result, public and political knowledge about the issue is high, and awareness surrounding matters of detection and prevention have increased (Breen, 2004; Lalor, 2001). In addition, the intense media focus on abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church has produced a unique cultural perception of what “typical” child sexual abusers look like, the factors that precipitate the offense, and how perpetrators should be prosecuted and monitored by the criminal justice system. Substantive changes to penal policy and legislation have also been made, most notably, the implementation of the Sex Offenders Act 2001, which allowed individual Garda¹ Stations to establish a list of convicted sex offenders living in their corresponding district, coupled with a set of notification procedures regarding the whereabouts of offenders, that is, current address, changes to address, and information regarding international travel. In subsequent years, penal policy and practice regarding the management of sex offenders has continued to evolve. For example, the mid-2000s saw the introduction of standardized risk assessment tools, namely, the Risk Matrix 2000 (Craig et al., 2006) and the Stable and Acute (Hanson et al., 2007). In more recent years, further attempts have been made to increase the surveillance of sex offenders but have failed to make it into law, such as the Child Sex Offenders (Information and Monitoring) Bill 2012, which lapsed with the dissolution of the Dáil² in October 2013, and the Sex Offenders (Amendment) Bill 2018, which has been stalled since March 2018. Even with the failure of both Bills to be enacted into law, shifts in policy and practice, coupled with attempts to increase the surveillance of sex offenders, suggest that Ireland’s approach to sex offender management has become increasingly more punitive.

In conjunction with a shift in values and attitudes surrounding child sexual abuse, some scholars contend that common law jurisdictions have experienced a rise in punitiveness, typically referred to as the “punitive turn” (Feeley & Simon, 1992). As a result, penal policy surrounding the management of offenders, particularly child sexual abusers, has transformed considerably over the past couple of decades. A prime example is the enactment of legislation such as “Megan’s Law” in the United States, which imposes significant restrictions and heightened surveillance on sex offenders following release from prison (McAlinden, 2014). By naming this legislation after a child who was murdered by a known sex offender, policy makers made it difficult for anyone to criticize the initiative out of fear that they would be portrayed by opponents as being “against” abuse victims and “pro” sex offenders (Garland, 2001). Furthermore, McAlinden (2012) argues that political and societal preoccupation with sex offender risk has not only given rise to a culture of othering but has also reinforced the prioritization of sex offender securitization and monitoring over rehabilitation within penal policy.

Although a significant body of academic commentary evidences strong public (Levenson et al., 2007) and political support (Sample & Kadleck, 2008) for punitive policy shifts concerning perpetrators of sexual crime, research investigating the attitudes of criminal justice stakeholders toward sex offenders and the policies that govern them is less bounteous (Mustaine et al., 2015). Moreover, the small number of studies that do exist have produced mixed results. Research conducted in America, Canada, and the United Kingdom suggest that police officers (Johnson et al., 2007), probation officers (Tewksbury et al., 2012), correction officers (Payne et al., 2016), and prison wardens (Connor, 2012) demonstrate negative attitudes toward sex offenders and endorse stringent sex offender policies. Drake (2011) contends that such viewpoints are an upshot of practitioners’ internalizing populist representations regarding offender risk and securitization, which has instigated a toughening in their approach and restrictive practice regimes. On the contrary, some scholars report that the practice cultures of criminal justice professionals can mediate policy and legal trends. A growing body of research reveals that criminal justice professionals possess robust welfare orientated beliefs, which infer that criminality is symptomatic of numerous social influences and not simply a result of rational choice (Garland, 2001). Such belief systems not only guide the practice of criminal justice professionals but also “protects them from punitive field conditions” (Grant, 2015, p. 750; Healy, 2012). Griffin and O’Donnell (2012) argue that this has been the case in Ireland, describing the jurisdiction’s resistance to many of the influences that have instigated punitive shifts in similar anglophone jurisdictions as a form of “Hibernian Exceptionalism.”

Relatedly, beliefs about the causes of crime and the perceived redeemability of an offender have also been linked with attitudes to punishment. Maruna and King (2009) suggest that the belief in an offender’s redeemability is contingent upon whether observers perceive the factors that precipitated an offense as stable or unstable, internally or externally caused. In their seminal study investigating punitiveness (Maruna & King, 2009), they report that respondents who believed that offending behavior was due to external or unstable factors that were changeable, perceived offenders as redeemable and recommended nonpunitive sanctions. Conversely, respondents who believed that offending behavior resulted from internal or stable factors that were unchangeable, perceived offenders as irredeemable and recommended punitive sanctions. This study highlights the complex nature of punitive attitudes and the impact that implicit theories of crime can have on behavior.

