Table Of ContentSex Crimes and Sex Offenders
Sex Crimes and Sex Offenders: Research and Realities provides an overview of social
scientific theory and research on sex crimes and sex offenders. Most other books on
the market are focused on a single issue—such as treatment, rape, pedophilia, theory,
etc. This book is unique in that it covers the most current theory and research along
with individual cases of sex crimes (e.g., Kobe Bryant, Jerry Sandusky, and other case
studies), effectively linking theory and research with the realities of sex crimes and
sex offenders as well as their victims. Vandiver, Braithwaite, and Stafford are careful
to dispel myths and to focus on the heterogeneity of sex crimes and sex offenders,
and not on any one issue or population or theory. Instead, they weave a framework
using a full range of theoretical concepts and research data to integrate their discus-
sions of crimes, offenders, victims, treatments, and policy implications. The result is
a valuable resource for students and early-stage researchers investigating sex crimes
or offenders.
Donna Vandiver, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Texas
State University in San Marcos, Texas. She co-authored Juvenile sex offenders: What
the public needs to know in 2008. She has published on a broad range of topics related
to sex crimes and sex offenders, with a focus on female and juvenile sex offenders.
She has authored/co-authored 26 refereed articles and book chapters.
Jeremy Braithwaite, Ph.D., is an Evaluation Manager at Social Solutions Interna-
tional, Inc., in Rockville, Maryland. He has published 12 refereed articles and over
50 technical reports for federal agencies, including Health and Human Services and
the U.S. Air Force. He is currently working on a book on rape and domestic violence
in rural Alaskan communities.
Mark Stafford, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Texas State
University in San Marcos, Texas. He is the co-author of American delinquency: Its
meaning and construction (3rd ed., 4th ed.) and has published more than 30 refereed
articles and book chapters.
[Sex Crimes and Sex Offenders] will appeal to a broad audience of students who desire employment as social work-
ers, law enforcement officers, probation and/or parole officers, case managers, etc. The inclusion of a discussion
of crime investigation will make this book very attractive to budding criminal justice professionals.
—Lisa Sample, University of Nebraska Omaha
Sex Crimes and
Sex Offenders
Research and Realities
Donna Vandiver
Jeremy Braithwaite
Mark Stafford
Please visit the companion website at
www.routledge.com/cw/vandiver
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
The right of Donna Vandiver, Jeremy Braithwaite, and Mark
Stafford to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted
by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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including photocopying and recording, or in any information
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publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Vandiver, Donna M., 1972– author. | Braithwaite, Jeremy,
author. | Stafford, Mark C., author.
Title: Sex crimes and sex offenders : theory, research, and realities /
Donna Vandiver, Jeremy Braithwaite, Mark Stafford.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025162 | ISBN 9781138937093 (hardback) |
ISBN 1138937096 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138937109 (pbk.) |
ISBN 113893710X (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex crimes. | Sex offenders.
Classification: LCC HV6556 .V36 2016 | DDC 364.15/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025162
ISBN: 978-1-138-93709-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-93710-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-31567-646-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Stone Serif
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface vi
CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1
CHAPTER 2 Theories about Sex Crimes and Sex Offenders 23
CHAPTER 3 Rape 51
CHAPTER 4 Child Sexual Abuse 89
CHAPTER 5 Child Pornography 123
CHAPTER 6 Juvenile Sex Offenders 152
CHAPTER 7 Female Sex Offenders 185
CHAPTER 8 I nstitutional Abuse: Child Molesters
and Rapists 211
CHAPTER 9 I nvestigations of Sex Crimes and
Sex Offenders 240
CHAPTER 10 Assessment Tools and Treatment
of Sex Offenders 271
CHAPTER 11 Registration Laws and Civil Commitment
of Sex Offenders 304
CHAPTER 12 Conclusion 329
Notes 340
Index 341
v
PREFACE
Teaching a course on sex crimes and sex offenders has often required that instructors
cobble together resources, from journal articles to newspaper articles, and sections
of books written on narrow topics. After repeating this exercise too many times, we
opted to write a textbook. We first had to consider the common stereotypes, miscon-
ceptions, and other biases about sex crimes and sex offenders. Our students brought
them to our attention, as they often asked questions that reflected them (e.g., all sex
offenders recidivate, right?), which they had discerned from the media and their
own “commonsense” perspectives. This became the foundation of the textbook:
identifying common myths and subsequently addressing them with the most recent
and best research available.
After several semesters of teaching the course, we realized that the core themes
must involve discussion of theories about sex crimes and sex offenders and different
types of sex crimes (e.g., rape, child molestation, and child pornography), identifica-
tion of salient groups of offenders and the contexts in which they commonly commit
their crimes (e.g., juveniles, females, and those who offend in the context of an insti-
tution), and providing information about the identification, control, and treatment
of sex offenders in the criminal justice system. This subsequently became an outline
of chapter topics that we believed would provide a comprehensive perspective.
