<p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Author: Dolores Martin</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"><br/>The following essay will attempt to devise an academically supported Social Care practice policy and procedure that addresses the underlying issues associated with sexual offending. The essay will focus on female sexual offenders and look at the current literature related to the topic in order to gain an insight into the issue of female sexual offending and how it is being managed in society.    </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">“That she might seduce a helpless child into sexplay is unthinkable, and even if she     did so, what harm can be done without a penis?” Mathis (1972:p12)</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">In the past, as outlined by Duncan 2010, there has been little attention and even less acknowledgement given to females who commit sexual offences, even though there is documentary evidence of women committing sexual crimes as far back as the 1930s. There have been many high profile cases involving the sexual abuse of children by women these include Myra Hindley and Rosemary West. Both of these women carried out the abuse along with a male co-offender which is a common characteristic of women who sexually offend. Although, it has been argued that in the case of Rosemary West she was an equal participant in the sexual crimes that she and her husband Fred committed. As pointed out by Ramsland and Mc Grain (2010), at her trial survivors testified about the couple’s sadistic teamwork. The survivors included their daughter who stated that her mother, Rosemary West, helped numerous men to assault her when she was very young.  A psychiatric testimony on behalf of Rosemary revealed that her mother had went through electric shock therapy to treat depression whilst she was pregnant on Rosemary and also stated that her father suffered from schizophrenia. Rosemary sexually abused her younger brother when she was thirteen years old and after his arrest, her husband Fred, who she married at the age of sixteen, told the police that he had witnessed her having sex with her father.</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Despite all of this, a huge lack of attention still surrounded female sexual abuse and this has hindered the process of gathering the information that is needed to help put measures in place to prevent their criminal behaviour. The result of this is victims, who include children, teens and adults, being afforded the recognition, support and understanding that they need. Even though there is less coverage given to the issue of female sexual offenders, the information that is out there suggests that women commit the same types of sexual crimes as men do. Elliott (1994) points out that there are general similarities between male and female offenders. These include chaotic and abusive backgrounds, non-nurturing homes, which seem to be the norm, and emotional, verbal and physical abuse is also part of the experiences of both sexes. They are usually low status members of their peer group and tend to feel that they do not belong anywhere. Individuals who sexually offend are very often friendless and will do almost anything to feel accepted within their social group. A lot of the abusive acts that they commit are similar and both men and women often use some of the same arguments or tricks in order to gain the trust and co-operation of their victims. Despite a number of similarities, there are differences in the types of abuse that females commit and also in their response to therapy. </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Generally women do not tend to coerce others into being accomplices and use less physical force. Women are far more likely than men to admit the abuse and are usually more willing to take responsibility for their behaviour. On average, most men begin sexually offending at a much younger age than women and women generally use fewer threats to keep their victims quiet. A major difference between women and men who offend is that before women start to offend against others, they usually act out against themselves using self-punishment behaviours such as self-harm, starving themselves and prostitution. When it comes to responding to therapy, men tend to forgive their behaviour a lot quicker than women and move through the stage of feeling shame and into the feeling of guilt more quickly and thus allow themselves permission to heal a lot sooner. Women’s anger towards themselves tends to be more deeply entrenched. Men tend to only develop empathy for their victims when they are well into their therapy. The sexual abuse dynamic which is common to both male and female offenders is that as adults, they both have sexual contact with teenagers. </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Ford (2006) contends that despite the fact that there is at least half a century of knowledge pointing to the fact that women also engage in sexually abusive behaviours towards children, it still remains a phenomenon that has not been sufficiently accepted. It seems that the only way that abuse my females is accepted is by looking at the woman as a victim herself, usually in the context of being coerced into performing these acts by a male for his sexual gratification. Thus in this scenario, the woman herself becomes the victim. The idea that a woman may have been an equal partner in the abusive act or indeed have coerced a male into offending is rarely if ever explored. One of the most unique aspects of female sexual offenders is the high likelihood of offending in the company of a co-offender. Boer et al (2010) pointed to the fact that early abusive experiences at the hands of males can play a huge part in the development of passive and dependent personality traits that can result in such women becoming vulnerable to potential coercion and grooming from male sexual offenders.