Finally, research investigating punitiveness and sex crime in Ireland is scarce. What does exist reveals that attitudes and beliefs regarding sex offenders are extremely complex. For example, Richards and McCarten’s (2018) investigation of public attitudes toward the community sex offender program, Circles of Trust and Accountability, revealed that the public hold very diverse opinions about offender rehabilitation and reintegration, with some “vehemently opposing it” and some enthusiastically supporting it (p. 411). In a similar study, McAvoy (2012) reports that child sexual abusers elicited the most punitive responses from participants when compared with perpetrators of other types of sexual crime (e.g., rape, harassment), with abuse perpetrators deemed the least likely to reintegrate themselves into society and more likely to be branded as “sex offenders.” Interestingly, however, participants also demonstrated the most support for rehabilitation in relation to child sexual offenders, demonstrating that the public can harbor both rehabilitative and punitive attitudes simultaneously (McAvoy, 2012). This project aimed to build on this research by exploring whether perpetrator gender impacts criminal justice practitioners’ beliefs surrounding the factors that precipitate child sexual abuse, risk management and assessment, sentencing outcomes, and rehabilitation.

Method

Design

This study adopted a qualitative design incorporating semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 32 (n = 13 males, n = 19 females) criminal justice practitioners. Participants ranged in age from 33 to 65 years, with an average age of 47 years. In the past, researchers have tended to use quantitative measures to investigate the topic at hand (see Kite & Tyson, 2004; Mellor & Deering, 2010). It was reasoned that the use of semi-structured interviews would provide multidimensional insights into the intricacies and complexities of practitioner viewpoints that may be undetectable using forced-choice survey questioning (Crego & Alison, 2004; O’Keeffe et al., 2013).

Measures

An interview schedule consisting of 23 open-ended questions was prepared for this study to further explore and “flesh-out” participant attitudes and beliefs regarding sex offender management. Interviews were broken down into three thematic sections.

Demographics: gender, age, and years of service.

Child Sexual Offending: experience and training within the area of child sexual abuse; criminal trajectories of “typical” abusers; prevalence, cause, and detection of sexual offenses.

Criminal Justice Processing: approach and interaction style with sexual offenders.

Analysis

Interviews were transcribed and uploaded to MAXQDA, a qualitative research software tool. Subsequently, data were coded using thematic analysis, a method used to capture frequently cited and meaningful information that is relevant to the overall study (Braun & Clarke, 2006). A total of 29 major themes and a further 116 subthemes emerged, all of which were identified and coded in accordance with the research questions.

Ethics and Procedure

The entire population of practitioners employed by an undisclosed criminal justice agency were emailed an invitation to participate. This email provided prospective participants with an information leaflet about the study and asked to contact the researcher directly if they were interested in taking part. Snowball-sampling was also employed as a recruitment strategy, where existing participants assisted in the recruitment process by putting their colleagues in contact with the researcher. Full ethical approval was sought from University College Dublin’s Human Research Ethics Committee.

Limitations

Confidential sample status

It was extremely unfortunate that the criminal justice agency that took part was not willing to be named. Although this confidentiality may be perceived as a limitation that impacts the generalizability of the research results, it may be argued that such confidentiality is acceptable, given that the present study investigates the influence of gender stereotypes from a more theoretical rather than a practical perspective. Whereas some scholars contend that increasing participant confidentiality results in a higher rate of socially undesirable responding, which may be interpreted as increased participant honesty (Booth-Kewley et al., 1992), others argue that increasing the identifiability of participants increases accountability and motivation, which improves the quality of the responses given (Reicher & Levine, 1994). In the current study, confidentiality was particularly beneficial when it came to conducting interviews. The guarantee of confidentiality possibly enabled practitioners to speak more openly about their own professional practice and that of others within the system as a whole. Although, social desirability always plays a part to some degree, it stands to reason that the greater the level of confidentiality and privacy that is offered to participants the more open and honest they can be when it comes to the research questions.

Results

Practitioner Contact and Experience

When it came to interviewing criminal justice practitioners, it was important to first ascertain the level of contact and experience they had with actual sex offenders. This would reveal the extent to which the thoughts and views being conveyed were the result of actual “hands-on” practical knowledge and how much was the product of “non-contact” experience. Almost the entire sample (n = 31) had worked directly with child sexual offenders. In addition, over half of the sample stated that the offenders themselves had disclosed instances of historical child sexual abuse to them, demonstrating experiential knowledge of both the perpetrator and victim perspective.

