A Cohort of Adolescents Displaying Harmful Sexual Behavior: Distinctive Factors Between Contact and Non-Contact Sexual Offending
AI Summary
Youths with mixed HSB targeted a wider range of victim ages and both sexes, compared with exclusively contact or non-contact groups.
Shared characteristics across groups included disrupted attachment, school behavioural problems, online pornography use, and prior non-sexual violence, all linked to escalation toward contact offences.
Findings delineate distinct developmental pathways for HSB and identify clear risk factors useful for targeted assessment and intervention planning.
J Child Sex Abus. 2026 May 20:1-22. doi: 10.1080/10538712.2026.2673342. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
There are a range of distinct factors associated with youths who engage in Harmful Sexual Behaviors (HSB). However, few studies have directly explored the different types of HSB among young people and their defining characteristics. This study aimed to compare the characteristics and backgrounds of young people engaging in contact (frotteurism, penetrative/attempted penetrative sexual assault) and non-contact HSB (voyeuristic and technology-assisted HSB). The study also explores the diversity of HSB offenses, focusing on whether individuals engaged exclusively in contact HSB, exclusively in non-contact HSB, or a mixture of both. Background and HSB data were collected from 88 youths between the ages of nine and 19 years old. This information was collected through referrals made to the Interventions for Vulnerable Youth (IVY) project, a Scottish Government-funded service, between October 2020 and November 2023. The results of this study show that youths who engaged in mixed HSB more often targeted a range of victim age groups (children and adults) as well as a mixture of male and female victims. However, there were several shared characteristics between contact, non-contact, and mixed HSB groups. These included experiences of insecure (disrupted) attachment, previous school behavioral issues, use of online pornographic material, and previous histories of demonstrating non-sexual violence. Each of these characteristics were also found to significantly contributed toward HSB escalating from non-contact to contact offenses. These findings reveal clear risk factors that link different types of HSB to the specific developmental pathways of offending over time.
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