Assessing Neuropsychological Impairment Among Sex Offenders and Paraphilics

ABSTRACT

A sample of 1,180 sex offenders and paraphilics (SOPs) and 113 non–sex offender controls were compared on the Halstead-Reitan (HR) Neuropsychological Battery. The SOPs were further divided into offenders against adults versus offenders against children and into offenders against males, females, or both genders, regardless of victim age. The confounding influence of substance abuse, history of brain trauma and abnormalities, as well as age, education, IQ, learning disorders, endocrine abnormalities, and birth and developmental abnormalities were also examined. Overall, 33.5% of SOPs were impaired on the HR Battery, but they did not differ significantly from non–sex offender controls. It was the SOPs against children who were significantly more impaired than offenders against adults. Stepwise regression analysis examining all significant variables, showed that age and IQ were the first factors that entered in the analysis, but the presence of learning disorders and endocrine abnormalities also contributed significant variance in predicting the HR impairment index. Results suggest that examination of neuropsychological impairment in sex offenders is a complex but important dimension of their forensic assessment and treatment planning.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex offender
• alcoholism
• drug abuse
• learning disorders
• head injury