For the most part, participants had a great deal of experience with male perpetrators. Of the 31 practitioners who had been involved with cases of child sexual abuse, 16 reported having experience with females. The remainder of the sample (n = 16) stated that they had no “hands on” experience of any kind with women but had “heard” of cases through their colleagues and/or the media. It is important to note that prevalence rates of FPCSA vary greatly according to source (Mellor & Deering, 2010). Whereas low levels of FPCSA are typically reported in official crime statistics the world over, with estimates of between 1% and 2% (Denov, 2003; Vandiver & Kercher, 2004), figures generated by charitable organizations along with self-report victim/clinician surveys paint quite a different picture, with estimated prevalence rates ranging between 2% and 58% (see Childline, 2009; Denov, 2003; Kasl, 1990; McGee et al., 2011). Mendel (1995) contends that self-report studies regarding victimization typically report higher rates of female-perpetrated abuse than those relying on official crime statistics due to widespread underreporting to the police. Given the abundance of research to suggest that this type of crime is a relatively rare phenomenon (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1994; O’Hagan, 1989), findings to show a high level of familiarity of such cases among participants may seem quite unusual. However, the samples knowledge and experience of FPCSA was not just a result of media reports and professional dealings with convicted female offenders, but as a result of disclosures made over the course of their careers by offenders regarding abuse that was never reported to the authorities. Therefore, practitioner access to offenders and victim-offenders not only helps to explain the samples’ considerable level of familiarity with this kind of sex crime but also reinforces previous research to show that FPCSA is not as infrequent as some scholarship suggests.

Next, results will be presented under five thematic headings that emerged through thematic analysis conducted on the interview data, namely, A Culture of Abuse, Victim/Victimisers Versus Chronic Victims, Normative Citizens Versus Not “Real” Offenders and Normative Deprivation, Dominance Versus Submission, and Risk and Harmlessness.

A Culture of Abuse

Interviewees stated that both male and female child sexual abusers have experienced some form of trauma or victimization in their early lives, be it sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, and/or child neglect. This suggests that participants not only viewed prior victimization as a potential risk factor for sexually abusive behavior, but also that much of the sample believed that a substantive victim–offender overlap exists within this offender cohort. Participants also described an aspect of childhood trauma, which they felt applies exclusively to abusers, namely, the transmission of child sexual abuse across generations. For instance, respondents stated that many of the sex offenders they encountered came from families where sexual abuse had occurred throughout previous generations. They described this phenomenon as a “culture of abuse” (CJP5), suggesting that inappropriate sexual contact with children that is habitual and normative within the context of the offender’s family subsequently becomes habitual and normative for the child in later life. This phenomenon was associated with both male and female perpetrators.

their own abuse actually informed their own perpetration, a lot of them have experienced child sexual abuse themselves . . . this is what happened to me so this is what is supposed to happen for the children around them. (CJP2)

Previous scholarship surrounding intergenerational abuse proves quite contradictory, with some studies evidencing childhood sexual victimization as a risk factor for later offending (Berlin et al., 2011) and others reporting no evidence of transmission (Renner & Slack, 2006). It is possible that intergenerational child sexual abuse provides practitioners with a plausible explanation for the incidence of sexually abusive behavior. However, it is important to note that participants listed previous sexual victimization as just one of many potential precipitating factors for the perpetration of abuse, indicating that participants do not hold absolutist beliefs regarding the links between previous victimization and criminality. Interestingly, childhood victimization was the only risk factor that participants ascribed to both male and female abusers with the remainder of the interview themes emerging in a gender dichotomous fashion.

Victim/Victimizers Versus Chronic Victims

While previous victimization was presented as a significant overarching theme across male and female abusers, participants were also of the opinion that women tend to experience higher levels of victimization than men. Practitioners not only framed the victimization of male and female offenders differently but also perceived the consequences of this victimization as divergent. Findings regarding this perceptual divergence are discussed under three subheadings: Psychological Issues Versus Complex Mental Health, Psychosocial Factors, and Pedophilic Versus Non-Pedophilic Offenders.

Psychological Issues Versus Complex Mental Health

The entire sample suspected that psychological issues played a fundamental role in the perpetration of child sexual abuse by both men and women and agreed that such issues were likely a direct result of abuse and/or trauma that had taken place in childhood. Personality deficits, poor psychosocial development, emotional issues, and poor self-esteem were globally ascribed to both men and women. However, when discussing male perpetrators, participants also named a variety of psychological factors that seemed to facilitate abusive acts and may be described as criminogenic thinking patterns, namely, childlike interests and fantasies, distorted morals and value systems, a lack of empathy, denial, cognitive distortions, and psychological processes of minimization.

They know what they are doing to be wrong but go through some sort of psychological process to minimise it and to get over their reservations and then act on it. (CJP24)

On the contrary, women were believed to lack the “enabling” psychological qualities attributed to men and were described as having very “complex mental health” issues. Therefore, although all abusers were perceived to suffer psychological ills to some degree, the use of the term “mental health” suggests that participants assigned a higher level of psychological vulnerability to female perpetrators than males.

they are more likely to be isolated, the women, very, very, very isolated psychologically and physically isolated . . . I think it is more complex. (CJP 24).

