Self-reported childhood abuse among sex and violent offenders

Few prior studies have compared the childhood abuse experiences of different types of offenders. In this pilot study, the childhood abuse experiences of sex offenders (n = 16) and violent offenders (n = 16) were examined with retrospective structured interviews. The sex offenders reported significantly more psychological abuse, especially verbal abuse, and also tended to have experienced slightly more physical and sexual abuse than the violent offenders. In general, the sex offenders remembered their parents in a more negative light than the comparison group. The offender groups did not differ from each other in the total amount of self-reported early conduct disorder symptoms. The sex offenders appeared to come from more abusive childhood family environments, but the conclusions remain tentative due to the small sample and retrospective data collection.