A Reply to the NSW Royal Commission Inquiry into Paedophilia: Victim Report Studies and Child Sex Offender Profiles — A Bad Match?

Published date01 April 1999
Date01 April 1999
DOI10.1177/000486589903200105
42
AReply
to
the
NSW
Royal
Commission
Inquiry
into
Paedophilia: Victim
Report
Studies
and
Child
Sex Offender Profiles
ABad Match?
Anne Cossins
University
ofNew
South
Wales
This article questions the validity
of
the fixated/regressed classification
scheme of child sex offenders used by the Royal Commission into
the
New
South Wales Police Service. Sincethe scheme is
based
on incar-
cerated offender profiles, it does
not
accord with empirical data derived
from victim
report
studies, and is contradicted by a number
of
other
studies on
the
sexual behaviour
of
child sex offenders. The
article
discusses
how
the classification scheme
appears
to
have
been influential
in the Royal Commission's decision
to
focus its inquiry into paedophilia
on the activities
of
homosexual, fixated offenders. As a result
of
this
focus,the Royal Commission
engaged
in very little
analysis
of
the extent
of
child sexual abuse within the family and abuse concerning female
children in general. The article concludes by questioning some of the
Royal Commission's recommendations
for
the future policing
of
child
sexual abusewithin
New
SouthWales.
Introduction
In its
Paedophile
Inquiry
Report,
the
Royal Commission
into
the
New
South
Wales
Police Service
(1997)
1inquired
into
a wide range of issues associated
with
the
detection,
reporting,
investigation
and
prosecution
of
child
sexual abuse.
The
Royal Commission's terms of reference in relation to
the
extent
of paedophilia in
New
South
Wales were very broad, as set
out
in Appendix 1. A perusal of Volumes
IV
and
V of The
Paedophile
Inquiry
Report
shows
that
the
Royal Commission inves
..
tigated all aspects, criminal
and
otherwise, associated with child sexual abuse in
the
New
South
Wales community.
This
included including an analysis of
the
functions
and
responsibilities
of
all agencies responsible for
the
care
of
children
and
for
The
author would like to
thank
the
two anonymous referees for
their
comments and sugges..
tions on a draft of this article.
Address
for
correspondence:
Anne
Cossins,
Senior
Lecturer,
Faculty
of Law,
University
of New
South
Wales
NSW
2052,
Australia.
THE AUSTRALIAN
AND
NEW
ZEALAND
JOURNAL
OF
CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME 32 NUMBER I 1999PP.42-60
VICTIM
REPORT
STUDIES
AND
CHILD
SEXOFFENDER
PROFILES
-A
BAD MATCH?
providing services to
children
and
offenders,
the
effectiveness
of
investigatory
processes
and
procedures for dealing
with
allegations of
child
sexual abuse,
the
classification of
child
sex offenders
and
treatment
programs, satanic ritual abuse,
recovered
memories
of
child
sexual
abuse,
the
adequacy
of
criminal
laws for
protecting children from sexual abuse,
the
relationship between
the
internet
and
paedophile activity
and
the
protection
and
support of victims.
This paper focuses
on
the
Royal Commission's analysis of different types of child
sex offenders in terms of
how
they are classified and how
the
problem of different
offenders should be addressed in relation to
the
types of child sexual assault cases
that
are investigated
and
prosecuted.
In
particular, it questions
the
validity of
the
classification scheme of
child
sex offenders adopted by
the
Royal Commission. It
then
considers
the
ramifications of
the
use of a classification scheme
that
is based
on incarcerated offender profiles (who are considered to constitute between one to
three per
cent
of all child sex offenders, as discussed below) for
the
investigation
and
prosecution
of
the
vast
majority
of
offenders, whose sexual
behaviour
and
motivations
may
not
necessarily
accord
with
incarcerated
offender profiles.
In
particular, it has
been
suggested
that
incarcerated offenders or offenders who are in
treatment
as a result of a conviction "are likely to be
the
most persistent, impulsive,
violent or
incompetent
abusers: those
most
likely to be caught, those whom
the
police
are
most
likely to pursue, or
those
most
likely to be
subjected
to
trial
proceedings"
(Bagley
and
Thurston,
1996:
301).
For
example,
there
is some
evidence to suggest
that
child
sex offenders of low socioeconomic status
and
those
with dysfunctional family problems are
more
likely to come to
the
attention
of
government
agencies
and
the
criminal justice system (Cossins, 1998:
203-210),
whilst offenders who
have
arelatively
high
socioeconomic status may be
better
able
to avoid
detection
and
conviction,
and
imprisonment if convicted (Briggs, 1995:
viii).
Thus,
studies
which
involve
incarcerated
or
clinical
samples
of
child
sex
offenders must be interpreted with adegree of caution, since they
can
only be said
to define
the
characteristics of those offenders who
have
been
convicted
for child
sex offences or
have
otherwise come to
the
attention
of government authorities.
In volume IV of its report,
the
Royal Commission (1997:
621-624)
reviewed
the
different
classification
schemes
that
have
been
developed
by a
number
of
researchers
and
research bodies to classify
and
treat child sex offenders.
The
classifi
...
cation scheme adopted by
the
American
Psychiatric Association (1994) includes
the
sadistic offender,
the
regressed offender,
the
fixated offender
and
offenders who
abuse as a
function
of
senility,
intellectual
dysfunction or organicity.
Another
classification scheme described by Wyre (a British expert
on
the
treatment
and
management of
child
sex offenders who was interviewed by
the
Royal Commission)
includes
the
predatory paedophile,
the
non
...
predatory paedophile,
the
regressed
paedophile,
the
fixated paedophile,
the
inadequate
paedophile,
the
inadequate
fixated paedophile
and
the
para paedophile (Royal Commission, 1997: 622).
On
the
other
hand,
Lanning,
an
American
expert
who was also interviewed by
the
Royal Commission, identified two
main
categories of child sex offender (situational
and preferential offenders)
each
of
which
could be divided
into
sub
...
categories:
the
situational offender group is comprised of
the
regressed offender,
the
morally indis
...
criminate
offender,
the
sexually
indiscriminate
offender,
and
the
inadequate
THEAUSTRALIAN
AND
NEW
ZEALAND
JOURNAL
OF CRIMINOLOGY
43

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