Descriptive model of the offence process of women violent offenders : distal background variables

The literature indicates two areas of growing concern in regard to the perpetration of violence by women. One is that the incidence of violence perpetrated by women is increasing across jurisdictions. The other is that despite their growing numbers the knowledge and understanding of violent women has been greatly hindered by the general lack of empirical investigation of this population. The present study uses a grounded theory approach to develop a preliminary descriptive model of the offence process of women violent offenders. The women's violent offence model (WVOM) has four distinct levels or phases. The current article addresses the first of these in detail, consisting of the distal background variables. This phase of the model includes experiences of childhood and adolescence, providing preliminary insight into the more stable distal predispositional factors underlying women's violent offending.

Sexual and violent recidivism by offender type and actuarial risk : reoffending rates for rapists, child molesters and mixed-victim offenders

The current study examines sexual and violent reoffence rates for a sample of 2474 sexual offenders over an average of 15 years following release from prison. Reoffence rates are reported as a function of the offenders' victim type and level of risk as assessed by the Automated Sexual Recidivism Scale, a computer scored measure of relevant historical risk factors. Observed sexual recidivism rates for offenders with child victims, adult victims, and mixed victims were quite similar. Results indicate that offenders with exclusively female child victims not only showed a lower rate of sexual reoffending, but that the reoffence rates were relatively low across all levels of actuarial risk. In contrast, those with male child victims and adult victims showed a pronounced escalation of reoffence rates as actuarial risk increased. Results also indicated that adult victim offenders are less consistent in the victim type of their reoffences, with 37% sexually reoffending against child victims. Finally, combined rates of sexual and violent reoffending were particularly high for those with adult victim sexual offence histories. Risk assessment and public policy implications are discussed.

Risk assessment with female sex offenders : can women meet the criteria of community protection laws?

Although females represent a small proportion of the sex offender population, they occasionally appear before the courts under the current generation of laws intended to protect the public from high-risk sex offenders. In this context, practitioners are called upon to provide assessment of the risk these women pose for sexual re-offending. The primary issues addressed in this paper are related to the validity of conducting such risk assessments and providing professional opinions as to the risk of further sexual offences that may be committed by female offenders. The approach taken is to summarize briefly the available professional literature regarding female sex offenders, and then to present the findings of the relatively few empirical studies that address sexual recidivism in females. The final section examines the positions taken in the published works of various international experts regarding risk assessment with females, followed by conclusions and recommendations in light of the standards typically prescribed by community protection laws.

Reintegration services for long-term dangerous offenders : a case study and discussion

Successfully reintegrating long-term prisoners back into the community often presents significant challenges for service providers. Ex-prisoners typically experience high levels of social stigma; present with multiple needs; and can struggle to find meaningful employment, stable accommodation, and to maintain supportive relationships. There have, however, been relatively few published evaluations of the outcomes achieved by postrelease services on managing the risk of reoffending and, as such, it is difficult for service providers to meet these multiple and complex levels of need in ways that might be considered to be evidence based. In this article we describe a specialized prerelease support, reentry, and reintegration service that is offered to long-term prisoners, many of whom have been legally labelled as ‘‘dangerous.’’ The current model of service delivery is reviewed and discussed in the context of current theories of offender rehabilitation and reintegration. These are then used to discuss the way in which services for this group of offenders might best be conceptualized.

Assessing female sexual offenders' motivations and cognitions : an exploratory study

Semi-structured interviews eliciting cognitions and motivations were carried out with 15 incarcerated female child sexual abusers (nearly 50% of the current UK female sexual offender prison population). Qualitative analysis indicated that four of the five motivational schemas (implicit theories) suggested by Ward (Ward, 2000; Ward & Keenan, 1999) to underlie male sexual offenders' cognitions could be clearly identified in women, these were: Uncontrollability (UN, identified in 87% of participants), Dangerous world (DW, 53%), Children as sexual objects (CSO, 47%) and Nature of harm (NH, 20%). Entitlement, the final implicit theory (IT), commonly found in males, was not identified in any participants in the sample. Further analysis indicated that there were four main motivational types of offender based on combinations of these ITs. These were: (1) presence of DW/CSO, indicating sexual motivation and cognitions with fear of violence; (2) presence of DW/no CSO, indicating fear of violence with no sexual cognition or motivation; (3) presence of CSO/no DW, indicating sexual motivation and cognition; the NH IT also strongly featured in this group; and (4) presence of UN/no DW or CSO, indicating lack of control, sometimes with sense of protection for the victim. Suggestions are made on how the results can inform theoretical developments in the field as well as policy and practice.