Assessing parental understanding of sexualized behavior in children and adolescents.

The current study assessed parents' ability to identify normal, concerning and harmful sexualized behaviors in children and adolescents, as well as the parents' ability to identify and select an appropriate level of intervention. The influence of a parent's relationship with the victim or the perpetrator on the level of action taken was also examined. A cross-sectional survey incorporating a randomized experimental vignette condition determined that parents (N=244) were not able to consistently identify sexualized behaviors accurately, and they provided lower-than-recommended levels of intervention responses. Parents were best able to identify and respond to behaviors considered normal and age-appropriate, but had greater difficulty with behaviors considered concerning or harmful. Parents were significantly less able to accurately identify and respond to behaviors exhibited by very young children (in the 0-4 year-old age-bracket). In three vignette comparisons, no significant difference in the level of intervention responses was found between parents who viewed the victim as their own child and parents who viewed the perpetrator as their child; while parents who viewed both the victim and perpetrator as being their children (siblings) reported lower intervention response levels. Because a lack of accurate knowledge around risks and indicators of child sexual abuse negatively affects the ability to prevent and detect abuse, the results have implications for a shift from a forensic model of child protection towards a public health model, which emphasizes parent and community education.

The Westermarck Hypothesis and the Israeli Kibbutzim: Reconciling Contrasting Evidence.

The case of the communal education system in the Israeli kibbutzim is often considered to provide conclusive support for Westermarck's (1891) assertion regarding the existence of evolutionary inbreeding avoidance mechanisms in humans. However, recent studies that have gone back to the kibbutzim seem to provide contrasting evidence and reopen the discussion regarding the case of the kibbutzim and inbreeding avoidance more generally (Lieberman & Lobel, 2012; Shor & Simchai, 2009). In this article, I reassess the case of the kibbutzim, reevaluating the findings and conclusions of these recent research endeavors. I argue that the differences between recent research reports largely result from conceptual and methodological differences and that, in fact, these studies provide insights that are more similar than first meets the eye. I also suggest that we must reexamine the common assumption that the kibbutzim serve as an ideal natural experiment for examining the sources of incest avoidance and the incest taboo. Finally, I discuss the implications of these studies to the longstanding debate over the Westermarck hypothesis and call for a synthetic theoretical framework that produces more precise predictions and more rigorous empirical research designs.

Risk factors for father-daughter incest: data from an anonymous computerized survey.

Retrospective data from 2,034 female participants, provided anonymously using a computer-assisted self-interview, were used to identify risk factors for father-daughter incest (FDI). A total of 51 participants had reported having experienced FDI. The risk factors identified within the nuclear family by the multiple logistic regression analysis included the following: (a) Having parents whose relationship included verbal or physical fighting or brutality increased the likelihood of FDI by approximately 5 times; (b) families accepting father-daughter nudity as measured by a scale with values ranging from 0 to 4 increased the likelihood of FDI by approximately 2 times for each unit value increase of 1 above 0; (c) demonstrating maternal affection protected against FDI. The likelihood of being a victim of FDI was highest if the participant's mother never kissed or hugged her; it decreased by 0.44 for a 1-unit increase in affection and by 0.19 times for a 2-unit increase; and (d) being in homes headed by single-parent mothers or where divorce or death of the father had resulted in a man other than the biological father living in the home increased the risk of FDI by approximately 3.2 times. The results were consistent with the idea that FDI in many families was the cumulative result of a circular pattern of interactions, a finding that has implications for treatment of the perpetrator, the victim, and the families. The data also suggested it may be possible to design an information program for parents that will result in reducing the risk of FDI in families implementing the program's recommendations.

[Assessment of a new law for sex offenders implemented in France in 1998]. / Loi du 17 juin 1998 : bilan de l'expérience des médecins coordonnateurs de Haute Normandie.

