Female sex offenders: An exploratory study of a known offender population.

摘要

Female sex offenders (FSOs) have low and inconsistent prevalence rates that depend greatly on the sample surveyed. Estimates of the percentage of sex offenders who are female range from 1% in known offender studies to 46% in victimization studies, which one meta-analysis that incorporated both sample sources estimating that FSOs make up 4%-5% of all sex offenders. The underestimation of the number of female sexual offenders is a problem, while underreporting by victims is a confounding factor when it comes to determining the true prevalence rate of female sex offenders. FSO research has provided some empirical support for some of the offender, victim, and offense characteristics. Researchers studying the different types of female offenders often have small sample sizes with limited populations creating poor external validity. This is an exploratory analysis of known female sex offenders (N=100), with nine data variables collected from an online public website. Data was subjected to a TwoStep (SPSS, 2015) cluster analysis method, a combination of algorithms used to analyze data in two separate processes. The first is a log-likelihood measure of similarity, the second a Schwartz-Bayesian Criterion that organizes the pre-clustered groups into larger clusters. The TwoStep method computes for number of cluster solutions based on analysis of internal structure quality. The results of this method yielded a three-cluster solution. Results of post-hoc tests found significant differences at the p<.05 cut-off between each of the three clusters, and between clusters for victim age, type of relationship between offender and victim, victim gender, the production of pornographic materials, the presence of a co-offender, and physical contact.