Sexual Deviance Flashcards
Hocken and Thorne (2012)
Categorised sexual crimes into non-contact (voyeurism, exhibitionism, owning child porn) and contact (rape, sexual assault, paedophilia)
Victims of sexual crimes
Mostly female - 80% of all sexual offences, 90% of rapes.
Average age 10-24 for all assaults, 16-34 for rape
Males most likely assaulted between 5-19
Victim’s relationship to offenders
Mostly a partner/ex partner (45%), or someone known to the victim (38%).
Strangers are rarer (13%) as are family members (5%)
How many sexual crimes aren’t reported?
Around 80% of crimes are not reported (Crime survey for England and Wales, 2017)
How much sexual crime isn’t recorded?
26% of reported crime isn’t recorded (HMICFRS, 2014)
Crime survey for England and Wales (2017)
20% of women and 4% of men over 16 victims in their lifetime
3.1% of women and 0.8% of men aged 16-59 within 12 month period
Main reasons for lack of reporting
- Embarrassment
- Didn’t think they could help
- Thought it would be humiliating
- Didn’t think they’d be believed
- Didn’t want to go to court
Generalist crime theory definition (Howitt, 2018)
Sex crimes are a part of a wider pattern of criminal and deviant behaviour
Specialist theory of crime definition (Howitt, 2018)
Sex offenders are predominately likely to only engage in sexual crimes
General theory of crime (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990)
Sexual offending is caused by low self control. This leads to alcohol/drug abuse, unstable employment, absenteeism from work, and other crime and deviancy.
Evidence for general theory of crime
Sex offenders do tend to be involved in these other behaviours (Cleary, 2004)
Risk factors for sex offenders tend to be the same as non-sex offenders
Limitations for generalist theory of crime
Not all sex offenders are the same (Harris et al, 2009)
88% are involved in other crimes
Child sex offenders more specialist (only 40% involved in other crimes)
Evolutionary theory of rape (Thornhill and Palmer, 2000)
Rape is a behaviour that has been evolved. It isn’t about power, rather sex, and a by-product of other adaptions. This means all men would rape under the right circumstances
Evidence for evolutionary theory of rape
+ Majority of rape victims are fertile aged women, but not all.
- Pregnancy rate after rape is only 3% so is it evolved?
- The more fertile the woman is, the more resistant they are. But trauma is only lower for children
Rape myths (Burt, 1980)
Sociological and feminist perspective.
A cognitive model that diverts blame so sex offending is more likely.
Myths include ‘victim was sexually active’, ‘if they’re in a dangerous situation they get what they deserve’, ‘if they go home with a man they should be willing to have sex’