OBJECTIVES: Most people recognize that incarceration alone will not solve sexual violence. Treating the offenders is critical in an approach to preventing sexual violence and reducing victimization. The Law of June 17, 1998, on the prevention and repression of sexual offences, as well as the protection of minors, makes a provision for the possibility of medical and psychological monitoring adapted to these particular individuals. Sex offenders may well be constrained, after their incarceration, to social and judicial follow-up, which may include coerced treatment in order to reduce the risk of recidivism. In order to control this follow-up, the legislature has created the position of medical coordinator, who acts as an interface between justice and care in conjunction with the treating physician. This study is the first attempt to evaluate the activity of physician coordinators conducted in France since the implementation in 2004 of the 1998 law on monitoring sex offenders. METHODS: An interview of all the physician coordinators in Upper Normandy was conducted. The files of all sex offenders subjected to coerced treatment were studied. RESULTS: In our sample of 100 sex offenders who were subjected to coerced treatment (any kind of treatment) (99% men, 60% of sexual assaults on minors, 14% of cases of indecent exposure), minor victims of sexual assault were: 78% females; in 90% of cases the victim was aged under 14 years (under 10 in 52% of cases), 60% of cases were intrafamilial incest; the victim was an unknown aggressor in only one case out of 60. The constraint follow-up contributed to reducing the risk of recidivism (three cases of recidivism in 100 individuals over an average duration of follow-up of five years), although it remains difficult to assess the recidivism over a duration of time as short as five years. A diagnosis of paraphilia was only applied in 19% of cases (in 10 cases pedophilia, exhibitionism in nine cases). Only six subjects were receiving antiandrogen treatment. A diagnosis based on Axis I DSM was established in 57% of cases. Personality disorders were mentioned in the medical records in 65% of cases. An antisocial personality disorder was not prominent (20%). In 56 cases, the individuals had been victims of physical, psychological or sexual abuse. Nearly half of the individuals had a past history of sexual or non sexual offences, among those, 16 subjects had previously been convicted at least three times. The seniority of the prior conviction was more than 10 years in 43% of cases. Physician coordinators interviewed were satisfied with their work and felt they had contributed to improving the care of patients who had committed sexual offences. CONCLUSION: However, this study shows the need to create a national reference centre, which could enable a multidisciplinary evaluation of difficult cases and could also boost the development of research in this area where many questions remain unanswered, particularly regarding the determinants of deviant sexual behaviour and risk factors for recidivism.

Westermarck, Freud, and the incest taboo: does familial resemblance activate sexual attraction?

Evolutionary psychological theories assume that sexual aversions toward kin are triggered by a nonconscious mechanism that estimates the genetic relatedness between self and other. This article presents an alternative perspective that assumes that incest avoidance arises from consciously acknowledged taboos and that when awareness of the relationship between self and other is bypassed, people find individuals who resemble their kin more sexually appealing. Three experiments demonstrate that people find others more sexually attractive if they have just been subliminally exposed to an image of their opposite-sex parent (Experiment 1) or if the face being rated is a composite image based on the self (Experiment 2). This finding is reversed when people are aware of the implied genetic relationship (Experiment 3). These findings have implications for a century-old debate between E. Westermarck and S. Freud, as well as contemporary research on evolution, mate choice, and sexual imprinting.

Sperm donor limits that control for the 'relative' risk associated with the use of open-identity donors.

The majority of countries that support the use of donor insemination (DI) in artificial reproductive technology (ART) limit the number of children born from one donor. The setting of these donor limits, though intended to control for the risk of inadvertent half-sibling unions between the offspring of anonymous donors, actually have no evidence base. Controlling for the risk of inadvertent half-sibling unions may soon become unnecessary due to the increasing world-wide use of open-identity sperm donors and the revocation of donor anonymity in many countries. With the shift from anonymous to open-identity donation, the central issue is not the risk of genetic abnormality from inadvertent half-sibling consanguinity; it is the psycho-social impact of the multiple use of open-identity sperm donors. Despite this, the jurisdictions that allow or mandate the use of open-identity donors continue to observe existing limits that do not consider nor specifically control for the psycho-social impact of the multiple use of open-identity sperm donors. It is proposed that: (i) conservative interim donor limits be placed on the multiple use of open-identity donors, while research into the psycho-social impact of disclosure is undertaken to inform the establishment of evidence-based limits; and (ii) the existing limits in jurisdictions where anonymity is still commonly practiced or protected could be raised, if an updated mathematical model was used for calculating evidence-based anonymous donor limits.

Incest avoidance, the incest taboo, and social cohesion: revisiting Westermarck and the case of the Israeli kibbutzim.

During the past 50 years, a consensus has been forming around Edward Westermarck's idea that incest avoidance results from an aversion that develops when individuals are brought up in propinquity. The argument here presented counters this emerging consensus. Reexamining the case of the Israeli kibbutzim, the authors show that individuals who grew up in the kibbutzim's communal education system were in fact often attracted to their peers, and only rarely did they develop sexual aversion toward these peers. This article offers an alternative explanation to the problem of incest avoidance and the incest taboo, one that brings sociological factors back into the picture.

