Predicting hands-on child sexual offenses among possessors of internet child pornography
Date
2012
Journal Title
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Volume Title
Publisher
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law,
Abstract
The recent Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Comstock (2010) upheld the constitutionality
of The Adam Walsh Act, which provides for civil commitment of child pornography
(CP) offenders certified as sexually dangerous, thereby approving litigation of all such
prisoners in the federal system. The two studies reported here sought to address the
question: What is the likelihood that an individual convicted of child pornography
offenses has a prior history of a hands-on sexual offense involving a child or has a high
probability of committing such an offense? Our sample consisted of 349 participants:
113 who committed an Internet sexual offense only and no other known or self-reported
hands-on sexual offense, 176 child molesters who reported no Internet sexual offense,
and 60 child molesters that reported committing an Internet sexual offense. Study 1
yielded two scales, one reflecting Antisocial Behavior (AB) and one reflecting Internet
Preoccupation (IP). Those two scales predicted membership in the combined sample of
child molesters with a high degree of accuracy (c 0.75). Study two revealed that all
three groups were discrete with respect to AB and IP. By increasing the IP scale by 1
point, the odds of being an IO rather than a CM increased by 86%. The plotted
conditional probabilities increased linearly as values on the AB scale increase, from 0.27
when AB 0 to 0.84 when AB 13. Our results are discussed in terms of risk
discrimination among possessors of child pornography, relevance of risk to the statutory
third prong element of serious difficulty, and the policy implications of the findings
reported here.
Description
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Keywords
child pornography, internet, contact, child sexual abuse, risk
Citation
Lee, A. F., Li, N. C., Lamade, R., Schuler, A., & Prentky, R. A. (2012). Predicting hands-on child sexual offenses among possessors of internet child pornography. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 18(4), 644-672.