title: Adolescent sexual offenders: the relationship between typology and recidivism.
abstract: Adolescent sexual offending represents an ongoing social, judicial, clinical, and policy issue for services. The current study investigated the characteristics, criminal versatility, and rates of recidivism of a cohort of 156 male adolescent sexual offenders who were referred for psychological assessments by the courts between 1996 and 2007 in Singapore. Analyses revealed that specialists (sex-only offenders; n = 71, M(follow-up) = 56.99 months, SD(follow-up) = 31.33) and generalists (criminally versatile offenders; n = 77, M (follow-up) = 67.83 months, SD(follow-up) = 36.55) differed with respect to offense characteristics (e.g., sexually assaulting familial victims) and recidivistic outcomes. Although both groups sexually reoffended at roughly the same rate (14.3% vs. 9.9%), consistent with their typology, significantly more of the generalists reoffended violently (18.2% vs. 1.4%), sexually and/or violently (27.3% vs. 11.3%), nonviolently (37.7% vs. 16.9%), and engaged in any further criminal behaviors (45.5% vs. 23.9%) during follow-up. Adjusting for total number of offenses and age at first sexual offense, Cox regression analyses showed that generalists were significantly more likely than specialists to reoffend violently (hazard ratio = 9.31; 95% confidence interval = 1.15-76.39). The differences between generalists and specialists suggest a valid typological distinction with a higher risk trajectory for the generalists. These findings therefore have important clinical implications for assessment, management, and intervention planning for adolescent sexual offenders.
authors.affiliation: Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. chimeng.chu@med.monash.edu.au
authors.forename: Chi Meng
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: Stuart D M
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Thomas
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003417:Criminal Psychology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000145:classification / Q000208:ethnology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012372:ROC Curve; D012008:Recurrence; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D012742:Sex Offenses / Q000145:classification / Q000208:ethnology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012846:Singapore / Q000453:epidemiology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
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