Types of empathy and adolescent sexual offenders

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine general empathy, general victim empathy and own victim empathy in adolescent sexual offenders. Sixteen adolescent sexual offenders completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Personal Reaction Inventory, a “general sexual abuse victim” form of the Victim Empathy Distortions Scale (VEDS) and an “own victim” form of the VEDS. Sixteen non-offending, age-matched adolescents also completed the IRI. In summary, it was found that adolescent sexual offenders did not display general empathy deficits compared to age-matched non-offending controls. However, they displayed significant empathy deficits for their own sexual abuse victim compared to a general sexual abuse victim. Adolescent sexual offenders were found to have significantly lower scores on the perspective taking sub-scale of the IRI, compared to non-offenders. The findings of this study are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords:

• Adolescent sexual offender
• general empathy
• victim empathy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the staff and participants from the South East Centre Against Sexual Assault and the Male Adolescent Programme for Positive Sexuality, who helped us to complete this research, and also Professor Con Stough for providing data on the IRI from his previous research (Moriarty et al., 2001).