Sexual Offenders Diagnosis and Typologies

In the XXI century, sexual assaults have gained special relevance, helping to this the multiplication and echo that the media get.

In fact, in Spain, it was as a result of the case of the girls from Alcasser (Valencia) that this issue was very present in the community.

In our country, Vicente Garrido Genovés has dealt extensively with the issue of sexual offenders in an extensive bibliography. He refers that for its diagnosis it is necessary to explore four areas:

• Nature of the crime: It is about knowing if he has committed the aggression due to abuse of power, as a means of expressing anger ... knowing his motivations.
• Sexual history of the aggressor.
• Cognitive distortions: Generally, there is a rationalization of the crime, feeling like victims instead of aggressors.
• Social functioning: Many sex offenders do not appear to be deficient in social skills. However, it is understood that an incompetence in any of these skills can cause problems and trigger sexual assault..

Assessment of Sex Offenders

In the prison environment, Cándido Sánchez points out various techniques for the psychological evaluation of sexual offenders:

Interview

Verbal self-report of the crime: It would be included in the interview, but it is pointed out as a differentiated aspect due to the great importance of the account of the aggression by the aggressor and how he felt.

Psychophysiological evaluation: Currently it is not applied in the prison environment.

Measurements based on latency time, whose dependent variable is the response time.

Psychometric measurements. Both to evaluate general aspects (Personality: 16 PF-5, MCMI-III, MMPI-2RF… Intelligence: WAIS-IV…) and more specific aspects, such as:

• Assess violence: VRAG, HCR-20 ...
• Assess sexual assault: STATIC, SORAG, SVR-20 ...
• Assess the presence of psychopathy: PCL-R ...
• Assess the sexual offender: MSI, EPAS-3 ...
• Evaluate child abusers: MOLEST Scale, Sexual Attitudes Questionnaire ...
• Evaluate consumers of child pornography: Scale of identification with children, Scale of Interest in child abuse, Scale of sex with children ...

Typology of Sexual Offenders

There is no prototypical personality profile of sexual offenders, however, certain typologies can be highlighted, including those of Groth, who divides rapists into:

• Power violators: Its objective is the submission of the woman, to exercise power over her.
• Angry rapists: They use rape as an expression of their anger.
• Sadistic rapists: Uses both violence and sexuality to humiliate the victim because it reminds him of something he hates.

This same author makes a distinction between petty and repressive child sex offenders. The first would be those whose primary sexual deviation is towards minors, they feel identified with them and tend to attack in a premeditated way.

On the contrary, repressive, they substitute their sexual relations with adults for those of minors by precipitating stress and are usually impulsive acts.

In a work by Becerra-García, it is pointed out that child abusers tend to possess characteristic characteristics of the obsessive compulsive disorder and from personality group C (anxious, fearful ...). They also usually present low self-esteem, passive-aggressive and immature behavior, aggressiveness ...

Personality of Sex Offenders

Another of the important classifications is the one established by Prentkly, which establishes three factors when it comes to clarifying the personality of sexual offenders:

• Meaning of aggression:
  • Instrumental Rapists: They use violence to exercise sexual assault.
  • Expressive Rapists: Aggression and sexuality seek to humiliate women.
• Meaning of sexuality
  • Compensatory rapist: They use sexuality as a means to satisfy sexual fantasies.
  • Sadistic rapist: You want to exert as much damage as possible.
  • Choleric rapist: Viola as a means of expressing anger.
  • Displaced assault rapist:
• Degree of impulsivity.
  • High degree of impulsiveness
  • Low degree of impulsivity

The contributions of Cándido Sánchez about the characteristics that sexual offenders usually share are noteworthy, among others, having suffered parental abandonment, biochemical dysfunctions or premature brain injuries, parental overprotection, having suffered abuse, incest, having a fascination for fire, cruelty towards animals in childhood or adolescence, having had unsatisfactory sexual relations that generated doubts about their masculinity, etc..

Also rule out that W. Marshall explains that sexual offenders do not usually have psychopathological disorders, beyond meeting certain criteria for personality disorders, but that does not prevent them from understanding the magnitude of their behavior.

On the other hand, this author highlights the selfish cognitive biases presented by sexual offenders regarding the reactions and feelings of women.