Findings to show an overemphasis on mental illness by criminal justice practitioners when discussing the factors that precipitate FPCSA was not surprising. Feminist criminologists have long identified the tendency for female criminality to be characterized and understood as a direct result of mental disorder by justice professionals and society at large. Abel and Rouleau (1995) explain that it is more comfortable for society to perceive female child sexual abusers as psychiatrically disordered because, if such an offense can be explained in terms of psychological illness, it affords society the luxury of being able to avoid attributing inappropriate female sexualized behavior to rational choice or sexual desire. Worrall (1990) applies this line of thinking directly to the criminal justice system on a more general level when she asserts that “psychiatric reports . . . comfortingly reassure magistrates that ‘normal’ women do not commit crime” (p. 58).

Psychosocial Factors

A variety of psychosocial issues were also identified as potential risk factors for abusers. Interestingly, such issues were only attributed to men who were said to experience peer rejection and an inability to form meaningful interpersonal connections—both platonic and sexual. Once more, intense feelings of loneliness, low self-esteem, and rejection were described as major knock-on effects of this social isolation. Some participants were also of the opinion that such emotions incited abusers to seek out inappropriate adult–child contact.

An individual who is quite socially isolated as a young person and as a teenager, he can be very marginalised in his own peer group and in his community . . . children are easier for him to get around and to experiment with around his sexuality because he is not given the chance within his own peer group. (CJP22)

Finally, participants noted the presence of several factors in the backgrounds of females that were missing from their accounts of male counterparts, such as domestic violence, unhealthy sexual relationships, sexual abuse in adulthood, and rape. What is most notable about these factors is that they all represent forms of abuse that take place later in adulthood, demonstrating that female abusers were viewed as “chronic” victims in that their experiences of abuse were perceived as persistent, long-lasting, and recurrent.

I think their experience of abuse and sexual relationships themselves is possibly a factor. Maybe a history of sex that hasn’t been intimate or caring or loving, maybe through prostitution. (CJP11)

In sum, the findings outlined above reveal that practitioners harbored gendered ideas regarding the source, intensity, and consequences of the victimization experienced by offenders. Male victimhood was framed by childhood victimization, psychosocial factors, and criminogenic thinking, whereas female victimhood was framed by the presence of serious mental health complaints alongside recurrent victimization in childhood and adulthood. Likewise, men were depicted as “victim/victimisers” whose victimhood abetted their trajectory into sexual offending, whereas women were deemed “chronic victims” whose victimization was believed to snowball throughout the life course, demonstrating that women were perceived as more vulnerable than men. Although participant opinions regarding male abusers appear to have a rather deterministic flavor, the previous victimization associated with their abusive behavior was overtly described as just one of several key factors that may instigate abuse. This indicating that practitioners were not of the opinion that previous victimization is an essential precursor to future sexual offending by males.

Pedophilic Versus Non-Pedophilic Offenders

Given the focus on child sexual abuse, it was only a matter of time before the term “pedophile” surfaced within the interview discourse. Pedophilia may be defined as a “persistent sexual interest in prepubescent children, as reflected by one’s sexual fantasies, urges, thoughts, arousal, or behaviour” (Seto, 2009, p. 392). Although pedophilia has traditionally been characterized as a disorder exclusive to men, a small body of evidence suggests that female pedophiles also exist (Kramer & Bowman, 2011).

A total of 16 participants made some reference to sexuality and or sexual preference when discussing the perceived causes of sexual abuse by men, eight of whom made it very clear that they did not classify all child sexual abusers as pedophiles. Instead, they believed that pedophiles possess a very distinct psychopathology characterized by a deep-seated sexual deviance and only represent a very small percentage of all child abusers. Furthermore, although practitioners held the view that pedophilic offenders require clinical psychiatric intervention, they were not optimistic about their potential to be successfully rehabilitated. Conversely, “non-pedophilic” abusers were said to lack this deviant pathology and their offending behavior was attributed to other factors, such as loneliness, interpersonal issues, and low self-esteem; sexual opportunism; not having one’s sexual needs met; deviant sexual urges; and/or skewed sexual development. Once more, these respondents felt that non-pedophilic offenders could be successfully rehabilitated if they are willing to address their psychosocial issues in a therapeutic way.

There are certainly a small amount of men who are paedophiles . . . that’s a deep-seated psychiatric issue almost and that’s a small percentage. I think then there’s a much broader group where it’s an emotional issue that’s bringing about their offending (pauses), so an emotional lack and a wanting to feel a kind of power and all of those things . . . (CJP12)

These findings convey a distinct gender bias when it came to deliberating the relationship between sexuality and abuse; as all references to sexual deviance, sexual preference, and sexual drive were made about men. Moreover, the fact that all mentions of sexual intent were absent from the discourse surrounding FPCSA is not only remarkable, given the nature of the crime, but perhaps suggests that notions of female sexuality and the transgressions associated with it are still taboo within contemporary culture.

