Indecent exposure is often regarded as a nuisance offense and detailed studies into this topic are relatively rare. However, there is consensus that relatively high recidivism rates and risk of escalation to more severe offenses can be of serious concern among these perpetrators. This cohort study aims to increase our general knowledge on the basic characteristics of these offenses and includes all registered police cases of indecent exposure in the Netherlands between 2012 and 2020, including 6741 incidents, involving 4663 suspects and 3808 registered victims. This first study of a large cohort over a long period of time describes the basic characteristics of these incidents, the perpetrators and their victims, and visualizes the results to explore trends over time. Results show that a modal indecent exposure incident is perpetrated by a 25-year-old male, on foot, on a public road, on a Wednesday afternoon in July, masturbating and directing his genitals intentionally toward a 13-year-old girl. The age distribution of victims shows remarkable similarity to victims of sexual assault. Compared to the first year of the period studied, the number of annually reported incidents gradually declined to half in the last year of the study. Findings are discussed in light of the most prominent theories on exhibitionism. Issues and suggestions relevant to apprehension and treatment of perpetrators are identified and discussed.
Sexual interest in children is an important factor contributing to sexual (re)offending against children. The current state of research makes it difficult to conclude if people with pedophilia are overly interested in children, or have lower interest in adults, or both. This is relevant knowledge in treatment for preventing sexual (re)offenses against children. This study aimed to systematically analyze sexual interest in both children and adults in samples of men with pedophilia and comparison groups. A total of 55 studies (N = 8465) were included in four meta-analyses and a systematic review. Most included studies considered people who had sexually offended against children (PSOC; nPSOC = 5213). Results indicated that PSOC with pedophilia did not have a clear sexual preference for either children or adults. Compared to comparison groups, they had more absolute sexual interest in children and lower sexual interest in adults. We conclude that the lack of sexual interest in adults may be a relevant factor in PSOC with pedophilia. More studies are needed to disentangle sexual interest in children from sexual interest in adults, while using carefully matched comparison groups and appropriate research designs.
Background. Violent criminal offenders with personality disorders (PD’s) can cause immense harm, but are often deemed untreatable. This study aimed to conduct a randomized clinical trial to test the effectiveness of long-term psychotherapy for rehabilitating offenders with PDs. Methods. We compared schema therapy (ST), an evidence-based psychotherapy for PDs, to treatment-as-usual (TAU) at eight high-security forensic hospitals in the Netherlands. Patients in both conditions received multiple treatment modalities and differed only in the individual, study-specific therapy they received. One-hundred-three male offenders with antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, or paranoid PDs, or Cluster B PD-not-otherwise specified, were assigned to 3 years of ST or TAU and assessed every 6 months. Primary outcomes were rehabilitation, involving gradual reintegration into the community, and PD symptoms. Results. Patients in both conditions showed moderate to large improvements in outcomes. ST was superior to TAU on both primary outcomes – rehabilitation (i.e. attaining supervised and unsupervised leave) and PD symptoms – and six of nine secondary outcomes, with small to moderate advantages over TAU. ST patients moved more rapidly through rehabilitation (supervised leave, treatment*time: F(5308) = 9.40, p < 0.001; unsupervised leave, treatment*- time: F(5472) = 3.45, p = 0.004), and showed faster improvements on PD scales (treatment*- time: t(1387) = −2.85, p = 0.005). Conclusions. These findings contradict pessimistic views on the treatability of violent offenders with PDs, and support the effectiveness of long-term psychotherapy for rehabilitating these patients, facilitating their re-entry into the community
