Sexual offending against older female victims: An empirical study of the prevalence and characteristics of recorded offences in a semi-rural English county

Abstract

Little empirical research has been published concerning sexual offending against older female victims. We analysed all recorded sexual offences against adult women over 5.25 years in a circumscribed semi-rural area, calculated prevalence rates and attributable risk values, and used case control and descriptive methodology to analyse the crime scene characteristics. Sexual offences committed against older or elderly women are uncommon. Sexual offences against women aged 60+ years are not characterized by excessive violence and are typically carried out in a residential domestic setting by a single male assailant who is significantly older than is the case for typical sex offenders. Sexual offences where the female victim is 30+ years older than the male offender are typically minor assaults perpetrated by young drunk males in public places. Fears about increasing numbers of elderly female victims of sexual assault based on established demographic trends in Western societies may be misplaced. Sexual offences in which there is a large age gap between victim and perpetrator are likely to represent a different form of criminological phenomenon.

Keywords:

• sexual assault
• elderly victims
• gerontophilia
• rape
• sexual offending
• crime scene characteristics

Acknowledgements

Thanks to: an anonymous police constabulary from eastern England for supplying the data; Dr. Adrian Grounds, Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK, for comments on the manuscript; Professor Malcolm Adams, Chair in Clinical Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, for statistical advice; and two anonymous reviewers who provided constructive advice.

This study forms part of a thesis submitted for the degree of MD to the University of East Anglia.