Normative Citizens Versus Not “Real” Offenders and Normative Deprivation

Practitioners felt that male perpetrators are represented across the entirety of sociodemographic strata, appear to live quite “normal” lives, and thus, are “harder to pick out” (CJP5) than their female counterparts. The “normative” profiles described, evidences the belief that male abusers use outward conventionality as a disguise for their sexual deviance. Such sentiments are not only consistent with evidence to suggest that practitioners view offenders as “dangerous rational calculators” (Garland, 2001; McAlinden, 2006), but also concur with clinical research to suggest that “supernormality” is a tactic employed by some offenders to conceal sexual deviance (Cima et al., 2003, p. 235).

So, it can be people who are very educated and have jobs and families and houses. (CJP16)

A sexual offending kind of cohort tend not to be restricted to the same origins or demographic as a non-sexual offending population. (CJP20)

Once again, “supernormality” only featured in the discourse pertaining to males, whereas female perpetrators were framed as either socially deprived or as not “real” offenders. Women were depicted as poorly educated individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds who are marginalized within their own communities. In addition, some participants agreed that addiction was a significant risk factor and potential cause of female perpetration. Such verdicts provide further evidence of a “vulnerability” narrative used by practitioners when describing the lives of female abusers. They also furnish additional support for the idea that female abusers are “chronic” victims.

Maybe you know, drugs, alcohol, lack of education and all sorts of stuff. So, it’s not the same no (as male abusers). (CJP32)

As noted above, participants were overtly asked during interviews whether they had any experience with cases of FPCSA. Interestingly, interviewees unconsciously discounted one particular type of abuse when responding to this question, namely, that of sexual contact between adult women and adolescent boys. Instead, participants only recalled their experience of this type of crime when discussing issues of detection and prosecution much later in the interview. Although interviewees agreed that relationships between teenage boys and adult women constituted abuse, the fact that such cases were not at the forefront of their minds perhaps reflects a belief that such sexual contact is not “real” abuse. That said, practitioners did view sexual liaisons between women and teenage boys as a very complex issue and called attention to a societal double standard that views sexual contact between adult females and adolescent boys as less serious than that of adult males and teenage girls.

I think it is a societal thing, if a woman abuses a male child it is considered to be a rite of passage for the male and they think that they are supposed to enjoy it like it’s supposed to be of benefit to them. (CJP13)

These findings demonstrate how inappropriate sexual contact between women and teenage boys may be misconstrued as “not real” abuse. Furthermore, the fact that participants exclusively viewed male abusers as living seemingly normative lives is indicative of the belief that they are more sinister and calculating than their female counterparts. Overall, these findings reveal that males were seen to be dangerous and covert in their offending, whereas females were viewed as vulnerable and/or harmless.

Dominance Versus Submission

Just over half of the sample agreed that sexual abuse satisfies a need within male offenders to assert dominance and exercise complete control over a vulnerable other. Interviewees used terms such as “hierarchy,” “control,” “power,” “authority,” and “dominance” when recounting their views on the reasons behind abuses perpetrated by men. The words used to describe this imbalance of power are very significant as they are heavily associated with hegemonic masculinity and are broadly accepted as normative male behavioral traits (Byers, 1996). This in turn reinforces the notion that men are more “typical” perpetrators of sexual crime.

They need a victim that they know they have some control over. (CJP10)

A further 16 participants made references to men who had either taken advantage of their positions of authority or deliberately sought out professions/hobbies that allowed them free access to children. Such findings are indicative of the belief that male abusers are not only predatory but also quite calculated when it comes to gaining access to minors.

some men who have offended against children who don’t have any children (of their own) but when we look back at their trajectory they have spent a lot of time in their life trying to develop careers or hobbies or side jobs that have a lot of contact with children. (CJP22)

Female offenders were described as the polar opposite of predatory and/or dominant through gendered portrayals of naivety, vulnerability, and helplessness. The most common causal factor attributed to FPCSA was that of male coercion, with participants speaking at length about how women may be coerced, bullied, or groomed into committing sexually abusive acts by their partners. Furthermore, some participants believed that women may become party to sexual abuse to “keep the peace” [CJP23], satisfy their partner, or because they struggle to assert themselves and say “no.” Such perceptions are indicative of the belief that women submit to the wants and needs of abusive partners and participate in abusive acts because they are vulnerable, fearful, and/or because they feel helpless and don’t know what else to do. Finally, some participants also wondered whether instances of abuse would have occurred had a male coercer not been present.

