The classification of sexual offenders : an investigation into methods of discriminating amongst various groups in an institutional setting

• Main Author: Pratt, Peter Stanley
• Published: University of Liverpool 1986
• Subjects: 364.15
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.502541

The aim of this research was to investigate the concordance between response systems in the sexual arousal of sexual offenders. The lack of concordance between the physiolcY:Jically assessed sexu.al arousal and the sllITultaneous internal experience of the response was assumed to be specific to sexual offenders and to contribute to their pattern of impulsive, assaultive sexual behaviour. It was intended to examine the fonn of this desynchrony and to investigate whether it might be due to an inability to 'track' or alternatively to the specific demand characteristics of the sexual assessment environment. A particular relationship between the two response systems was found only in a sub-group (68 %) of the sexual offenders, and this pattern was found, not in response to sexually deviant material, but to films of consenting, legal behaviour. Exposure to explicit depictions of illegal sexual behaviour served mainly to identify the non-sexual offenders. Where materials are not available, or cannot be used, discrimination between groups can be carried out less successfully by using data from an attitude questionnaire.