Opinion: Public Perceptions Of Youth Who Commit Sexual Offense Is Skewed, Our Research Shows

sexual offenders; Middle-aged man over isolated background with disapproving expression on face and crossed arms.

Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock

Few crimes stimulate such visceral reactions and deep-seated fears as sexual offenses. Accordingly, societal responses to sexual offending such as registration and notification laws tend to be quite punitive and highly stigmatizing for the offender. Yet these social control practices are widely considered by the public to be essential for community safety. 

However, given lessons learned about the linkages between moral panic and legislation in other justice contexts (e.g., juvenile “superpredators” and waiver/transfer laws), we question the degree to which public perceptions about the characteristics of persons who commit sexual offenses are accurate — particularly of juveniles who commit these types of offenses.

sexual offense: Kristan N. Russell (headshot), assistant professor of justice studies, research scientist in Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center, smiling woman with light brown hair, checked top

Kristan N. Russell

Specifically, we ask: If public sentiment drives public policy in a democracy, how accurate is the information they are basing their perceptions/attitudes on that ultimately frame legal responses to these juveniles? We propose here that the larger societal understanding of and reaction to youth who have committed a sexual offense has been disproportionately severe in comparison to the risk posed by these youth and what we understand about youth development and resiliency. 

Our findings from a pilot study exploring public perceptions of these youth suggest practice and policy reform efforts should continue to incorporate a substantial public education and prevention component.

Current responses

Over 200,000 individuals on a sexual offense registry are there as a result of sexual offenses they committed as a youth. Many of these registrants have been incarcerated or placed on probation due to their offense and are trying to re-enter and function successfully in society. Registration requirements often include limitations on where one can live, restrictions on computer and internet access, participation in mandatory treatment and following various reporting and notification procedures (e.g., local law enforcement, neighbors). 

While these responses are often presented in the spirit of accountability and community safety, they have a substantial stigmatizing effect and potentially disrupt protective factors (e.g., introducing challenges to securing employment). These collateral consequences have been a major focus of research and efforts to reform and better design responses to this category of offense.

Offending trajectories and interventions

Youth tend to follow adolescent-limited sexual offending trajectories, meaning they no longer offend with little or even no intervention as they age and mature into adulthood. Longitudinal research concerning this population demonstrates that around 5% or less commit another sexual offense and juvenile offending is not predictive of adult offending. Further, paraphilia (e.g., highly deviant and persistent sexual attraction to very young children) is rare in juveniles. 

For more information on juvenile justice issues and reform trends, go to JJIE Resource Hub

Thus, fears that most juveniles who commit sexual offenses are doomed to be dangerous/predatory, persistent and lifelong offenders are unfounded. When intervention is required for sexual offending, research strongly suggests that community-based, education-focused and developmentally informed wraparound programs are preferred strategies for youth.

Our pilot study

We surveyed 159 adults 18 years or older recruited via Amazon MTurk in February 2018 as part of a larger research project exploring how various groups perceive the characteristics of youth who commit sexual offenses. The respondents were primarily male (63.9%), identified their race to be white/Caucasian (65.4%) and had a mean age of 32.63 years (range = 20-61 years). Consistent with our hypothesis and prior work in this area, we did find that on average, public knowledge about juveniles who commit sexual offenses is inaccurate. Based on a series of one-sample t-tests (which compare the means of the groups for statistical difference), respondents significantly overestimated the percentage of juvenile arrests that sexual offenses account for (mean estimate: 26.17%, actual: 1.03%), likelihood of reoffending as a juvenile (mean estimate: 41.91%, actual: 9.9%) and likelihood of reoffending as an adult (mean estimate: 49.56%, actual: 6.5%). 

sex offenses: Shawn C. Marsh (headshot), director of judicial studies graduate degree program University of Nevada, smiling man with short graying hair, mustache, beard, glasses, wearing dark jacket, white shirtJuvenile sexual offending rates have been consistently declining in recent decades. However, approximately half the respondents (50.95%) in our pilot study believed that juvenile sexual offending rates were on the rise. Only a small portion (13.38%) believed juvenile sexual offending rates were on the decline, while the rest of the sample (35.67%) believed they have remained the same across the last decade. 