Well I think in a lot of cases they may become involved in the abuse because they are bullied or allowing themselves (pauses), they are under the influence of somebody else for whatever reason and find it hard to assert themselves. (CJP16)

Entangled within the notion of the abusive duo were very definite ideas pertaining to male power, culpability, and blame. The issue of co-offending couples received the most attention out of all participant discourse surrounding FPCSA. Yet, none of the participants considered the possibility that a woman’s role within an abuse situation was equal to that of the man or that the woman might be the coercer. Instead, male co-offenders were perceived as dominant instigators, whereas females were viewed as submissive colluders within the abuse milieu. Finally, a majority were also uncertain about the prospect of “lone” female sexual offending and its potential causes. This suggests that the bulk of the samples’ experience and knowledge regarding the issue pertains to co-offending couples. Such verdicts are perhaps indicative of practitioner denial (Denov, 2004). For instance, if practitioners believe that females are under the duress of male partners, they can hold men responsible for the abuse and frame co-offending women as not “real” offenders. However, denying a female’s motivation to participate in child sexual abuse becomes more problematic if she is a lone abuser as nobody else can be held responsible for the crime. The lack of dialogue surrounding lone female abusers may be due to participants’ inability to explain away and deny sexual intent. It also suggests a failure to recognize the teacher/lover instance of abuse which involves adult females seducing suggestible adolescent males into a quasi-consensual sexual relationships (Mathews et al., 1989).

Risk and Harmlessness

To date, only a small number of female abusers have been processed by the Irish criminal justice system. Although official data exist to show that women are convicted of sexual crimes toward children (Irish Prison Service, 2017), outside of some media coverage from high-profile cases, official information regarding the nature of FPCSA cases and the sentences imposed is not publicly available. Given that the aim of the present study was to examine practitioners’ perceptions of male and female offenders, a fictional vignette was included at the end of each interview as a means of exploring whether perceptions impact decision–making. Each participant was read a fictional case history describing an instance of child sexual abuse involving either a male or female perpetrator. They were then asked to advise a course of action and talk the researcher through their deliberation processes.

When discussing the ways that practitioners felt child abusers should be processed and their risk of recidivism, findings revealed that abuser gender did impact participant opinions.³ Although participants sentenced male and female offenders to similar rates of prison custody, they were more inclined to impose a community sanction when the abuser was a female (see Table 1). Furthermore, participants were more likely to state that they required additional background information before deciding on a definitive sentencing outcome for men (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Sanction Type and Risk of Reoffending.

	Female abuser (%)	Male abuser (%)
Sanction type
Community sanction	68.8	38.5
Prison custody	12.5	15.3
More information needed	18.8	46.2
Risk of reoffending
Low	50	7.6
High	0	30.8
Risk assessment required	50	61.6

For example, participants stated that they would need to know whether the offender demonstrated behaviors associated with denial and/or minimization, whether a risk assessment had been carried out and what its conclusions were, and whether the offender demonstrated genuine remorse for his actions. The fact that participants stated that they required additional information regarding recidivism risk factors when sentencing men, coupled with the higher rate of community sanctions imposed on women, indicates that practitioners were more content to have women supervised in the community without receiving detailed information regarding their potential to reoffend. These findings perhaps evidence the inherent belief among some participants that women are harmless and less likely than men to threaten public safety. Such sentiments are further reinforced by results to show that participants felt female abusers were less likely to reoffend than their male counterparts (see Table 1). Finally, the fact that participants favored community sanctions over prison custody for both genders suggests that practitioners were not punitive toward child sexual abusers.

In sum, these findings suggest that abuser gender impacted on practitioner perceptions regarding the lived experiences of perpetrators, the factors that precipitate their offending behavior, their perceived levels of risk, and the ways in which they should be managed by the criminal justice system. This was evidenced by the differential life circumstances associated with men and women, the divergent interpretation of the causal factors that the participants themselves reported as common to all abusers such as previous victimization and psychological issues, and the disproportionate emphasis on risk assessment for male abusers.

Discussion

Thematic analysis conducted on semi-structured interviews revealed that practitioners framed child sexual abusers as a cohort of vulnerable victim-offenders. Findings also showed that interviewees adopted distinct gendered narratives to describe the life histories and criminal trajectories of offenders, which were in line with traditionalist gender stereotypes regarding masculine and feminine norms. Together, these results suggest that participant perceptions of child sexual abusers are influenced by gender-role stereotypes; however, these viewpoints appear to have no bearing on punitiveness. Such verdicts are at odds with much of the research in the field to suggest that perpetrator gender, victim gender, and observer gender influence the sentencing behavior (Mellor & Deering, 2010). In the paragraphs that follow, findings are situated within the context of the current knowledge on gender-role ideology, punitiveness, and penal philosophies.

“Vulnerable Others” and the Gendered Lens

This study found that participants characterized child sexual abusers as “vulnerable” and “other.” On one hand perpetrators were depicted as a vulnerable cohort who experience a range of social, psychological, and criminal ills. On the other hand, they were also regarded as dangerous “others” who seek to assert power over their victims and employ “supernormality” as a smoke screen for deviant sexual behavior. Whereas female abusers were exclusively characterized as “vulnerable,” males were depicted as both “vulnerable” and “other,” indicating that offenders were framed differently across gender. Moreover, practitioners not only professed a significant victim–offender overlap within the abuser population but also viewed victims and offenders as a single group as opposed to two opposing cohorts. Such verdicts are not only noteworthy because child sexual abusers constitute a group of offenders whom society tolerates the least (Levenson et al., 2007), but also because they call attention to the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of belief systems surrounding sex offenders and the factors that precipitate their crimes.

