The dark figure of sexual offending: new evidence from federal sex offenders
| Date | 01 February 2016 |
| Pages | 3-15 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCP-12-2015-0030 |
| Published date | 01 February 2016 |
| Author | Matt DeLisi,Daniel E. Caropreso,Alan J. Drury,Michael J. Elbert,Jerry L. Evans,Timothy Heinrichs,Katherine M. Tahja |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Criminal psychology |
The dark figure of sexual offending: new
evidence from federal sex offenders
Matt DeLisi, Daniel E. Caropreso, Alan J. Drury, Michael J. Elbert, Jerry L. Evans,
Timothy Heinrichs and Katherine M. Tahja
Matt DeLisi, Daniel E.
Caropreso, Alan J. Drury,
Michael J. Elbert, Jerry L.
Evans, Timothy Heinrichs and
Katherine M. Tahja, all are
based at United States
Probation, Southern District
of Iowa, Des Moines,
Iowa, USA.
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine the dark figure of crime among federal sex offenders from
the USA to quantify crime victims and sex crime events among those with no official criminal record.
Design/methodology/approach –Using data on 119 offenders selected from a five-year census of sex
offenders selected from a federal probation jurisdiction in the Midwestern United States, descriptive, partial
correlations, and ROC-AUC models were conducted.
Findings –In total, 69 percent of offenders self-reported a contact sexual offense during polygraph
examination. In total, 34 offenders had zero official record of sexual abuse but non-zero self-reported history
of sexual abuse. These 34 clients offended against 148 victims that potentially denoted a minimum number of
148 sex crime events, a median number of 1,480 sex crime events, a mean number of 32,101 sex crime
events, and a maximum number of 827,552 sex crime events. Total paraphilias were not predictive of
self-reported sexual offending but were strongly associated with prolific self-reported sexual offending.
Originality/value –The dark figure of sexual offending is enormous and the revelation of this information is
facilitated by polygraph examination of federal sex offenders. Ostensibly non-contact sex offenders such as
those convicted of possession of child pornography are very likely to have a history of contact sexual
offending. Consistent with the containment model, polygraph examinations of the sexual history of offenders
convicted of sexual offenses should be required to facilitate public safety.
Keywords Sexual abuse, Sex offending, Containment model, Dark figure of crime, Polygraph
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
A paradigmatic methodological issue in criminology centers on the distinctions and overlap
between official records of crime, such as those indicated by arrest and conviction data, and
self-reported records of crime as revealed by offenders themselves. Official records have several
advantages including their systematic collection and compilation by the criminal justice system,
standardization and electronic storage and retrieval, and immunity to obfuscation or deception
from criminal offenders who are potentially motivated to lie about their criminal activity.
Self-reports have the advantage of providing the “true”amount of offending that occurs in the
event that the police were unaware or unresponsive to the incident, but have validity threats
relating to memory deficits, inaccurate recall, exaggeration, and minimization (Farrington, 1973;
Hindelang et al., 1979; Thornberry and Krohn, 2000).
Generally, it is understood that the official record of arrest is smaller in magnitude than
self-reports and is likely a sampling of the offender’s true criminal activity. The amount of crime
that self-reports reveal vis-à-vis official records is known in criminology as the dark figure of
crime (Biderman and Reiss, 1967). Both sources of data are valid proxies of an individual’s
Received 26 December 2015
Revised 12 January 2016
Accepted 13 January 2016
DOI 10.1108/JCP-12-2015-0030 VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016, pp. 3-15, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2009-3829
j
JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
j
PAG E 3
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