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The
following cases are typical of Paedophile behaviour:
A
male public-sector employee, who lived alone in an apartment on a large housing
estate in the Parisian suburbs, made friends with several neighbouring families.
This resulted in invitations to the young sons, aged between 9 and 12
years, to visit him in his apartment.
Once friendly relations had been established in the course of several
visits, he dared the boys to lower their trousers.
As
the game progresses with further dares, the man was able to take photographs.
After a time, the sister of one of the boys became disturbed by changes
in his personality and alerted other adults.
[He has since been arrested and convicted of child sexual offences].
A motoring industry executive
‘cruises’ known hotspots for streetkids or delinquents, preferring them
around 14 to 16 years old. His
job provides him with the latest popular vehicle that helps to attract their
attention and he offers ‘Jason’, a youth he stopped to ask directions from,
a brief ride. He had in fact
driven past Jason several times and been satisfied the youth met his criteria.
Within 3 weeks Jason, is
‘crashing’ over. Eventually
alcohol is offered, they watch a few pornographic movies together and the
executive makes a move. At
first Jason is repulsed and rejects the advances, however the adult has already
considered this and ‘counsels’ Jason on the subject to lower his defences
and regard it as usual and normal behaviour.
Paedophiles are experts at making
contact with children. They
seek out settings and professions where opportunities for natural contacts with
children are great. They
become experts at contacting children, at being gently persuasive without using
force, at gradually winning their confidence by taking a personal interest or
through gifts. It is not
unusual for paedophiles to keep card indexes with ratings of the children they
have molested. (Nyman and
Svensson, 1997)
Coddington (1997) also cites the
findings of a study done by Kidscape (a child protection charity) in which over
half the paedophiles interviewed said they targeted single-parent families and
48 percent said they got their victims through babysitting.
The paedophile wants to introduce
himself to the boy’s world as an equal, a participant, to be as a boy is, to
feel as a boy feels. Thus
with these paedophiles we will almost never find them using aggression.
Aggressive activities are much more frequent in substitutive sexual
contacts with children. The
group of sexual delinquents (…) who abuse children for sexually substitutive
activities seems to have little in common with the group of paedophiles and more
in common with rapists”. (Schorsch,
1983)
Howitt
(1997) states that;
“The formal evidence of what
offenders do comes from two main sources – victims and offenders”.
While
the definition of sexual abuse can be problematic (Howitt, 1992), it would seem
likely that the bulk of offences committed against underage girls are
non-contact acts such as indecent exposure, public masturbation and
solicitations for sex, or legally less serious contact offences such as fondling
or rubbing one’s genitals against the body of the victims.
(Howitt, 1997)
Sexual
exploitation studies by the Netherlands State Police into children up to the age
of 12 state the most common forms of sexual contact involved the perpetrator
fondling the child, having the child fondle him and the child masturbating him.
(Wolters et al., 1985) Intercourse and attempted intercourse occurred in about
13% of cases.
Sadistic
behaviour was a feature of 6% of cases.
Although it was the opinion of police officers concerned that a quarter
of sexual contact was voluntary, coercion played a part in half.
On
average, child molesters offend against 150 male or 20 female victims according
to their paedophiliac orientation. (Abel
et al., 1987)
At
the Minnesota Security Hospital consecutive cases over a 10-year period
involving offences against children less than 14 years of age were examined.
(Erickson, Walbek and Seely, 1988)
Over two-thirds offended against girls, approximately a quarter against
boys and only 4% against both sexes.
Trends in the acts committed were:
For
females under 10 years;
(i)
34%
of offenders fondled the child
(ii)
17%
committed vaginal contact
(iii)
15%
performed oral sex on the victim
(iv) 12% had the victim perform oral sex on the offender
Attempted vaginal intercourse, anal contact, attempted anal sex and victim fondling constituted 8% of acts or less.
For
females between 11 and 13 years;
(i)
35%
of offenders fondled the child
(ii)
23% had
vaginal contact with the child
(iii)
13% had
the child perform oral sex on the offender
(iv)
10%
performed oral sex on the victim
(v) 6% attempted vaginal intercourse
For
males under 10 years;
(i)
28%
had anal contact with the victim
(ii)
24% of
offenders fondled the child
(iii)
7% of
offenders performed oral sex on the victim
(iv) 4% had the child perform oral sex on the offender
For
males between 11 and 13 years;
(i)
29%
had the victim perform oral sex on the offender
(ii)
27% of
offenders fondled the child
(iii)
14% of
offenders had anal contact with the victim
(iv) 14% of offenders performed oral sex on the victim
Bribery was the most frequent way of obtaining sex; threat was not so common. Usually the offenders remained clothed during the offences. Nudity, when it occurred, was more common in domestic offences. Mostly the victims were individual although offenders might have several contemporaneous victims. Group activity involving several victims in the same episode occurred only with adolescent males.
