Self-Confidence

1

Sex Offenders How Treatment, Employment, and
Level of Denial Relate to Education and
IQ Caitlyn E. McNeil University of
Nebraska-Lincoln

Results
Introduction
Education and IQ are important to our lives as
we grow and develop into mature adults. As
individuals progress they make decisions that
influence their future life styles and/or
careers. A select portion of individuals go down
the road to violence, aggression, and danger
(whether that entails stalking, murder, rape,
molesting, etc.). This study looks to sex
offenders to explore the relationships of both
educational level and IQ to three factors
treatment, previous employment, and level of
responsibility. Findings from Previous
Research ? Excuses made by child molesters for
their sexual misconduct may offer important
indicators of remorse, rehabilitation potential,
and the probability of recidivism. They may also
show underlying cognitive disorders (Pollock
Hashmall, 1991). ? Cognitive deconstruction
enables individuals to distance themselves from
stress affiliated with self- awareness that puts
attention on the concrete rather than the
abstract level (Mann, 2004). ?
Cognitive-behavioral treatment focuses on
internal events that can be changed, controlled,
or both to prevent relapse of offenses (Wood,
Grossman, Fichtner, 2000). ? Among child
molester and rapists results showed no
difference between full, partial, and
non- admitters for the offenses they committed
(Nugent Kroner, 1996). ? Rapists demonstrated
that more fully admitted their crimes than those
who partially or totally denied their crimes but
more denied than partially admitted to their
crimes. Child molesters demonstrated that there
were more who partially admitted their crimes
than those who fully admitted or denied their
crimes but more admitted than denied their
crimes (Craissati Beech, 2004). ? Juvenile
sex offenders showed no difference between
completers and non-completers of a treatment
program for both IQ and grade level (Kraemer,
Salisbury, Fichtner, 2000). Research
Hypotheses 1.) Overall, no difference will be
found in education or IQ for all three levels of
denial regardless of whether they were in the
prison or treated group or even if they were
previously employed.
Table 2 shows the summary of the factorial ANOVA
analyses, table 3 shows the descriptive
statistics for Education, and Table 4 shows the
descriptive statistics for IQ. Factorial ANOVAs
with follow-up analysis using the LSD procedure
(p.05) were performed to examine the
relationship between level of denial (full vs.
qualified vs. denial), treatment (prison vs.
treated), and previous employment (unemployed vs.
employed) as they relate to education level and
IQ. Education Level There was a three-way
interaction between treatment, employment and
level of denial as they relate to education
(F(1,353)3.578, p.029, Mse4.750). Follow-up
analysis (LSD1.095) revealed that, for the
previously unemployed individuals, in both the
prison and treated group, those who did a full
admission, qualified admission, and denied their
crimes showed equivalent amounts of education
levels. The previously employed, in the prison
group, showed that those who did a qualified
admission had a higher education mean that those
who did a full admission abut no effect between
qualified admission and denial of their crimes
the previously employed, in the treated group,
showed that those who denied their crimes had a
lower education mean than both those who did full
and qualified admission but no effect between
full and qualified admission of their crimes.
Figure 1 shows this three-way data. There was no
main effect of level of denial (F(2,353)1.73, p
.176, Mse 4.75) or treatment (F(1,353).2.977,
p .085, Mse 4.75). There was a main effect of
previous employment (F(1,353)6.097, p.014,
Mse4.75). Follow-up analysis revealed that,
overall, those who were previously unemployed had
a higher education level than those who were
employed. When taking treatment and level of
denial into account in the three-way, this
pattern was found to be true for those who fully
admitted their crimes in the prison condition and
for those who denied their crime in the treated
condition. IQ Analysis revealed that there was
no three-way interaction between treatment,
employment, and level of denial as they relate to
IQ (F(2,229)1.532, p.218, Mse235.841), Figure
2 shows this data. There was no main effect for
level of denial (F(2,229).154, p.857,
Mse235.841) or treatment (F(1,229)1.079, p.3,
Mse235.841). However, there was a main effect
for previous employment as it relates to IQ
(F(1,229)4.782, p.03, Mse235.841). Overall,
those who were previously unemployed had a higher
IQ than those who were employed.
Discussion

