Is it pedophilia or not? Observations on child sexual abuse in Poland from a criminological perspective

The terms "paedophilia" and "paedophile" appear regularly in any discourse on sexual offences against children. However, whether their use is justifiable is debatable, as is the question of whether framing this category of offence, and the defining characteristics of those who commit it (and in particular their state of mental health), in these terms justifies claiming that paedophilia is the underlying issue. This article examines the terminological differences between the definition of paedophilia used in medical diagnosis and the very specific definition enacted in the Polish Criminal Code (Art. 200, Para. 1). The results of empirical studies are presented below. Case files under this provision are examined, with special emphasis on the typology of offences and data on the mental health of offenders. This research was conducted as part of Research Project No. 2013/09/N/HS5/04247 and was financed by the National Science Centre. These studies show that a significant proportion of offences labelled "paedophilic" are nothing more than consensual sexual acts between adolescents and that the proportion of offenders afflicted with sexual preference disorders is negligible. The vast majority of cases do not involve paedophilia in the medical sense of the term, and using it this way gives a distorted picture of the topic and steers most of the discussion of it on a completely misguided path.