International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

There are reports that childhood sexual victimization is more prevalent among child molesters than among males in the general population. It has been hypothesized that past victimization is causally related to sex offending. The causal link, however, is not well defined, and the rate of sexual victimization among molesters is similar to that reported among other forensic and psychiatric populations. It has also been argued that victimization has a paradoxical, negative effect on victim empathy. The role of cognitive or emotional empathy in offending, though, remains unclear. The value of promoting victim empathy in an attempt to reduce offending is questionable. This article describes child molesters whose behavior is inconsistent with the victimization-based explanations they offer for their offending. Some implications for intervention are briefly reviewed, and the relation of victimization and lack of empathy to cognitive distortions is considered.

The Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (TSCS) was administered to 223 United States and 180 English institutionalized juvenile offenders. In a crosscultural comparison of the subjects on the six TSCS empirical scales, both groups present indications of significantly more psychopathology on five of the six scales than nondelinquents. When the two groups are contrasted, the U.S. group is found to score significantly higher, overall, in psychopathology than the English delinquents. Discriminant function analysis identified two of the six empirical psychopathology scales, Personal Integration and Personality Disorder, capable of distinguishing the subjects by country. Analyses of the data suggest that recent-past and current conservative policies governing official responses to youth crime fail because they tend to address delinquency as if the underlying causes are constitutional. Rather, this data suggest that the differences found between the two groups are cultural in nature.

Many studies over the last 40 years have suggested links between child maltreatment and later delinquency. However, these studies have frequently been methodologically weak. The present study investigated the linkage between child abuse and delinquency using a randomly selected sample of children from a cohort who attended schools in West Central Florida. This study found a significant relationship between abuse and delinquency.

This article analyzes a criminal rape trial in which neither the male nor the female claimed any memory of the sex act. Afterward, the female and the prosecution contended that under such circumstances, a rape had occurred on the theory that the female was unconscious. The male denied any memory of the sex act, even under hypnosis, and was found not guilty. The acquittal was apparently based on the jury's belief that both the female and the male were conscious during intercourse but were unable to recall the sex act due to alcohol-induced blackouts. Conclusion: In assessing potential criminal liability for participation in sexual intercourse between intoxicated persons lacking memory of the incident, and in the absence of evidence of force, the government should carefully avoid holding either participant to a higher level of legal responsibility than the other for such intercourse. Seldom is prosecution warranted under such circumstances.

Although violence in psychiatric hospital wards is of increasing concern, homicide is a rare event. Among the exceptions is a chronic schizophrenic patient, who murdered a fellow demented inpatient. Overcrowding, staff organization, and poor compliance with therapy are among the known risk factors for violence occurring in this case. A further precipitating circumstance was a period of legal uncertainty in Italy owing to a change in the law.

If short-term solitary confinement were reintroduced on a large scale, it is suggested that the possible victimization and corruption of inexperienced inmates by career criminals might be partially eliminated. Moreover, it has the possibility of saving taxpayers' money. Currently staff salaries account for about three-fourths of all prison expenditures. A solitary confinement system would initially have construction costs. This would be a one-time expense with the potential of offsetting the initial cost. Technological advances in recent years provide an avenue for inmates to upgrade their skills by receiving televised and computer-assisted instruction in their cells.

This study aimed at determining if alcohol, drug, or combined alcohol and drug abusing offenders differed in their characteristics from each other and from other non-substance abusing offenders, with the eventual goal of suggesting treatment strategies for these offenders. Offenders were classified into four groups: alcohol abusers, drug abusers, combined alcohol and drug abusers, and non-alcohol/non-drug abusers. Measurements used were the Level of Supervision Inventory (LSI) (Andrews, 1983) and Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) (Hare, 1985a, 1985b). Results supported previous findings regarding the prevalence of substance abuse problems among incarcerated offenders. The combined alcohol/drug abusing offenders had the highest scores among the groups on all items and total score of the LSI; the majority of items, total score, Factors I and 2 of the PCL-R. They were followed by drug abusers, alcoholics, the non-alcohol/non-drug abusing offenders. Implications for treatment programming for substance-abusing offenders are discussed.