[Criminal recidivism among sexual offenders]. / Kriminelt recidiv blandt saedelighedskriminelle.

INTRODUCTION: No previous reports have been published on the rate, frequency and nature of long-term sexual recidivism for a large cohort of Danish sexual offenders who have been through a forensic psychiatric evaluation. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A retrospective follow-up study of all male sexual offenders evaluated between 1st January 1978 and 31st December 1992 at the Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Aarhus University Hospital, or at the Clinic of Forensic Psychiatry, Ministry of Justice, Copenhagen (n = 441). RESULTS: Of the followed cohort (n = 342) 30% were sentenced for a new sexual criminal offence (including severe sexual acts), 17% for severe sexual acts, 32% for nonsexual violence and 61% for general crime during follow-up (average 16.5 years). There was a low rate of repeated sexual recidivism (12%) and severe sexual recidivism (6%). Extra-familial child molesters and exhibitionists had the highest risk of sexual recidivism and repeated sexual offences. Rapists had the highest risk of severe sexual recidivism and re-offended more rapidly than the other offender subgroups. Intra-familial child molesters had a low recidivism rate. Young offenders had a higher recidivism risk than older offenders. Severely mentally ill or retarded had a statistically lower rate of sexual recidivism than less disturbed offenders. CONCLUSION: The sexual recidivism rate varies across sexual offender types. The management and prevention of sexual recidivism need to focus on treatment of sexual offenders with the highest risk of severe and repeated sexual offences.

Treatment of sexual offenders with psychopathic traits: recent research developments and clinical implications.

This article provides a review of recent literature related to the treatment of psychopathy in forensic settings, with particular focus on studies with sexual offenders. The lack of empirical support for the position that psychopaths are untreatable is noted, and data suggesting optimism is discussed. Research demonstrating an interaction between psychopathy and substance abuse and between psychopathy and sexual deviance is also presented. Both substance abuse disorders and inappropriate arousal are frequently encountered in high-risk groups of sexual offenders. These topics are of relevance, in that the question of whether treatment is beneficial with high-risk sexual offenders, including those who are psychopathic, cannot be answered unless groups presenting with typical concurrent disorders (paraphilias, substance abuse, dependence) are discussed. It is argued that, although the evidence is still preliminary, there is reason for optimism with reference to whether psychopathic sexual offenders are responsive to treatment, including offenders presenting with concurrent disorders.

The use of clarification sessions in the treatment of incest victims and their families: an exploratory study.

The "clarification session" has been implicated as an important component of the treatment of families affected by incest. On the basis of information presented in clinical literature, however, the specific nature of this intervention varies widely. This exploratory study examined the practices and attitudes regarding clarification sessions of select members of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. Surveys were completed by 483 members. Results indicated that approximately 77% of respondents had experience in conducting clarification sessions. The top two reported reasons for conducting clarification sessions were for the perpetrator to assume all responsibility for the abuse and to decrease the level of self-blame of the victim. The majority of respondents concurred that several activities needed to occur prior to the clarification session, whereas less consensus was indicated for activities that were deemed essential during the clarification session. Respondents' practices, attitudes, and beliefs are discussed in terms of the current state of limited, empirically based knowledge in this area. Directions for future research are suggested.

Psychopathy, treatment behavior, and recidivism: an extended follow-up of Seto and Barbaree.

Seto and Barbaree reported the unexpected finding that adult male sex offenders who scored higher on psychopathy and exhibited better behavior in treatment were almost four times more likely to commit a new serious offence than other offenders once released. The present study reexamined this sample after a longer follow-up time using more complete recidivism data from a national police database. Although psychopathy continued to be a significant predictor of general and serious recidivism, treatment behavior was no longer related to either general or serious recidivism, and there was no statistically significant interaction between psychopathy and treatment behavior. Additional analyses ruled out the possibility that the differences between studies could be accounted for by the different average length of follow-up. A direct comparison of the two sources of recidivism data showed that differences in recidivism between subgroups were reduced by using the more complete recidivism data.

The screening scale for pedophilic interests predicts recidivism among adult sex offenders with child victims.

The Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI; Seto & Lalumière, 2001), a brief measure of sexual attraction to prepubescent children that is based on victim characteristics, was used in two samples of 113 and 145 adult male sex offenders with child victims. In both samples, the SSPI was significantly and positively correlated with an index of phallometrically-measured sexual arousal to stimuli depicting prepubescent children. It was also significantly and positively correlated in both samples with violent recidivism (meaning either nonsexually violent offenses or sexual offenses involving physical contact with a victim), and positively correlated with sexual recidivism, significantly so in the second, larger sample. Focusing on the larger sample, the SSPI added to the predictive accuracy of a measure of general antisociality (the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised), while the phallometric index of sexual arousal did not add predictive accuracy once the other two measures were entered. The SSPI also yielded the same interaction between anomalous sexual interests and psychopathy we had previously reported using phallometric data (Rice & Harris, 1997). These findings suggest that the SSPI has predictive utility among adult male sex offenders with child victims, and accounts for variance in sexual offending that is not explained by phallometric testing.

Psychopathy and sexual deviance in treated rapists: association with sexual and nonsexual recidivism.

This study examined the role of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991) and sexual deviance scores in predicting recidivism in a sample of 94 convicted rapists involuntarily admitted to a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital between 1975 and 1996. The predictive utility of grouping offenders based on the combination of psychopathy and sexual deviance was also investigated. Measures were coded from pre-release institutional records. Recidivism (reconviction) data were retrieved from the Judicial Documentation Register of the Ministry of Justice and were related to PCL-R and sexual deviance scores. The follow-up period after release ranged up to 23.5 years (M = 11.8 years). Base rates for sexual, violent nonsexual, violent (including sexual), and general recidivism were 34%, 47%, 55%, and 73%, respectively. For all types of offending, offenders scoring high on the PCL-R (> or = 26) were significantly more often reconvicted than other offenders. The sexual deviance score was found to be a significant predictor of sexual reconviction. Survival analyses provided considerable evidence that psychopathic sex offenders with sexual deviant preferences are at substantially greater risk of committing new sexual offenses than psychopathic offenders without deviant preferences or nonpsychopathic offenders with or without sexual deviance. The findings are discussed in terms of their practical and clinical implications.

[Prevention of intrafamilial childhood sexual abuse]. / Profilaktyka seksualnego wykorzystywania dzieci w rodzinie.

At work we took up the matter of sexual harassment of children in the family. We presented the history of incest contacts, reasons, conditions causing incest, the perpetrator, his methods and kinds of his actions.We took into consideration description of victims, physical and psychological symptoms of sexual harassment and its effects. We paid attention to effective methods of prevention of incest behavior, diagnostic actions taken in order to confirm any offence and therapy of victims emphasizing role of health service staff.

An assessment of outcomes following parents' participation in a child abuse prevention program.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcomes following participation in the ESPACE parents' workshop. A group of 55 parents who participated in the program, implemented in elementary schools in the Quebec city region, was compared to a group of 217 parents who did not attend the prevention workshop. The results revealed that attending parents suggested more adequate interventions to the vignette depicting a hypothetical situation of sexual abuse compared to nonattending parents. Attending parents are found to be more likely to suggest interventions sustaining the child in her own problem-solving process, seek help from specialized agencies, and attempt to offer emotional support to the victim. Data also reveal that the parents workshop has a positive outcome on knowledge. While the workshop is associated with beneficial outcomes, attendance rates are low. The findings are discussed in the context of identifying means to foster parent involvement in the prevention of child abuse.

[Incest today]. / L'inceste aujourd'hui.

The issue explored is incest against children. This paper summarizes the changes on knowledge on this topic since the years 1850 to nowadays. The main focus is placed on the specificity of incest and sexual aggression towards minors as criminal behaviours. Finally, the lake of research, which leaves many questions unanswered, is underlined.

Child sexual abuse and incest: community-based intervention.

OBJECTIVE: The primary aim of this article is to determine the effectiveness of community intervention in the case of child sexual abuse. The article describes and analyses an actual case in a small urban community in Israel. METHOD: After several incidents of child sexual abuse, much of it incestuous, were brought to light in the community, they were discussed openly, contained, and punished. A community campaign, in which community activists as well as all the service providers were involved, was organized by community social workers. Individual, group, and community interventions were used. RESULTS: The continuation of the abuse has been checked, and, so far, there is no evidence to suggest its resurgence. Community apathy to child sexual abuse seems to have been halted and reversed. The involvement of community residents, particularly the activists, has increased, and this appears to be the major factor in changed community norms toward child sexual abuse. CONCLUSION: Implications of the individual, group, and community interventions are discussed. An integrated program of intervention practices is advocated to contain and prevent the incidence of child sexual abuse and incest.