Juvenile female sex offenders: Offender and offence characteristics
| Date | 01 January 2014 |
| Author | Jan Hendriks,Catrien Bijleveld,Miriam Wijkman |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370813479077 |
| Published date | 01 January 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Criminology
2014, Vol 11(1) 23 –38
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370813479077
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Juvenile female sex offenders:
Offender and offence
characteristics
Miriam Wijkman, Catrien Bijleveld
and Jan Hendriks
VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Abstract
Almost all research on juvenile sex offending pertains to adolescent males. This study comprises
all female juveniles convicted for sexual offences in the Netherlands between 1993 and 2008
(N = 66). From analysis of their court files and their criminal records, these female offenders
are described in terms of demographics, family background, (psychiatric) disorders, victim
characteristics and co-offending patterns. Heterogeneity in offending patterns and offending
motives are studied, by using a reconstruction of the sexual offences. Almost 60 percent of
the juvenile female sex offenders committed the abuse with someone else. Summarizing the
offender motives as they emerged from offender and victim statements, five offender subtypes
are identified. The findings are discussed in terms of implications for research and treatment.
Keywords
Juvenile female sex offenders, group sex offending, offending motives, subtypes
Introduction
Almost all recorded sex offending is committed by males, and a substantial part of sexual
offenders are juveniles. In the Netherlands, the country where the present study took
place, about 3200 sex offenders were recorded by the police in 2009: 672 (21 percent) of
these offenders were juveniles (Heer-de Lang and Kalidien, 2010). Only 11 (1.6 percent)
of these juvenile sex offenders were females. Partly because so few females are prose-
cuted and convicted for sex offending, very little is known about female sex offending,
its prevalence, etiology and treatment outcome. Overall, it is estimated that less than
3 percent of all s ex offending is committed by females (Cortoni et al., 2010). However,
Corresponding author:
Miriam Wijkman, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Law, Amsterdam, 1081 HV, The Netherlands.
Email: m.wijkman@vu.nl
479077EUC11110.1177/1477370813479077European Journal of CriminologyWijkman et al.
2013
Article
24 European Journal of Criminology 11(1)
self-report studies – although mostly addressing the broader category of sexual aggres-
sion – indicate that the proportion of female abusers who do not come to the attention of
law enforcement agencies may be greater than male abusers (see, e.g. Chesney-Lind and
Shelden, 2004; Slotboom et al., 2011). This is presumably related to the fact that sexual
abuse by females is more often hidden in child caring practices, such as bathing, dressing
and changing diapers (Allen, 1991; Bumby and Bumby, 1997; Kaplan and Green, 1995).
It is also assumed that victims of female sex offenders feel ashamed about what hap-
pened and are reluctant to report the offence to the police for two reasons. Firstly because
both male and female victims could be fearful that officials would not believe their
story (‘women don’t do such things’). Secondly, male victims might be afraid they
would not be regarded as ‘real men’: the ‘this would not happen to a real man’ cliché
(Deering and Mellor, 2011; Faller, 1987).
It is generally accepted that sex offenders do not constitute a homogenous group.
There is heterogeneity in risk factors, criminal careers and offence characteristics, for
adults as well as juveniles. It is likely that this applies to juvenile female sex offenders
(JFSOs) too. Thus, to understand the etiology of juvenile sexual offending and to be able
to tailor treatment, it is necessary to take into account this heterogeneity. While typolo-
gies of adult female sex offenders have been developed to address this, and, to some
extent, empirically validated (for an overview see Wijkman et al., 2010), empirical sup-
port for JFSOs has been scant.
Mathews et al. (1997) developed a provisional typology (N = 67) of JFSOs. This
typology was based on a clinical sample and all offenders were solo offenders. Three
subtypes were outlined: firstly, a group of girls who had abused young children during
babysitting situations. The characteristics of such ‘babysitter-abuse’ were also described
by Fehrenbach and Monastersky (1988) and Roe-Sepowitz and Krysik (2008). The
second subtype of offenders projected their own experiences of sexual abuse on their
brothers/sisters or peers. This reflects some of the theorizing about intergenerational
transmission: the victim becomes an offender (Burton et al., 2002; Higgs et al., 1992).
The third subtype consisted of more severely disordered offenders, showing high levels
of trauma, individual and family psychopathology and dysfunction, and an early onset of
severe abuse and neglect. High levels of traumatization have been reported in multiple
studies; for sexual abuse, percentages vary from 50 percent to 100 percent (Bumby and
Bumby, 1997; Frey, 2010; Hendriks and Bijleveld, 2006a). As these subtypes are not
mutually exclusive, and are, moreover, based on clinical samples, usefulness for theory
development and practice may be limited.
JFSOs, being adolescents, are experiencing maturation at a cognitive, emotional and
social level (Hunter et al., 2006). Because of this developing and maturing, it is presum-
ably more adequate to compare them with their male juvenile counterparts, who are in
a comparable maturation process, than with adult female sex offenders, who are in a
different life stage. Quite a number of typologies of juvenile male sex offenders
(JMSOs) have been developed, in different ways and based on different offender and
offence characteristics. A first group of typologies is based on the criminal career his-
tory. Offenders in such typologies may be once-only offenders (they commit only one
sex offence), specialists (they commit multiple sex offences) or generalists (offenders
commit, next to the sex offence(s), also non-sexual offences) (Becker and Kaplan,
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