Adolescent Sex Offenders

• Author: Howard Barbaree and R.J. O'Shaughnessy
• Pages: 955-976

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CHAPTER 45

Adolescent Sex Of‌fenders

Howard Barbaree and R.J. O’Shaughnessy

I. INTRODUCTION

e adolescent sexual oender is dened as a youth (twelve to seventeen years of age) who commits

any sexual act with a person of any age, against the victim’s will, without consent, or in an aggressive,

exploitative, or threatening manner (Ryan, 1991). e term “adolescence” refers to the developmental

stage aer pubescence, which occurs around the age of twelve, and before the attainment of adulthood

physical maturity at about age eighteen.

In the context of the criminal justice system, these oenders are oen referred to as “juvenile sex

oenders” to highlight the fact that we do not hold these oenders to the same level of criminal account-

ability as adult oenders. Recently the US Supreme Court abolished the juvenile death penalty (Roper v.

Simmons, 2005) because of several aspects of adolescents’ immaturity that was recognized to diminish

their criminal cu lpability, including their underdeveloped sense of responsibility, their diculty control-

ling their impulses, their heightened vulnerability to peer pressure, and the unformed nature of their

(moral) characters (Steinberg et al., 20 09).

Despite their immaturity, this subgroup of sex oenders poses a signicant social problem. e best

available estimates suggest that approximately 20 percent of all rapes and between 30 percent and 50

percent of child molestations are perpetrated by adolescent males (Becker, Kaplan et al., 1986; Brown

et al., 1984; Deisher et al., 1982; Groth et al., 1982). Young sex oenders cause further anxiety due to

their potential for continued oending into adulthood (Worling & Langstrom, 2006). Today, research

is focused on examining the causes of the behaviour, ecacy of treatment options, and elucidating the

dierences between the adult and adolescent populations of sex oenders (Barbaree & Marshall, 2006).

e present chapter begins with the denition of concepts and terms that must be clearly understood

by evaluators and treatment providers working with adolescent sex oenders. e chapter goes on to

include a description of prevalence, a general description of oenders, comorbidities, etiological factors,

and the role of paraphilias in the commission of sexual crime by adolescents. e chapter ends with a

description of the assessment and treatment of the adolescent sex oender.

A. Deviant Sexual Behaviour

Understanding normal sexual development (Bancro, 2006) is fundamental to the assessment and treat-

ment of adolescent sex oenders. Various biological and psychosocial factors come together in deter-

mining a child’s sexual development; gender role; sexual orientation; patterns of sexual arousal; sexual

cognitions and socialization; and the integration of sexual and aggressive patterns of behaviour (Shaw,

2000). Adolescence is a period of signicant change and the adolescent’s sexual behaviour, both criminal

and non-criminal, must be understood against the backdrop of this developmental period. When con-

sidering whether or not an adolescent’s sexual behaviour is deviant, the issue is complicated by the fact

that normative sexual behaviour changes over age and between developmental stages (Barbaree & Lang-

Howard Barbaree and R.J. O’Shaughnessy

ton, 2006). In the normal course of development from childhood through adolescence, sexual behaviour

becomes more frequent, extensive, and complex, following a developmental sequence from hugging and

kissing in the earliest stages, to fondling and touching of the breasts and genitals in later stages, to more

intimate interactions involving oral-genital contact and penetrative intercourse in the nal stage (Smith

& Udry, 1985). When the sexual behaviour of an adolescent is consistent with sexual behaviour exhibited

by his own age group, such sexual behaviour is considered to be normative: however, when children

engage in sexual behaviours that are unusual for their current age group, these behaviours are con-

sidered deviant even though these same behaviours may be normative later in development (Barbaree &

Marshall, 2006, pp. 5–7).

According to Barbaree and Langton (2006, pp. 589–95), deviant sexual behaviours in adolescents

have been characterized in negative terms in a number of ways, including:

1) as immoral as a result of religious or moral condemnation;

2) as pathological by diagnosis as a mental disorder;

3) by association as a correlate with negative outcomes (pregnancy, STDs);

4) as abusive when the deviant sexual behaviour involves non-consenting partners or children; and

5) as criminal when the behaviour violates the criminal law.

Professionals conducting evaluations of the adolescent sex oender are encouraged to resist the

temptation to make moral judgments of deviant sexual behaviours (Barbaree & Langton, 2006, pp. 594–

95). is is especially important when considering such behaviour in children and adolescents. Young

children may not yet have an ability to appreciate that particular sexual behaviours are considered to

be morally wrong, socially inappropriate, harmful, or illegal (Pithers & Gray, 1998), and deviant sexual

behaviours in adolescents are oen the result of abusive experiences they have endured as a child (e.g.,

Craissati et al., 2002). Nevertheless, it is critically important for an evaluator to be able to identify sexual

behaviours in adolescence when they are abusive or criminal (Barbaree & Marshall, 2006, pp. 1–18).

B. Sexual Abuse

ere is now widespread recognition that all adults have the right to make autonomous decisions con-

cerning their participation in sexual relations (United Nations General Assembly, 1994) by weighing for

themselves the balance between the potential risks and rewards of any sexual relationship. When sexual

interactions are forced against a non-consenting person, the sexual interactions are, by denition, abu-

sive. e “force” involved in the abuse does not necessarily involve physical force. Sexual relations may

be considered to be abusive when they are attained by manipulation, subterfuge, or misrepresentation.

Or, they may be seen to be abusive if the alleged perpetrator uses a position of authority over the victim

to gain sexual access (e.g., as a coach, teacher, or parent).

Sex between an adult or older adolescent and a child is inherently abusive because children are un-

able to provide true consent. Finkelhor (1979) articulated two preconditions to true consent:

• full knowledge regarding what is being consented to; and,

• absolute freedom to accept or decline.

Young children have not yet developed the capacity to give consent to sexual relations because:

• they have not yet developed the intellectual ability or the knowledge to properly weigh the risks and

rewards of sexual relations; and,

• children are susceptible to inuence by adults and older adolescents, who, by virtue of their maturity

and greater experience easily exert control over younger children (Ondersma et al., 2 001).