Method
The purpose of this study was to examine
education level and IQ as they relate to
treatment, previous employment, and level of
responsibility. The hypothesis was that there
would be no difference in education level or IQ
for all three levels of denial regardless of
whether they were in the prison or treatment
group or even if they were previously employed.
As hypothesized there was no difference between
full admission, qualified admission, and denial
for IQ when taking treatment and previous
employment into account, which confirms the
results found from Nugent and Kroner (1996), but
not the results from Craissati and Beech (2004).
There was however a significant difference for
the previous employment status of sex offenders,
which showed that overall those who were
unemployed had a higher IQ than those
employed. Contrary to the hypothesis there was
some discrepancy involved in the three-way
interaction of the education level. As
hypothesized, the previously unemployed for both
the prison and treated groups showed no
difference between all three levels of denial for
their crime which also confirmed the results
found from Nugent and Kroner (1996). Contrary to
the hypothesis and previous research, for the
previously employed sex offenders in the prison
group, there was no difference between denial and
full or qualified admission while those who fully
admitted to their crime had a lower education
level than those who qualifiedly admitted for
the previously employed sex offenders in the
treated group, there was no difference between
those who fully and qualifiedly admitted to their
crimes but those who denied their crimes had a
lower education level than those who fully and
qualifiedly admitted. Although there was a
significant difference for the previous
employment status of the sex offenders which
showed that overall those who were unemployed had
a higher IQ than those employed this was not
descriptive for the three-way interaction. Overal
l, there are several improvements which might be
made while considering future research. Finding
an accurate sex offender representation of the
population may be difficult to obtain. Most
sexual assaults are not detected or reported or
if they are reported are not recorded. Some
offenders may under or over report their
offensive behavior which may then throw off the
researchers data. The sex offenders present in
the justice system may not be representative of
the whole sex offender population. If the
population is not representable then the
information gathered from previous and future
research may be only be applicable to a portion
of all sex offenders (Wood, Grossman Fichtner,
2000). Until there is a complete true justice
system, all that is known about sex offenders
is biased toward a section of sex offenders. The
only way to get to this complete justice system,
if at all attainable, would be to keep
researching and discovering new data to help us
understand and further our knowledge. Future
research should further look into whether or not
IQ and education have an impact on sex offenders
level of responsibility for their actions. It
may also be advantageous to examine other
characteristics such age and sexual orientation
to see how those variables impact the offenders
acceptance of responsibility for their crimes.

• Participants
• 387 male sex offenders ranging in age from 16
  to 83 with a mean age of 35.8 (S.D. 12.00).
• Convicts were from a Midwestern state and
  released from either an inpatient treatment for
  correctional facility between 1991 and 1997.
• 178 (46) were in the correctional facility and
  209 (54) were in the inpatient treatment
  facility.
• 280 (72.4) were European American, 36 (9.3)
  African American, 21 (5.4) Hispanic American, 21
  (5.4) Native American, and 5 (1.3) categorized
  themselves as other.
• Measures
• Data was archival and was collected from
  correctional, treatment, and legal records.
• Demographics (previous employment and IQ) were
  based on offenders condition at the time of
  arrest.
• Education level was based on the number of
  years completed at the time of arrest.
• Offenders level of responsibility for their
  crimes were based from any of the available
  sources.
• Procedures
• ? Treated offenders either volunteered or were
  civilly committed by the courts while the
  untreated offenders were those who refused
  treatment and were then randomly selected based
  on the time of discharge as the treated group.
• ? Treated offenders received cognitive-behavioral
  programming group and individual therapy in a
  secure forensic hospital.