Psychology and Crime, 2nd Edition

Students: Chapter 7

Click on the links below to view the content for each section.

Chapter Summary

  • Legal classifications and definitions of sexual crime change over time and may include non-consensual offences such as rape; offences involving ostensible consent such as those involving children; preparatory offences such as sexual grooming; and exploitation offences such as abuse of children through prostitution and pornography.
  • The occurrence of a sexual offence is often hidden from the official records because the victim, often physically harmed, is too frightened or ashamed to report the crime. Sexual offences are significantly under-represented in the official statistics.
  • The advent of the internet has produced a new means by which sex offending can take place through, for example, grooming potential victims, exchanges of information between sex offenders and traffic in illegal images.
  • Some psychological theories have considered the motivation of the sex offender leading to typologies such as preference and situation child molesters and anger, power and sadistic rapists.
  • The large-scale integrated theories seek to include a range of background, social and psychological factors to given accounts of sexual offending.

Reading List

Myhill, A., & Allen, J. (2002). Rape and sexual assault of women: The extent and nature of the problem. Findings from the British Crime Survey. Home Office Research Study 237. London: Home Office.

Proulx, J., Beauregard, É, Cusson, M., & Nicole, A. (2005). Sexual murderers: A comparative analysis and new perspectives. Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

Sheldon, K., & Howitt, D. (2007). Sex offenders and the internet. Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

Study Questions

Open Questions

In what ways does the internet play a part in the sexual abuse of children?

Why is it difficult to estimate precisely the number of sexual crimes that take place?

Why are there such wide-ranging differences across different countries in the prevalence of rape?

What is meant by the term 'cross-over sex offender'?

Please select a quiz..
You answered the following questions incorrectly:
    • Question
      of