Juvenile Sex Offender

1
Juvenile Sex Offender Sibling Abuse
Psychiatric Legal Perspectives

• Gagan Dhaliwal, MD
• Assistant Clinical Professor
• University of Alabama, Birmingham, School of
  Medicine, Huntsville, AL

2
Juvenile Sex Offender

• 18 and younger
• Commits a sexual offense against a victim of any
  age (1)
• Age range Between 5 and 18
• Median age 14 and 15 (2)

3
Juvenile Sex Crimes

• Juvenile arrests dropped between 1980 and 2003
• But reporting of minors abusing other children
  increased (3)
• Proportion of juveniles arrested for sex offenses
  and possession of weapons increased (4)

4
Type of Juvenile Sex Crimes

• Youths commit 41 percent of sexual assaults on
  children (5)
• Commit one-fifth of all rapes
• Commit one-half of all child molestations in
  United States (6)
• Juveniles commit 20-30 of rapes
• (7) (8)

5
Characteristics of Juvenile Sex Offenders

• 90 of known juvenile sex offenders are male
• 90 victims are known to the offender (9)
• Frequently Intrafamilial sexual abuse
• Brother-sister sexual contact is five times more
  common than father-daughter incest (10)
• Fondling, frottage, dry humping, vaginal or anal
  penetration are common aggressive acts (11) (12)

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Types of Sex Offenses in Juveniles

• Higher incidence of intercourse and invasive
  sexual contact with their victims among juvenile
  sex offenders
• More willing to physically injure their victim
• Increased threats with a weapon to gain
  compliance (13)
• 60 of juvenile sex offenses engage in sexual
  penetration
• Increased use of threats to keep victim silent
  (14)

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Psychiatric Characteristics

• Socially introverted
• More resentful/Irritable
• Less thought disordered than the general offender
  group(15) (16)

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11
Sibling Abuse

• Screen for the possibility of sibling abuse
• sexually maltreated juvenile can prey on other
  siblings
• Large number of juvenile offenders report a
  history of child abuse

12
Understanding Sibling Abuse

• First understand Family Violence
• Dynamics
• What happens between mom and dad
• Then what happens between siblings

13
Family Dynamics and Underlying Motives

• Families of juvenile sex offenders are often
  either rigid or enmeshed, or very chaotic with a
  great deal of role confusion (17)
• Denial of sexual tensions and paucity of sexual
  knowledge or education predominate among these
  family members (18)

14
What is Cycle-of-abuse?

• When an offender recreates the abuse that he or
  she received in childhood
• Abused children can turn into abusive juveniles
• But it does not mean that all victims of abuse
  become future sexual offenders

15
Association for Treatment of Sexual Abusers

• "poor social competency skills and deficits in
  self-esteem explains sexual deviance in
  juveniles, rather than the paraphilic interests
  and psychopathic characteristics that are more
  common in adult offenders" (19)

16
Normative Sexual Development in Children

• Children develop sexually, seeking information
  about the nature of sexual life through play and
  exploration with others (20)
• Children explore their bodies and genitals
• By age three or four, many children engage in
  various forms of sex play with peers
• Engage in sexual exploration games and peek in at
  the other child's parts

17
Development in Children

• Sex Play" between children is loosely described
  as contact that is often exploratory in nature
• Consists of activities such as playing doctor or
  engaging in exploratory touching and tickling
• Accompanied with joy, laughter, embarrassment,
  inhibition, spontaneity (20)
• But sex play becomes a concern when done
  routinely or when accompanied by coercion or in
  absence of mutual consent (21)

18
Impact of Adolescence on Development

• Increase in sexual development
• Children more aware of their bodies
• Masturbatory activities become more common in
  preadolescence
• But also could become a problem when the practice
  leads to physical harm or conducted in public or
  inappropriate times

19
Sexual Recidivism

• Likelihood of re-offense after capture
• "habitual criminal" or "criminal repeater"
• States handle juvenile sex offenders differently
• Alabama's legislature indicate that juveniles are
  more likely to respond to treatment and less
  prone to exhibit deviant patterns than adult
  offenders

20
Risk Assessment

• Although many adult sex offenders commit
  their first sexual offense as a juvenile, there
  is little evidence to support the assumption that
  the majority of juvenile sexual offenders are
  destined to become adult sexual offenders (22)