We also found that respondents differed in their estimates based upon political affiliation. Early evidence suggests that those who self-report as Democrats or independents may have more conservative estimates of juvenile sexual offending and reoffending rates in comparison to those self-reporting as Republicans though these results need to be further explicated using a more robust sample. Though exploratory, this initial data suggests a disconnect between public perception of juvenile sexual offending and reality. If it’s harder to successfully reintegrate juveniles who commit sexual offenses due to the public’s stigmatized attitudes and behavior, it is imperative that we identify and better understand the factors that contribute to misperceptions.

Future research

Although a small pilot study sample, our findings do hint at the value of future research efforts to better understand the interplay between public perception and policy realities. These efforts should aim to validate the form and function of disconnects between data and practice to allow for evidence-based tailoring of public education and persuasion (i.e., attitude change) campaigns. Factors such as political beliefs and justice orientation may be particularly productive to explore in this context. We are currently developing a more in-depth study to explain the relationships between these and other important variables.

If we assume public policy is indeed “public” in that it is not only designed to benefit our larger society, but is driven by that larger society, then as scientists and evidence-based practitioners we should be eager to ensure the public has correct information on which to base their perceptions. Even though the primary sources for much of juvenile sexual offending are immaturity, lack of understanding around sexual consent and other social deficits, current responses are often punitive in nature and fail to address the educational and therapeutic needs of these youth. This disconnect arises in part from misperceptions of their openness to treatment and likelihood of recidivism, which can lead to harsher sentencing and discriminatory treatment. We must also focus on destigmatizing youth by avoiding the use of labels (e.g., “sex offender”) and diverting youth from public registry requirements when possible and appropriate.

Ultimately, we propose better long-term outcomes can be achieved if we focus on rehabilitative approaches (e.g., therapy, social skills training) and prevention efforts (e.g., comprehensive sex education, early identification) to address sexual offenses in youth in lieu of current retributive practices (e.g., detention, registration). We join myriad others in our call to meaningfully engage society, practitioners and justice professionals in efforts to address the misperceptions around juvenile offending, given their likely contribution to the stigmatization and use of overly punitive justice responses with low-risk youth. 

We believe that so far the field has paid too little attention to the negative collateral consequences this population has incurred as a result of these problematic offender registration practices and other related responses.

Kristan N. Russell, Ph.D., is assistant professor of justice studies and research scientist in the Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center at Prairie View A&M. 

Shawn C. Marsh, Ph.D., is director of judicial studies and associate professor of judicial studies, communication studies and social psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno

14 thoughts on “Opinion: Public Perceptions Of Youth Who Commit Sexual Offense Is Skewed, Our Research Shows

  1. Imagine the trauma and stress that would be felt in registration for a person convicted as a juvenile for something they did in the past out of ignorance and impulsivity. They make a stupid mistake without knowing any better and now must suffer for the rest of their lives for it, not to mention being despised by nearly the entire US population and seen as a “superpredator.” The greatest people often made some of the biggest mistakes, and society needs to figure out that if they ever want the youngest generations to work out then they will have to work with them not against. 200,000 people convicted as juveniles on the registry. Wow. I bet most of those people would be better members of society than 95 percent of today’s “non-criminal” millenials.

  2. Other issues I see are, can’t afford an attorney and you don’t get an expert. There have been changes in so called forensic questions. Juvenile only option is a judge. I don’t see how you could get a fair trial when the person that improperly interogates the child has a financial stake in the conviction.

    • Thanks for bringing that up. Also these so called expert child questioners have their contracts ended if they don’t find on the prosecutors side. It’s ridiculous that people think children don’t lie about this issue their is an abundance of research on this.

  3. Let’s not leave out the intellectually and developmentally disabled who end up on the registry by being manipulated or taken advantage of. They themselves have minds of a child.

