What aspects of paedophilic sex offenders' neuropsychological profile differentiate them from other types of sex offender?

Sexual offending is a major problem with over 50,000 sexual crimes recorded in England and Wales in 2010-2011. Two thirds of these offences were committed against women while the other third involve offences against children. Sex offenders often show specific personality characteristics. How these relate to the nature of their offending, however, is unclear. Our approach to resolving this issue is to study the performance of offenders, with different offence histories, on neuropsychological tests that are sensitive to these personality characteristics. This will be achieved by bringing together the combined expertise of a forensic psychologist, a neurobiologist and a cognitive neuroscientist.
The motivations driving sex offending against women and children will vary greatly. We hypothesise that sexual offences against women may be committed by men who show characteristics of anti-social personality disorder or psychopathic traits. Sexual offences against children, by contrast, can be perpetrated by individuals with paedophilic tendencies, i.e., individuals with intense sexually arousing fantasies and urges involving sexual activity with children 13 years old or less. Paedophiles typically appear socially inadequate and may seem socially anxious. It is important to note, however, as few as 40% of child abusers may have a primary paedophilic sexual interest in children. Thus, the motivations to offend may vary greatly across child sex offenders and these need to be explored using objective measures.
Generic treatment programmes based on CBT can reduce re-offending although recidivism rates of around 20% are reported, and the true incidence of reoffending may be higher. The effectiveness of treatment could potentially be increased by tailoring the programme to the psychological characteristics which underlie the drive to offend in individuals as expressed in the Risk, Needs Responsivity initiative of the Ministry of Justice. Consequently there is a need to be able to categorise sex offenders in a manner which goes beyond offence history. The current project aims to determine the psychological profile of a large sample of sex offenders using self-report questionnaires to assess personality traits in conjunction with more objective cognitive neuropsychological testing.
We will use neuropsychological tests that are known to reveal differential patterns in response to psychopathic and social anxiety traits. Psychopathic traits are associated with deficits in identifying the facial expression of fear whereas highly socially anxious individuals tend to interpret neutral facial expression with a negative bias. Eye scan paths will also be analysed as high psychopathic traits are associated with avoiding the eyes when judging emotions whereas social anxiety is linked with focussing on the eyes. A distractor task, where the ability to identify a target is affected by its appearance being preceded by a potentially distracting image, will be used. Social anxiety is linked with difficulties in disengaging attention from distractors which are related to negative emotional faces, while those with high psychopathic traits show minimal distraction. The ability of the participant to look away from an emotional stimulus (make an antisaccade) will also be tested as social anxiety is linked with trouble looking away from negative stimuli. Our selected battery of tasks will thus allow offenders to be differentiated on the basis of objective measures that are directly related to the personality traits of relevance.
The work will enable a rich description of the psychological profile of different types of sex offender to be established based on both personality traits and more object cognitive neuropsychology tests. This is an essential prerequisite to the tailoring of treatment programmes to match the drives to sexually offend in different individuals. The findings may, therefore, feed directly into treatment programmes for sex offenders.

A primary non-academic impact of our work will be in helping professionals who work with sex offenders to have a better understanding of psychological factors that cause individuals to offend sexually. This is a prerequisite for the refinement of treatment programmes and improvements in their efficacy. As such, the proposed work will be of benefit to the judicial services, offenders and victims.

Currently, all types of male sex offenders tend to be treated alongside each other, perhaps in part reflecting an implicit assumption that there are common reasons to sexually offend. Treatment programmes typically use a CBT approach in which offenders are encouraged to think about how cognitions influence their sexual behaviours and to appreciate how their offending has injured their victims both physically and psychologically. These treatment programmes can be effective in reducing recidivism rates but sexual reoffending remains a problem. The proposed work will enable the placing of offenders into specific treatment groups on the basis of their psychological profile which will enable the CBT to better focus on the underlying reasons to offend sexually in each individual. Our close working relations with both prisons and the National Offender Management Service (Ministry of Justice) make this a realisable proposition.

There is a widely held assumption that the rapists of women tend to show antisocial or psychopathic tendencies whereas those who abuse children may have paedophilic tendencies and often appear socially inadequate. However, less than half of those who offend sexually against children can be classed as paedophiles. Furthermore, the limited literature on the psychological attributes of sex offenders tends to be based on self-report questionnaires and these are prone to inaccuracies due to response biases. Our work will address this gap in understanding by investigating the psychological characteristics of different types of sex offender using cognitive neuropsychological tests to support data obtained from personality trait inventories.

The project, which represents experimental research of an important applied topic, will generate findings of particular interest to forensic establishments including secure mental health facilities (e.g., Broadmoor Hospital) and secure therapeutic communities (most notably HM Prison Grendon), and the Operational Services and Interventions Group of the Ministry of Justice (UK), as well as those working with sex offenders internationally. The work has the potential to exert a direct influence upon forensic clinical practice as a result of the close working practices of the research team and the National Offender Management Service (Ministry of Justice). Presentation of the findings at meetings such as the annual ATSA conference (Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers) will ensure that the findings are disseminated to both academics and practitioners. Any resultant advances in therapy which lead to reduced recidivism rates will clearly be of benefit to potential victims and society as a whole.

The issue of sex offending is a cause of great public concern and anxiety, especially following incidents such as the unveiling of the "Savile scandal." Presentation of the findings of the project via press releases will lead to a more enlightened public understanding of sex offenders and their crimes.

Capacity building
The named researcher, Steven Gillespie, already has experience with running cognitive neuropsychology tests in a prison setting and has conducted computer-based eye-tracking experiments using an Eyelink1000 system in a laboratory setting. This expertise will be extended to the conducting of eye scan path experiments with offenders using a mobile tracker in a prison setting. This will extend the competencies of Gillespie and bring the capacity to conduct such prison based studies to our research group.