21
Impact of Treatment on Sexual Recidivism

• Juvenile offenders who participate in treatment
  have recidivism rates of between 7 and 13 over
  a five-year period
• Compared to 15 to 50 percent recidivism rate for
  non-sexual offenses
• Recidivism rate of juvenile sexual offenses is
  between 5 and 15
• Only 7 among 256 juvenile sex offenders
  committing another sexual offense over a six-year
  period (23)

22
Comparing Response to Treatment

• Juvenile sex offenders respond better to
  treatment than adult sex offenders
• Have less deeply ingrained deviant sexual
  patterns
• Able to explore alternative ways to receive
  sexual gratification
• Show increased effectiveness of learning
  interpersonal and social skills
• But still some do not respond to treatment

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Role of Forensic Psychiatrist in Sibling Abuse

• What is the forensic/legal/medical issue?
• Establishing doctor-evaluee relationship
• Confidentiality issues Who gets the report,
  opinion?
• Evaluate if behavior is normal or abnormal
• Psychiatric evaluation
• Risk assessment
• Psychiatric treatment

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• REFERENCES
• (1) Joyce F. Lakey, The Profile and Treatment of
  Male Sexual Offenders, 29 Adolescence 755 (1994)
• (2) Henry R. Cellini, PH.D, Assessment and
  Treatment of the Adolescent Sexual Offender, The
  Sex Offender 6-1
• (3) Timothy E. Wind The Quandary Of Megan's Law
  When the Child Sex Offender is a Child Fall,
  2003, 37 J. Marshall L. Rev.
• (4) Juvenile Offenders and Victims 2006 National
  Report Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
  Prevention
• (5) Earl F. Martin Marsha Kline Pruett, The
  Juvenile Sex Offender and the Juvenile Justice
  System, 35 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 279, 285-86 (1998)
• (6) Tom Talbot et al., Ctr. for Sex Offender
  Mgmt., An Overview of Sex Offender Management, at
  http//www.csom.org/pubs/csom_bro.pdf (July 2002)
• (7) G. Davis H. Leitenberg, Adolescent Sex
  Offenders, 101 Psychological Bulletin 417-427
  (1987)
• (8) P. Fehrenback et al., Adolescent Sexual
  Offenders Offender and Offense Characteristics,
  56 Am. J. of Orthopsychiatry 225
• (9) Alexis O. Miranda Colette L. Corcoran,
  Comparison of Perpetration Characteristics
  Between Male Juvenile Adult Sexual Offenders
  Preliminary Results, 12 Sexual Abuse A J. of
  Res. and Treatment 179 (2000)
• (10) Vernon R. Wiehe, Sibling Abuse Hidden
  Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Trauma, 50 (1990)
• (11) Earl F. Martin Marsha Kline Pruett, The
  Juvenile Sex Offender and the Juvenile Justice
  System, 35 Crim. L. Rev. 279, 282 (1998)
• (12) Grant M. Johnson Raymond A. Knight,
  Developmental Antecedents of Sexual Coercion in
  Juvenile Sexual Offenders, 12 Sexual Abuse A J.
  of Res. Treatment 165 (2000)
• (13) Keith L. Kaufman et al., Factors Influencing
  Sexual Offenders' Modus Operandi An Examination
  of Victim-Offender Relatedness and Age, 3 Child
  Maltreatment 349, 356-57 (1998)
• (14) David Finkelhor Patricia Hashima, The
  Victimization of Children Youth - A
  Comprehensive Overview in Handbook of Youth
  Just. 29 (White et al. eds., 2001)
• (15) Lucinda A. Rasmussesn, Factors Related to
  Recidivism Among Juvenile Sexual Offenders, 11
  Sexual Abuse A Journal Of Research and Treatment
  69 (1999)
• (16) Paul Valliant Tracy Bergerson, Personality
  Criminal Profile of Adolescent Sexual
  Offenders, General Offenders In Comparison to
  Nonoffenders," 81 Psychol. Reports 483 (1997)
• (17) Gary P. Bischof et al., Family Environments
  of Adolescent Sex Offenders Other Juvenile
  Delinquents, 30 Adolescence 157 (1995)