Sex Offenders: A Criminal Career Approach

Legal interventions for sexual offenses are based on various assumptions about the criminal careers of sex offenders: that sex offenders are persistent offenders, that they offend at a high rate, and that they specialize in sexual offending.

 Despite this reliance, the empirical research on sex offenders criminal careers is sparse, and the few studies that do exist give reason to question and further investigate these assumptions.

 Bringing together a group of internationally renowned scholars, this volume offers an authoritative overview of the criminal careers of sex offenders from youth to adulthood, while questioning our received ideas and pushing the boundaries of our current empirical knowledge. Bringing together original research on sex offenders and career criminals, and performing an in–depth investigation into existing policies, the articles offer a substantial basis from which to cultivate forward–looking policy approaches for those involved in criminology and psychology research, criminal justice, and social work.

List of Contributors

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

PART I. Theoretical and Conceptual Issues in the Study of Sex Offending18

1. The criminal career paradigm and its relevance to studying sex offenders 19
A. Blokland and P. Lussier

2. Criminal career features in theories of sexual offending 51
J. Thakker and T.Ward

3. An integrated life–course developmental theory of sexual offending 51
S. Smallbone and J.Cale

PART II. Criminal Career Patterns of Sex Offenders and Associated Issues 73

4. Criminal careers for different juvenile sex offender subgroups 74
J. Hendriks, C. v.d. Berg, and C. Bijleveld

5. The childhood risk factors of adolescent–onset and adult–onset of sex offending: Evidence from a prospective longitudinal study 91
P. Lussier, A. Blokland, J. Mathesius, D. Pardini, and R. Loeber

6. Assessing the continuity of sex offending over the life course: Evidence from two large birth cohort studies 119
W. Jennings, A. Piquero, F. Zimring, and J. Reingle

7. Antisocial trajectories in youth and the onset of adult criminal careers in sexual offenders of children and women 131
J. Cale

8. Offending patterns over time: An examination of specialization, escalation and de–escalation in the commission of sexual offences 152
B. Leclerc, P. Lussier, and N. Deslauriers–Varin

9. Criminal career features of female sexual offenders 174
M. Wijkman and C. Bijleveld

10. Mayhem by occupation: On the relevance of criminal careers to sexual homicide offenders 190
M. DeLisi

11. Changing prevalence of sex offender convictions: Disentangling age, period and cohort effects over time 199
B. Francis, C. Hargreaves, and K. Soothill

12. Life course transitions and desistance in sex offenders: An event history analysis 219
A. Blokland and V. v.d. Geest

13. Offending trajectory and residual offending of adult sex offenders: A person–oriented approach to risk prediction 243
P. Lussier and G. Davies

14. The concentration of sex offenses in British and Dutch families 267
S. d.d. Weijer, S. Besemer, C. Bijleveld, and A. Blokland

PART III. The Criminal Career Approach and Associated Policy Issues 288

15. Estimating the size of the sexual aggressor population 289
M. Bouchard and P. Lussier

16. Potential for redemption for sex offenders 307
K. Nakamura and A. Blumstein

17. Policing sex offenders, past and present: The role and importance of a criminal career approach to help shape future policies 334
P. Lussier and A. Blokland

INDEX 353

Arjan A.J. Blokland is a senior–researcher at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR) and a professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Leiden University, the Netherlands. His work has been published widely in criminology and psychology journals.

Patrick Lussier is an Associate Professor at the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is the co–director of the Centre for Research on Sexual Violence (CrSV) in Burnaby, British Columbia. He is co–principal investigator of the Vancouver Longitudinal Study of the psychosocial development of children. His work has been published in numerous academic journals.