SEX offenders are a breed apart, notorious recidivists who are driven by deviant sexual desires. That, at least, is the common perception. The facts are rather different. Most sex offenders do not fit any psychiatric diagnosis related to sexual deviance. Reconviction rates for this group as a whole are relatively low compared with other types of criminals. Most importantly, the majority are not a breed apart.
The label 鈥渟ex offender鈥� is a rag-bag term that covers individuals who have committed a wide range of offences. Some are nasty opportunists for whom rape or child abuse is just one in a long string of diverse crimes. Most knew their victims: they assaulted acquaintances, family members or friends. Others are young men who had sex with under-age girlfriends. The stereotypical predator, persistently targeting vulnerable strangers, is rare.
While it is true that convicted sex offenders are more likely to commit a further sex offence than other ex-cons, they are not the group that society has most to fear from. Given the larger numbers who are convicted of burglary, violent assault and other non-sexual offences, you or your loved ones are more likely to be raped by someone previously jailed for one of these crimes. Yet even this group does not present the greatest threat. Most of those convicted of a sex crime have no prior criminal record, and worryingly large numbers of offenders get away with it.
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Ida Dickie, a forensic psychologist at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, conducted a survey of men seeking casual work in Ottawa, Canada. Her as yet unpublished research shows that 42 per cent admitted either to having raped an adult, or having had sex with a minor at least five years younger than themselves. Raymond Knight, a psychologist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, obtained similarly disturbing results while conducting research into the roots of abuse against women (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol 989, p 72). In a sample of blue-collar American men, 36 per cent admitted to having done at least one of the following: using or threatening force in an attempt to obtain sex from a woman; having or attempting to have sex with a woman who was too drunk or high to say no; or plying a woman with drink or drugs to that end. Such behaviour is not the preserve of working-class men: some studies suggest that about 15 per cent of women attending US colleges fall victim to rape or attempted rape, committed by privileged young men.
Child sexual abuse is harder to investigate, but the evidence suggests that it is fairly common, vastly under-reported and mostly committed by outwardly normal men against their own children, or the children of their families or friends.
Despite this evidence, responses to sex crime appear to hinge on the false assumptions that previously convicted sex offenders pose the main threat, and that imposing severe penalties on them will solve the problem. In the US, huge sums are spent on indefinite 鈥渃ivil commitment鈥� for those judged to be dangerous sexual predators (see 鈥淭hrowing away the key鈥�) 鈥� never mind that keeping these people locked up will barely dent the sex crime statistics.
We should look beyond the few perpetrators who get caught and see the majority of sex offending for what it is: the manifestation of widespread, wrong-headed attitudes towards women and sex. Rather than being an identifiable delinquent out-group, rapists and child abusers are more likely to be the kinds of people we count as friends, colleagues and neighbours. The evidence is overwhelming that the biggest opportunity for reducing sex crimes lies in reaching apparently normal men with no criminal record. We need to take a hard look at the attitudes that lie behind these offences and re-establish what is acceptable sexual behaviour.
鈥淲e should look beyond the few perpetrators who get caught and see the majority of sex offending for what it really is鈥�
A concerted effort to boost reporting, detection and conviction rates will help bring more rapists and abusers to book for their crimes. Greater emphasis on 鈥渟ituational鈥� crime prevention is also needed, to help us check criminal acts. That does not mean a return to the twisted thinking that blames rape victims for being 鈥減rovocative鈥�, but it can warn against obvious risk factors, such as the abuse of alcohol or drugs by both perpetrators and victims.
