The public is accustomed to thinking of the “child molester” as an old man, and it is true that the average offender vs. children was older at the time of his offense than any other sex offenders except the incest offenders, yet can scarcely be described as on the verge of senility since
he was on the average aged thirty-five. However, one sixth of them were over fifty and one quarter were over forty-five.
Approximately 31 per cent were married at the time of their offense, nearly an equal number were widowed or divorced, and 40 per cent had never married by that time. Later the proportion of bachelors shrinks, but at the time of offense it is large for a group of this age.
The offense against the child was in 40 per cent of the cases not the first sex offense; in fact in nearly 20 per cent the offense had been preceded by two others, not necessarily against children. These are higher figures than apply to other heterosexual offenders, but compared with the figures for a number of other types of sex offenders they are not remarkable.
As for the mental state prior to the time of the offense, it appears that the offenders vs. children had a high degree of psychiatric disturbance in comparison with other sex offenders: almost 10 per cent had been psychotic or severely neurotic. Only one other group exceeded this figure.
Since alcohol and drugs can impair judgment quite as effectively as a psychosis, they deserve attention here. Drugs may be summarily dismissed as an etiological factor—only one offender vs. children was a drug user at the time of his offense. Only a relatively small number, 13 per cent, had a history of any drug use, and nearly all of it was experimental—chiefly trying marijuana. Alcohol, however, was a factor in nearly 30 per cent of the offenses, and in most (three fourths) of these the man was drunk and not just moderately intoxicated. It is only in the other pedophilic offenses and offenses involving force that alcohol looms larger in importance. This importance of alcohol is not reflected in the general fife of the offender vs. children: their ranks contain only a moderate number of alcoholics and frequent drinkers, and the percentage of abstainers, 16 per cent, is the same as for the control group. Alcohol appears to have been a significant social factor in the lives of 37 per cent of these offenders, a proportion that is neither large nor small compared to that of other offenders, but definitely larger than that of the control group.
Despite the role of alcohol, about 70 per cent of the offenses against children were obviously premeditated. Some 6 per cent were committed by men who claimed to be rum compos mentis, and only 14 per cent were predominantly opportunistic in nature. Thus we see a recognized and clearly planned type of behavior outweighing unplanned impulsive behavior by a ratio of about 5 to 1. In some instances the first contact with the child was fortuitous, but the later contacts were sought.
The offenses typically occurred in residences: nearly a third took place in the offender’s home, 10 per cent in the child’s, and 5 per cent in a shared residence, for example, a rooming house. This “homebody” tendency is, however, even more marked in the heterosexual offenders vs. minors and adults. Next in importance as a place for the offense is the out-of-doors (almost one quarter of the instances), then theaters (a rather high figure, nearly 13 per cent), autos (7 per cent), and school grounds or buildings (only 3 per cent, but still the highest incidence reported for this location). The approach in the theaters usually is stereotyped: the man makes a visual census of females of acceptable age who are unaccompanied by adults, and changes his seat accordingly. A rebuff simply requires another move; it is not surprising that the offenders refer to their nomadic activity as “playing checkers.”
Three fifths of the young girls were known to the offenders and two fifths were strangers. This is a high proportion of “pickups” compared with those made by offenders vs. minors and adults, but low when compared with the aggressors. Among the girls known to the offenders, over two thirds were friends, about a fourth were casual acquaintances, and 5 per cent were related to them. Contrary to general opinion and to parental fears, it seems that the immature female is more vulnerable to adult friends and acquaintances than to mythical strangers lurking in concealment.
The girls ranged in age from three through eleven, the average (median) girl being eight, which made them younger by a year and a half than the boys approached by the homosexual offenders vs. children. Moreover, they were about a year younger than the girls involved in the aggressors vs. children cases.
In the great majority of cases the sexual behavior consisted of petting and fondling. In only 6 per cent of the cases was coitus attempted, and in less than half of these (2 per cent) was any intromission effected. These cases involved girls aged eight to eleven, i.e., the older girls within this pedophile category. It is interesting that the percentage of completed coitus was lower than in the incest or force cases involving girls of a similar age. Turning back to the majority of cases, we find that in a quarter of them the physical contact stopped short of genital stimulation, but in two thirds of the instances there was such stimulation of either the child or the male. In some cases this was through the clothing or underclothing. Mouth-genital contact occurred in about a sixth of the cases. It is clear that these offenses against children involve mainly the use of extensive petting techniques and only to a minor degree attempts to effect coitus.
The lack of coitus stems in part from the youthfulness and physical immaturity of the children and in part from one of the criteria defining the group—lack of force. Attempts at coitus are more apt to provoke resistance, which in turn often engenders the use of force.
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