Psychopathic Disordered, Mentally Ill, and Mentally Handicapped Sex Offenders: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Although there currently exists a large amount of research on the characteristics and treatment of psychopathic disordered (PD) sex offenders, little if any empirical studies have addressed the mentally ill (MI) and mentally handicapped (MH) offender populations. A total of 106 PD, MI, and MH sex offender records from Rampton (Special) Hospital were reviewed for the study. Offender categories were compared by age of first documented sex offence, IQ at the time of admission, sex offence type, frequency of each offence type, history of violence during sex offences, age and gender of sex offence victims and number of victims for age and gender. Results revealed that 88 per cent of PD, 98 per cent of MI, and only 56 per cent of MH offenders' victims were female. Further analysis revealed that PD and MI offenders' victims were primarily female, with the largest proportion being pubescent and adult females. MH offender victims were primarily males and females under the age of 16. IQ correlated positively with history of violence during sexual assault and mean IQs were higher for ‘violent’ than ‘non-violent’ offenders in each offender category. A discussion of these and other significant findings, as well as implications for clinical treatment, is presented.