In this study, male abusers were characterized as possessing “dominant” behavioral traits and as having large sexual appetites. Although they were also believed to constitute a vulnerable cohort of victim/offenders, references pertaining to their supernormal veneers suggest that they were also viewed as “rational calculators” whose vulnerability wavered in comparison with that of females. Results from the fictional vignette indicate that male abusers were deemed “riskier” offenders than females. These views coincide with traditional sexual scripts, which assume that men are not only preoccupied with sex, but also that their motivation to engage in the act is so strong that they are willing to pursue, initiate, and/or exploit any sexual endeavor made available to them (Byers, 1996). They are also in line with patriarchal dogma, which infers that dominance, power, and aggression are all fundamental elements of masculinity (Denov, 2004). Conversely, female offenders were portrayed as “chronic victims” whose victimization was not only lifelong but also encompassed a broad range of psychological and social factors, demonstrating that participant insights emulate patriarchal gender-role stereotypes, which portray women as weak, childlike, nurturing, and in need of male protection (Crew, 1991). It is quite telling that even though a sexual crime was the topic of discussion, factors such as sexual intent, sexual gratification, and/or sexual motivation were almost completely lacking from participant discourse surrounding women. Such findings are not only illustrative of the ways in which practitioners viewed female sexual deviance, especially given the fact that sexuality played an intricate part in their perceptions of male abusers, but also suggest that participants subscribed to traditional sexual scripts, which infer that women have a weak sexual drive, are sexually passive, and use sex for the sole purpose of expressing love (Byers, 1996). They also beg the question, “How is it possible to discuss sexual abuse without addressing the issue of sex?”

FPCSA has been described by some scholars as the “ultimate taboo” because it threatens Western society’s conceptualization of what it means to be a woman (Elliott, 1993, p. 691). Denov (2001) contends that practitioners attempt to uphold traditionalist beliefs surrounding femininity by attributing the causes of female perpetration to external factors that are outside of the offender’s control. Findings from the present study indicate that the vast majority of the causes ascribed to female child sexual abuse could indeed be characterized as factors outside of the female offender’s control, that is, male coercion, chronic victimization and abuse, mental health issues, social marginalization, and addiction. Furthermore, although participants never denied the occurrence or seriousness of FPCSA, their discourse exposed some evidence of covert denial, evidencing how cognitive processes pertaining to stereotypical gender-role norms may have inadvertently impacted their perceptions of female abusers.

The factors believed to precipitate FPCSA are also in line with the unstable factors outlined in Maruna and King’s (2009) “belief in redeemability” thesis, which postulates that beliefs pertaining to the causes of crime and the perceived redeemability of an offender are associated with attitudes to punishment. In contrast, male perpetrators were more likely to be perceived as rational calculators whose abusive behavior is precipitated by a mix of internal personality traits and external circumstances. Indeed, some of these factors resemble the stable/internal factors postulated by Maruna and King (2009). These findings suggest that whereas practitioners viewed all female abusers as “redeemable,” they viewed some males as irredeemable offenders. However, it is important to note that the only time participants alluded to an abuser possibly being irredeemable was when discussing pedophilic males. Hence, it would be inaccurate to assert that practitioners as a group perceived all male abusers as incapable of change. The entire sample recognized that sexual abuse is not simply the result of one precipitating factor, but instead is the result of an accumulation of factors over the course of an offender’s life. Nevertheless, gender-based belief systems surrounding perpetrators of child sexual abuse stand to influence the ways in which practitioners assign and assess risk. Beliefs that female abusers are “harmless” or pose less of a recidivism risk than males could incur a number of negative consequences if it were played out in reality. For instance, it may lead to the release of a potentially high-risk offender into the community, which could prove detrimental to public safety (Hetherton & Beardsall, 1998; Kite & Tyson, 2004). This issue is complicated further by the fact that the Irish criminal justice system, as is the case in many other jurisdictions (Ford, 2006), employs sex offender risk assessment tools that were originally standardized and developed for use with male offenders, thus calling into question the validity and reliability of the results generated by these tools when conducted with female sex offenders.

Finally, although risk assessment was an important part of the practitioners’ decision-making tool kit, the sentences they imposed were in no way punitive, which is contrary to the underlying assumptions of populist penology. Such verdicts indicate that even though gender did help to inform participant perceptions of child sexual abusers, they did not approach sanctioning in accordance with international trends, which perhaps supports the notion that Ireland has not embraced control culture to the same extent as its anglophone counterparts. Next, findings are discussed in the context of Ireland’s penal philosophies.

