Impersonal and Predatory Relations With Child Victims of Sexual Assault: Pedophilic Interest and Early Childhood Abuse

• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20928018
• Author: Robert Epstein,Judith Abulafia
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Impersonal and

Predatory Relations

With Child Victims

of Sexual Assault:

Pedophilic Interest and

Early Childhood Abuse

Judith Abulafia

1

and

Robert Epstein

2

Abstract

Fixated pedophilic sexual attraction is considered to be a major determinant of risk

among sex offenders, but there is little empirical evidence regarding its treatment. It

was hypothesized that two prominent factors which have emerged in the literature as

being present among some sexual offenders, namely, impersonal, narcissistic, and

predatory patterns of offending against victims, and experiencing childhood sexual

abuse, may be related to specifically to the strength of pedophilic interest. Such a

relationship would provide a deeper understanding of the corollaries of pedophilic

interest and would suggest targets for treatment. These factors were explored in a

sample of 532 sexual offenders who attended the National Centre for Risk Assessment

in Israel, and were found to be significantly related to the level of pedophilic interest in

the sample. The implications for treatment of high-risk offenders are discussed.

Keywords

sex offenders, SSPI, childhood sexual abuse, pedophilic interest, impersonal and pred-

atory offending

1

Ashkelon Academic College, Israel

2

Israel Prison Service, Ramla, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Judith Abulafia, Ashkelon Academic College, Ben Tzvi 12, Ashkelon 78211, Israel.

Email: abulafiajudith@gmail.com

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2020, Vol. 64(16) 1741–1756

!The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20928018

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Background

Deviant Sexual Interest

Deviant sexual preference is considered to be one of the strongest risk factors in

terms of predictingdangerousness (Hanson & Morton-Bourgon,2005). While this

may be the case, there would appear to be very little evidence for the effectiveness

of treating such preferences. A recent Cochrane review exploring the effectiveness

of libido suppressant medications forsex offenders (Khan et al., 2015) identif‌ied a

very poor evidence base for such interventions, marred by high drop-out rates,

refusal to receive treatment, studies which did not use blind control groups, and

lack of reporting of long-term outcomes. Behavioral interventions for deviant

sexual preference, while described in some detail in the literature, would also

appear to have little empirical support apart from anecdotal evidence (Marshall

& Laws, 2003), and it has been argued that unlike females, male sexual preference

is less amenable to socialinf‌luences through the life span (Baumeister, 2000). Such

a risk factor is clearly criminogenic, and identif‌ied with a high level of risk, yet

there would appear to be little that can be done to ameliorate it. The current

article seeks to explore behavioral and psychological factors which may be asso-

ciated with deviant sexual preference and, in identifying them, pave the way for

further interventions which may indirectly ameliorate it. For the purposes of the

current research, we explored whether heightened pedophilic sexual interest is

related to impersonal and predatory relations with child victims, as opposed to

romantic interest or emotional congruence. We next hypothesized that should

there be an association between heightened pedophilic interest and impersonal

predatory relations, then early childhood experiences (namely, the experience of

childhood sexual abuse [CSA]) may be a precursor. Such f‌indings may have

implications for the differential assessment, monitoring, and treatment of

offenders with clear pedophilic interests.

Impersonal and Predatory Relations (IPR) With Child Victims

Some of the earliest theories of sex offending against children viewed the presence

or absence of emotional congruence with children as being a primary character-

istic in motivating offenders and characterizing them (Finkelhor & Araji, 1986).

One of the best-known typologies of sexual offenses against children (Knight &

Prentky, 1990) differentiated between interpersonal and narcissistic meanings for

abusing children as a central axis for classif‌ication, the former group seeing

children as legitimate and equal romantic partners, the latter using children for

their own sexual needs. There is also evidence to suggest that offenders with

heightened sexual interest in children are more likely to have fewer sexual part-

ners, see themselves as being sexually incompetent, have lower levels of weekly

sex, and have lower levels of sexual satisfaction than sexual offenders who have

1742 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 64(16)