  4. Thanks so much for your research and for this article. I have been haunted by a sexual offence I committed as a teen, during a period of severe domestic abuse. This information has given me some peace of mind. I only wish I could make amends to my victim. Another area of focus really needs to be treatment. If the public had confidence in treatment, that might lower the level of moral panic.

  5. Thank you so much for sharing such an Excellent and decent post. I found this very much informative. I’m impressed by the details that you have on this website. Thank you for this post.

  6. Thank you for this. As more and more academics as well as journalists make public the facts about these issues, the closer we get to laws governing sexual behavior and misbehavior that are based on facts and evidence rather than fear and emotion, moral panic and hysteria. We will be posting a lead-in to this piece with link-backs on our site.

  7. Pingback: Public Perceptions Of Youth Who Commit Sexual Offense - Women Against Registry

  8. The laws themselves are based on a number of false assumptions, such as the recently-actually NOT so recently debunked “frightening and high” recidivism rates among sex offenders. But simply curious adults wanting to know what the fuss is all about can get hung up on these laws as well, with equally damaging, life-destroying results. Older adults, especially, who never had a thought about pornography involving children while living most of their lives when there were no such laws against it and who always thought of themselves as “law-abiding” can find themselves walking dead people just for having glimpsed a few pictures at the wrong time and the wrong place. The way the country has developed itself around such issues is INSANE. Such issues used to be dealt with privately, because there weren”t that many of them. Now, in order to protect against the admittedly monstrous crimes RARELY committed there are tens of millions of other lives being egregiously diminished or in many cases utterly destroyed because of the insanity of moral panics based on the rare case. An adjudicated sex offender of ANY age is most often surrounded by a coterie of loved ones who are made to suffer along with a loved miscreant. The miscreant most often is NOT a dangerous predator or a ticking time bomb of criminality. BUT…he or she is ON the Registry as one…toally cut off from the human race.

    • Thank you for posting this Phys Ed; as a Forensic Psychologist/Evaluator I have seen far to much heavy-handed judicial address for this “offense.” People are not aware that the registry laws in CA have been changed to having 5 and 10 year registration in addition to lifetime; hand’s on offenders can get 5 or 10 year registration if they qualify, but someone, that “walking dead person,” can only ever get lifetime registration, without ever having touched, approached, solicited, emailed, or phoned anyone. What is much more disturbing to me, however, are the lengths police departments will go to finance and “man” a sting operation, “chumming” porn into shareware sites, posing as potential “dates” online, then after sexually enticing the man for an hour until he is fully aroused, tells him that she’s “13.” Neurologically, being under the influence of sexual arousal is no different than being under the influence of substances or alcohol. The frontal lobe/cerebral cortex, has switched off; the limbic system is in charge, pour guy has been entrapped! I hope to see this discussion become part of a larger conversation in the public arena. The current mis-perceptions need to challenged. The current laws and methods of police ensnarement strain local budgets to the breaking point while jails and prison are releasing murderers and other violent criminals because the state and counties “can’t afford” to house them anymore. INSANE is the exact right descriptor.

  9. Thank you for beginning the discussion on how skewed the public opinion is on juveniles who have committed a sex offense. Hopefully, this discussion will someday lead to all people on the sex offense registry. So many people in this country, including leadership, have based their conclusions on myths rather than science/research.

    What is happening in this country to people on the Sex Offense Registry is barbaric. We are working hard at Florida Action Committee to reform the registry and the statutes/ordinances that go with it. Those registrants who are not re-offending deserve a chance to reintegrate back into society as law-abiding citizens — they deserve a second chance.

    You have produced an excellent study that many on the registry hope will be read by the citizens of this country.

  10. Kudos for such an informative piece. It would be extremely helpful to determine the correlations, if any, between political leanings and perception regards sex offenders. Perception drives law implementation and thus it is an extremely important correlation. Look forward to reading any future findings in this area.

    Thank you for your interest in this emotionally charged topic. It needs research to better educate lawmakers as to the best way to address the issue.