Punitiveness and the Irish Penal Philosophy

The rise of penal populism has led to the portrayal of offenders as dangerous rational calculators whose offending behavior is a result of rational choice instead of social circumstance (Garland, 2001). Feeley and Simon (1992) suggest that this shift has augmented concerns surrounding offender risk and resulted in more restrictive supervisory measures. Such sentiments are said to have increased public fear about crime and fuelled the development of a culture of control across Western society. The present findings represent an interesting counterpoint to the literature surrounding the punitive turn, but are also consistent with recent evidence to show that practitioners have resisted punitive reforms and/or adopted a hybrid practice model informed by welfarist penal philosophy (Healy, 2012; Robinson, 2008) despite differential beliefs pertaining to the origins of abuse across offender gender. These verdicts indicate that participant practice cultures are built upon foundations of penal welfarism as opposed to penal populist dogma. Indeed, while findings show that sex offenders were framed as both “vulnerable” and “other,” practitioner views were partly consistent with the literature surrounding the rise in punitiveness. The combination of liberal sentencing outcomes and recognition of the victim–offender overlap concurs with a growing body of research to show that Ireland (Hamilton, 2013), along with other countries such as England, Wales (Robinson & Ugwudike, 2012), and Sweden (Von Hofer, 2005), has not fully embraced punitive penology. Most notably, these results emulate Healy’s (2012) study that reports that Irish penal agents adopt a support-based rehabilitative approach to promote offender change and desistance from crime, which contrasts with other similar anglophone jurisdictions who have employed methods of social control and risk management to manage, rather than change, the offender population.

Conclusion

This study concludes that practitioners’ implicit theories of gender-role norms do influence the ways in which they make sense of sexually abusive behavior by both men and women. Whereas men were framed as both “vulnerable” and “other,” practitioner representations of male offenders were not only in line with patriarchal dogma but also with colloquial manifestations of the “archetypal abuser”—dominant, aggressive, controlling, calculating, and sexually deviant. Alternatively, women were framed as “vulnerable” and their sexual deviance was understood to be symptomatic of an inherent gendered vulnerability—male coercion, chronic victimization and abuse, mental health issues, social marginalization, and addiction. In accordance with the “denial” thesis, these findings suggest that practitioners believed a number of factors outside of the woman’s control come together to precipitate FPCSA. Moreover, these findings perhaps suggest an unconscious attempt by practitioners to uphold gender beliefs systems surrounding traditional feminine norms, which in turn stands to impact the appropriate management of female child sexual abusers. Such verdicts both inform and justify two recommendations for criminal justice policy and practice. First, sex offender risk assessment tools employed in Ireland, as is the case in many other jurisdictions, have been developed and standardized with the male sex offender population. Experts in the field have voiced concerns about their effectiveness to accurately calculate recidivism risk among female child sexual abusers (Vess & Skelton, 2010). For instance, Cortoni et al. (2010) conclude that risk assessments intended for use with male sex offenders will overestimate recidivism risk for females and should not be used in decision-making. Accordingly, it is recommended that the Department of Justice employ a sex offender risk assessment tool that is designed for use with female perpetrators. Second, this study found that a lack of sufficient “hands on” experience with female perpetrators of child sexual abuse may have caused practitioners to rely on gender-role belief systems when making decisions about their management. Although evidence suggests that sex offender recidivism is low (O’Donnell et al., 2008), such methods of decision-making could incur a number of negative consequences if it were played out in reality. For instance, it may lead to the release of a potentially high-risk female offender into the community, which could prove detrimental to public safety (Kite & Tyson, 2004). Although it would be impossible to ensure sufficient practitioner exposure to a crime that comes to the attention of the criminal justice system so infrequently, it should be possible to implement some form of training to increase practitioner knowledge regarding the issue. Therefore, it is recommended that professional training surrounding FPCSA should be commissioned to boost practitioner confidence and ensure that child sexual abusers receive appropriate evidence-based criminal justice interventions, risk assessment, and supervision. Finally, this study found that although gender-role stereotypes did impact practitioner perceptions of child sexual abusers, the sanctions they recommended were in no way punitive. This is likely a result of their education and training, strong rehabilitative drive, and familiarity with penal policy. Thus, despite adopting some features of the punitive turn, the Irish Criminal Justice system appears to have maintained a relatively nonpunitive stance to sex offenders. Ireland’s resistance to punitiveness is particularly striking, given the level of media attention to institutional and interfamilial abuse over the past couple of decades, and the volume of public and political dialogue that followed each case. Hence, this study lends itself as another example of “Hibernian Exceptionalism,” which infers that Ireland has resisted many of the influences that have precipitated punitive shifts in similar common law countries (Griffin & O’Donnell, 2012, p. 14).

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Louise Rooney is a criminologist working as a postdoctoral research fellow in University College Dublin’s School of Medicine. She is a mixed-methods researcher with over seven years’ experience in conducting evidence-based research in both the criminal justice and health sector. Rooney has lectured on numerous criminology programmes in University College Dublin, Maynooth University and Technological University Dublin.

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