Target Selection and Crime Characteristics: A Comparison of Sexually Motivated Abduction Cases to Nonsexual Abduction Cases and Nonabduction Sexual Cases

• Published date: 01 June 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548231166152
• Author: Eric Beauregard,Julien Chopin
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2023, Vol. 50, No. 6, June 2023, 891 –910.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548231166152

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© 2023 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

891

TARGET SELECTION AND CRIME

CHARACTERISTICS

A Comparison of Sexually Motivated Abduction Cases

to Nonsexual Abduction Cases and Nonabduction

Sexual Cases

ERIC BEAUREGARD

JULIEN CHOPIN

Simon Fraser University

Abduction has been related to a more extensive violent criminal record, suggesting that it represents a risk for escalation in

violence. As most research has investigated child abductions, the current study compares sexually motivated abductions (n

= 1,288) to nonsexually motivated abductions (n = 270) and nonabduction sexual assaults (n = 1,500) involving both chil-

dren and adult women victims. Logistic regression analyses showed that compared with nonsexually motivated abductions,

those that are sexually motivated are typically committed on victims who are single, while they are hitchhiking at night, and

perpetrated in the offender’s car. Moreover, when compared with nonabduction sexual assaults, results show that individuals

who commit sexually motivated abductions are more likely to use a con approach on a stranger victim, to use a weapon,

restraints, inflict serious injuries, and penetrate vaginally the victim either in their residence or their car. Abduction cases are

often characterized by instrumental violence and both children and adult women need to be prioritized.

Keywords: abduction; sexual assault; target selection; criminal event perspective; criminal behavior

Abduction or kidnapping—the unlawful seizure, transportation, and/or detention of a

person against his or her will—is a crime that has been ignored by researchers in

criminology and psychology, despite its serious nature as well as the various challenges it

presents for law enforcement (Tillyer et al., 2015). For instance, DeLisi (2001)

showed that individuals who commit kidnappings—just like those who commit rapes

AUTHORS’ NOTE: The authors would like to thank the people at the Ministry of Interior (France), and

especially Mr. the Central Director of the French Judicial Police for sharing the data used in this project. We

also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for all their helpful comments. Your suggestions really

helped to make this paper better. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eric

Beauregard, Professor, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby,

British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6; e-mail: ebeaureg@sfu.ca.

1166152CJBXXX10.1177/00938548231166152Criminal Justice and BehaviorBeauregard, Chopin / Sexually Motivated Abduction

research-article2023

892 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR

and m urders—present more extensive violent arrest records compared with other habitual

offenders. Similarly, people who commit kidnapping have been found to be 30 and 4 times

more likely than males in the general population and individuals convicted of sexual

crimes, respectively, to be later convicted of homicide, suggesting that kidnapping consti-

tutes a risk for escalation in violence (Liu et al., 2008).

One of the reasons suggested to explain the paucity of academic attention has been the

lack of data, especially in the United States where kidnappings are not included in the

Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Report (UCR) or the National

Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). To fill this gap in the United States, the National

Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrown-away Children (NISMART)

was established in 1988 (Finkelhor et al., 1990). However, several limitations have also

been noted with this database, such as the inability to collect information about multiple

crimes or co-occurring crimes (Tillyer et al., 2015). The most important of these limitations

was that it included only cases involving children, suggesting that abductions were not a

concern for adults. In fact, most of the existing literature on abductions concerned children

(e.g., Baker et al., 2002; Collie & Shalev Greene, 2016; Park & Cho, 2019; Walsh et al.,

2016; Warren et al., 2016). When adults—especially adult women—were victim of abduc-

tion, it was preceding another crime (e.g., rape, robbery). It has been suggested that the

complexity associated with the combination of two distinct types of crime into a new one—

such as sexual assault and homicide for sexual homicide, or in this case, abduction and

sexual assault for sexually motivated abduction—could represent another reason as to why

these “hybrid offenses” have been under-researched (Asdigian et al., 1995; see also

Beauregard & Chopin, 2020). Another possible reason to explain this was related to the fact

that research on abduction has mainly relied on what Walker (2014) has referred to as “cel-

ebrated cases”—that is, cases that make the headlines and capture the attention of the media

but are considerably different from the overall general cases (see Mears, 2010). Finally,

prior studies on abduction have focused only on certain aspects of this crime, neglecting to

look at the entire criminal event.

In the current study, we argue that sexually motivated abductions are different from non-

sexually motivated abductions—especially as to their target selection and criminal event

characteristics—thereby showing that the motivation for a crime influences how it will be

committed. Moreover, we propose that the act of abduction may reveal a specific crime-

commission process different from sexual assaults committed without abductions.

Identifying specific target selection and criminal event characteristics of sexually motivated

abductions may help law enforcement agencies to better organize their response in such

events as well as contribute to suspect prioritization (Rossmo, 2000; Shelton et al., 2016).

ANALYZING ABDUCTION: THE CRIMINAL EVENT PERSPECTIVE

Criminological theories have often been criticized for neglecting the dynamic nature of

the interpersonal interaction that occurs between an offender and a victim—that is, the

event—focusing instead solely on the act (Kennedy & Forde, 1999). This failure led to the

emergence of the criminal event perspective (CEP) (Miethe & Meier, 1994; Sacco &

Kennedy, 2002a). According to Sacco and Kennedy (2002b), the behavior of any one par-

ticipant (offender and victim) in the criminal event intersects with and influences the behav-

ior of other participants, shaping the course of the event and determining the stages through