This textbook was written with students in mind, as it considers what is often
thought about sex crimes and sex offenders by people who have not studied the
topic closely. It is appropriate for use in any undergraduate or graduate-level course
that is geared specifically towards sex crimes and sex offenders. Also, it can be used
in a course that is more broadly oriented toward criminal behavior and/or deviant
sexual behavior. It should be useful for instructors not just in criminal justice, but
also public policy, social work, and sociology.
This textbook differs from competing textbooks in several ways. First, it focuses
on sex crimes and sex offenders in a comprehensive way. There are many trade
books on narrow aspects of the topic, such as juvenile sex offenders, investigation
of sex crimes, and treatment of sex offenders. There are also many textbooks about
crime and criminals in general, but this textbook provides an in-depth discussion
of sex crimes and sex offenders in particular. Second, this book incorporates several
broad themes related to criminology (why people commit crimes), policy-related
issues (e.g., sex-crime and sex-offender-based laws), and the assessment and treat-
ment of sex offenders—yet this is done with sex crimes and sex offenders in mind.
Thus, this textbook integrates many core themes from psychology, sociology, crim-
inology, and law.
vi
PREFACE vii
On the Alice in Wonderland art on the cover:
Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was a nineteenth-
century, English mathematician, logician, and cleric, who wrote Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland and its sequels. Many people around the world know of Alice’s fan-
tastical experiences with Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit,
March Hare, and Jabberwock, but few know of the controversy surrounding Car-
roll’s interest in little girls. Carroll was besotted with little girls and often photo-
graphed them in various states of undress. His most famous model was Alice Riddell
who was the inspiration for his famous book and to whom Carroll first told the
story of wonderland. He once photographed Alice as a young beggar, barely covered
by a tattered dress with the hint of a nipple peeping from under it. Alfred Tennyson
described it as the most beautiful photograph he had ever seen. However, Vladimir
Nabokov, himself controversial because of his book Lolita about a middle-aged man,
Humbert Humbert, who was obsessed with a 12-year-old girl with whom he eventu-
ally had sex, said this about Carroll and his photographs:
He has a pathetic affinity with H.H. [Humbert Humbert], but some odd scruple pre-
vented me from alluding in Lolita to his perversion and to those ambiguous pho-
tographs he took in dim rooms. He got away with it, as so many other Victorians
got away with pederasty and nympholepsy. His were sad scrawny little nymphets,
bedraggled and half-undressed, or rather semi-undraped, as if participating in some
dusty and dreadful charade (Appel & Nabokov, 1967, pp. 142–143).
Carroll’s photographs were taken with the consent of his models and their parents.
While many of the photographs would be considered child pornography today,
they would not have disturbed 19th-century Victorians who viewed naked children
as cherubs void of sexuality. Moreover, even if Carroll’s interest in little girls was at
least partly pedophilic rather than entirely artistic, there was no evidence he had
sex with any of them, though he was known to have bounced them on his knee
and kissed them. Carroll’s interest in little girls and his photographs can be viewed
through two looking glasses—one innocent and the other dark. The view in this
textbook is not so equivocal; it is the darkness of sex offenders and the sex crimes
they commit.
Appel, A. Jr., & Nabokov, V. (1967). An Interview with Vladimir Nabokov. Wisconsin Stud-
ies in Contemporary Literature, 8(2): 127–152.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
• Discuss the moral panic towards sex crimes and sex offenders.
• Define a sex crime.
• Identify sources and current numbers of sex crimes/sex offenders.
• Identify the historical roots of conducting sex research.
• Identify paraphilias identified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (fifth edition) (DSM-5).
• Assess sexual recidivism rates of known sex offenders.
• Provide an overview of myths about sex crimes and sex offenders.
What we know about sex crimes and sex offenders has changed substantially over
the past several decades. For example, Robert Longo, now the director of a psychi-
atric hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, “remembers appearing on ‘Dona-
hue’ and ‘Oprah’ in the 1980s, making pronouncements like ‘sex offenders can’t
be cured,’ and ‘victims are damaged for life.’ Neither statement was based on good
research, he now says. ‘We were desperately trying to bring attention to the issue,’
Longo says of himself and other sex-abuse experts, ‘and we went way overboard’ ”
(Jones, 2007, n.p.).
Bring up sex offenders to any group of people, and most, if not all, will agree
they are morally reprehensible—monsters. They inflict harm on victims and engage
in disgusting behaviors. Differences of opinion among community members and
experts in the field, however, begin to emerge when you ask questions such as:
should sex offenders be treated or locked up in prison for life? Are sex offenders
treatable? Do they all recidivate? The goal of this textbook is to identify many
of the myths that exist regarding sex offenders and to identify what the research
reveals. In some instances, the research may be definitive. Yet, in other instances,
the research is murky. We will highlight not only what the research says, but also
where gaps exist.
In order to identify the myths and, subsequently, the research and realities of
sex crimes and sex offenders, several overarching themes are examined. For exam-
ple, a great deal of moral panic has been generated towards sex crimes and sex
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