Profiles of Teenage Athletes' Exposure to Violence in Sport: An Analysis of Their Sport Practice, Athletic Behaviors, and Mental Health.

Violence in sport is a major social issue generating great interest in research over the last 10 years. Studies to date highlight various forms and manifestations of violence in the lives of teenagers practicing individual or team sports, in competitive and recreational contexts. Although allegations of sexual violence involving coaches most often reach media attention, psychological and physical violence involving teammates, parents, and coaches are also prevalent. While profiles of offenders in the sport context have contributed to a better understanding of the issue, similar profiles need to be elaborated for young victims to delineate varying degrees of risk, adaptation, and needs. Latent class analyses were conducted to empirically identify different patterns of exposure to violence in sport from a sample of 1057 athletes aged 14-17 years. Teenagers participated in an online survey assessing their experiences of violence using the Violence Toward Athletes Questionnaire. Results highlighted three different profiles of victimization in the sport context: (a) a non-victimized profile constituting only 37% of the sample; (b) a profile representing 52% of the sample that is mainly exposed to psychological violence by teammates, coaches, and parents; and (c) a "poly-victimized" profile, representing 10% of the sample, that is exposed to all forms of violence at the hands of various perpetrators (teammates, coaches, and parents). The identified profiles were compared according to different indicators of sport practice, athletic behaviors, and mental health. This study delineates the influence of single and multiple forms of violence and its compound consequences on mental health and sport-related behaviors, thus portraying various degrees of need for tailored prevention and intervention measures.

The disclosure of children who exhibit problematic sexual behaviors.

BACKGROUND: Practitioners mandated to protect child development are sometimes dealing with children's inappropriate sexual behaviors. This set of behaviors presents a potential hindering impact on the child's development and important consequences for all children involved. Denial during the questioning of the child complicates the investigation of these cases. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to explore and to identify the different contexts of questioning in which children disclose or deny having committed a sexual behavior that appears to be problematic for his/her development as well as identifying the individual and contextual variables that influence the outcome of the questioning. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The sample comprised of 120 instances of inappropriate sexual behavior exhibited by 85 children aged between 5 and 17 years old and reported to the Youth Protection Department at the Integrated Health and Social Services University Network in the province of Quebec, Canada. METHODS: Bivariate statistical analyses were performed to investigate the association between the outcome of disclosure or non-disclosure, and contextual factors (questioning person's role, parents' reaction to the child's behavior, the child's expression of remorse, presence of a witness, use of coercion during the sexual behavior). Logistical regression (GLMM) was then used to determine the strength of the association between the covariates and the outcome of the questioning. RESULTS: Results show that disclosure appears to be influenced by a combination of contextual variables, namely the role/status of the person questioning the child, expression of remorse reported by the child, and the presence of a witness to the behavior/s. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings point to the importance of developing more comprehensive and specialized knowledge about the questioning context that favors the disclosure of children who are thought to have exhibited inappropriate sexual behaviors.

Exploring the Modus Operandi of Coaches Who Perpetrated Sex Offenses in Canada.

This study investigated the modus operandi strategies employed by 120 coaches who committed sexual abuse toward 331 athletes under their authority. More than 2,000 Canadian court judgements and media reports were identified using online search databases. Using descriptive analysis, 51 strategies used in six modus operandi stages were identified. Results highlighted the most frequent strategies used by coaches for each stage of the crime commission process. Additionally, findings revealed the influence of the victims' gender, coaches' sport level and year of coaches' first offenses on modus operandi strategies used. Implications for crime prevention measures are discussed.

Victims' routine activities and sex offenders' target selection scripts: a latent class analysis.

This study investigates target selection scripts of 72 serial sex offenders who have committed a total of 361 sex crimes on stranger victims. Using latent class analysis, three target selection scripts were identified based on the victim's activities prior to the crime, each presenting two different tracks: (1) the Home script, which includes the (a) intrusion track and the (b) invited track, (2) the Outdoor script, which includes the (a) noncoercive track and the (b) coercive track, and (3) the Social script, which includes the (a) onsite track and the (b) off-site track. The scripts identified appeared to be used by both sexual aggressors of children and sexual aggressors of adults. In addition, a high proportion of crime switching was found among the identified scripts, with half of the 72 offenders switching scripts at least once. The theoretical relevance of these target selection scripts and their practical implications for situational crime prevention strategies are discussed.

Interactions between factors related to the decision of sex offenders to confess during police interrogation: a classification-tree approach.

Most studies of confessions have looked at the influence of individual factors, neglecting the potential interactions between these factors and their impact on the decision to confess or not during an interrogation. Classification and regression tree analyses conducted on a sample of 624 convicted sex offenders showed that certain factors related to the offenders (e.g., personality, criminal career), victims (e.g., sex, relationship to offender), and case (e.g., time of day of the crime) were related to the decision to confess or not during the police interrogation. Several interactions were also observed between these factors. Results will be discussed in light of previous findings and interrogation strategies for sex offenders.

A descriptive profile of high-risk sex offenders under intensive supervision in the province of British Columbia, Canada.

This study provides a preliminary descriptive profile of individuals having been issued an 810 recognizance order (i.e., peace bond). This preventive order is issued to individuals in the community considered by the court to be high-risk sex offenders. In total, 88 offenders were issued an 810.1 (at risk of sexual offence against a child) or an 810.2 (at risk of a personal injury offence) recognizance order between April 2006 and February 2008, among whom 59 sex offenders were included. The sociodemographics, risk profiles, and recidivism of offenders under the orders were analyzed. Two risk assessment tools, the Static-99 and the Stable, were used to describe this population. Comparisons were made between sex offenders under 810.1 and 810.2 orders. Preliminary analyses suggest that these men are heterogeneous in terms of their level of risk of reoffending. Only one offender sexually reoffended while under the order. On the other hand, the general recidivism rate was about 30%, with many breaching the conditions of their order. The findings are discussed in light of the community risk management of high-risk sex offenders.