In
the only existing study of child molesters who are not in jail, the
investigators interviewed 561 child molesters and found that these men molest
boys five times as often as they molested girls. In fact, offenders who targeted boys outside of their
homes committed the largest number of crimes – they committed an average of
281 crimes, as compared with 23 crimes per nonincestuous assaults on girls.
(Abel, et al, 1987)
Perhaps it could be suggested that heterosexual paedophiles build more long term, one-on-one relationships with their victims, than homosexual paedophiles who prefer a number of less intimate relationships.
A
study by Budin and Johnson (1989) into various abusing methods employed by
inmates at an Ohio U.S. Correctional Institute found that the men tended to
prefer a particular type of child, although the attractive tendencies varied
substantially from offender to offender.
Nearly
half preferred their own children and/or ones they described as passive, quiet,
troubled, lonely children from “broken” homes; two-fifths mentioned children
from single parent homes.
A
sort of “empathy” is demonstrated by the fact that 45% mentioned targeting
children who reminded them of themselves.
Victims were typically found residing in close proximity to the offender;
over half of them from near the offender’s home, a third in the neighbourhood,
a fifth at family get-togethers and an eighth in playgrounds.
Only a fifth of the offender’s molested victims far from their own
home.
Paedophiles have many distinct advantages when building relationships with their potential victims. They rarely admonish the child and will always appear to be enthusiastic and supportive of everything the child does. To the child this treatment can appear as unconditional friendship, thus enabling a relationship to begin based on the deceptive and cunning behaviour of the paedophile.
The
child’s trust was established in the enticement process by being a friend in
90% of cases. Other aspects
of enticement included playing games (55%), giving money (45%).
Tangible gifts such as toys, candy, cigarettes, beer and drugs were much
less common.
Less
than a quarter claimed to have used threats to obtain the child’s co-operation
and silence.
“Some aspects of offender behaviour are difficult
to quantify but deserve comment, based on our clinical experience. Attempted insertion of offender’s fingers into
vaginas was fairly common, but insertion of fingers into victim’s rectums was
fairly uncommon.
Insertion of foreign bodies into the rectum or vagina
occurred very rarely. Penile
rectal or vaginal contact with younger children usually consisted of touching
the rectal or vaginal opening with the penis, and rubbing the penis between the
legs.
In cases where more forcible efforts were made,
bruising or laceration of the tissues between vagina and rectum occurred. Where rectal penetration actually occurred, the victims
usually had to be held forcibly and their cries muffled. Some strategies [were] routinely necessary in order to
conceal the cries from others in the household”.
(Erickson, Walbek and Seely, 1986)
A Seattle specialist in sex offender treatment programs had therapeutically “successful” clients provide information about the characteristics of their offending. (Conte, Wolf and Smith, 1989) The men were mostly experienced offenders with an average of seven victims each, although the range was from 1 to 40. They were asked to write a “manual” on how to sexually abuse a child. Among the examples they provided were:
(i)
“[Find]
some way to get a child to live with you.
If you have a repertoire of jokes that move from risqué to pornographic,
have porn magazines lying around. Talk
about sex. Watch the kid’s
reactions. Stick your head in
their bedrooms while they are in their bedclothes.
Act like it’s a natural thing.
Be sympathetic. Try a
lot of compliments. Have
accidental contact with their breasts”.
(ii) “Be in a position where you are a close friend with someone who is involved in alcohol and drugs and probably has the attitude that kids are like dogs, just around the house. Someone who has a tight control over kids and where if the kid does anything wrong he’ll be severely punished.
Being a molester, you can pick on that and start showing the kids extra attention. They’ll thrive on it and will become easily manipulated to your control. You can also set it up when the parents trust you and use you as a babysitter. You’ll be alone with the kid, and the kid doesn’t like his parents”. (Conte, Wolf and Smith, 1989)
Most
of these offenders also expressed a preference for certain physical or
behavioural characteristics in their victims – generally smooth skin, long
hair, dresses well, or slim body, darker skinned, darker hair, a cute face.
Behaviours such as victims being friendly and open were also mentioned.
After
they had identified a potential victim, most of the offenders thought about
getting caught and this fear caused them to modify when and how to abuse:
“I selected victims that I thought wouldn’t report me”.
(Conte, Wolf and Smith, 1989)