</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Beech, Craig and Browne (2009) contend that although acceptance and belief about female sexual offending has increased widely, research continues to indicate that discrepancies in how male and female offenders are viewed. This was highlighted in the Roscommon case, where a mother of six was sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted of incest, sexual abuse and neglect of her children. The sentence was handed down in the Circuit Court in Roscommon in January 2009 by Judge Miriam Reynolds, who stated on the day that there was huge room for improvement in legislation to deal with the actions of women who sexually offend.  The Judge went on to say that she would be sentencing the woman using legislation that dates back to 1908 and that the maximum sentence she could hand out under that legislation was seven years. She further pointed out that had this been a male sexual offender, a much longer sentence could have been imposed under recently amended legislation. </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">In designing a framework to address the underlying issues associated with females who sexually offend, it is important to try and identify the variables most strongly associated with this type of offender. One of the major identifiable factors that need to be addressed with women who sexually offend is whether or not they committed the offence alone. If a woman was coerced into offending by others, it would be important in an assessment of risk to consider their ability to resist coercion in the future, especially if the woman is going back into an environment where this would be possible. Another factor important to this type of offender is if the victim was in fact the abuser’s child. In this case, the framework would have to include counselling and therapy for the child. When and if the mother was able to see the child again, there would need to be high supervision and access would have to be limited and on the victim’s terms in order for any relationship building to take place. As is the case with most female sexual offenders, there is normally a history of abuse which has not been addressed, this would need to be explored and worked through before beginning treatment. Another factor that usually relates to females who sexually offend is their abuse of alcohol or drugs, the addiction would need to be treated before any specific sexual offending treatment can begin.</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Any framework put in place to prevent a female offender from offending would need to be tailored to meet the individual needs of the offender. As outlined above, females who sexually offend are often the victims of abuse themselves and their experiences are very likely to remain secret until such time that they offend against a child and enter into a treatment programme where they then feel comfortable to talk about their past. In the past, women did not have the information about abuse that we have today and this may have resulted in many women not realising that what was happening to them was in fact abuse. They did not have the opportunity to talk to someone about what was happening to them as children. Their experiences of sexual abuse would have occurred before there were any effective laws to protect them from abuse. A possible result of this is that these women remain silent about their experiences and therefore continue a pattern of victimisation into adulthood.  A framework for working with female sexual offenders would need to address this issue before ever working to prevent the abuse from happening again. </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">As outlined by laws and Donohue (2008), risk management for women who have sexually offended has three important components, these are treatment, supervision and monitoring. Over the last ten years or so, a small number of treatment programmes specifically for women that sexually offend have been developed. One such programme is The Genesis ıı Programme for female sex offenders which originated in Minnesota. This programme involves group therapy goals that are relapse prevention orientated and are similar to those used in the treatment of male offenders. The aim of the programme is to encourage the abuser to take responsibility for their behaviour, increase their understanding of the impact on their victims, increase awareness of their offence cycle and to create strategies that meet the needs of the abusers without victimising others. The programme also emphasises the importance of evaluating the perpetrator’s own abusive history and particular emphasis is put on building self-esteem, developing an understanding of their own sexuality, reducing any dependency on male partners and also reducing hate and self-blame. </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Supervision of female sexual offenders, as pointed out by Laws and Donohue (2008), consists of tracing the movement of the abuser and restricting the possibility of the perpetrator getting in contact with their victims. During the supervision stage, a female sex abuser may be on temporary release or on a programme of integration back into the community. There would need to be restrictions on the abuser’s movement, communication and possible access with a previous victim. If an offender had accessed her victims through her place of work, then she would be instructed to refrain from seeking employment that involved any contact with children. A third important part of risk management is monitoring; this involves the identification of any early warning signs of relapse by the abuser. It is important that any signs of relapse are acted on straight away and it is helpful if an agreement of a plan of action in the event of a relapse is agreed during the treatment process between the offender and the worker. This involvement can be beneficial for the offender and the victim, as well as helping to improve the relationship between the offender and the worker. Safety planning is a possible fourth component of risk management and involves looking after the safety of victims. This may involve informing communities or actual relocation of offenders who have been released. As a result of these measures, the overall safety of the victim can be greatly enhanced and likelihood of the victim being reoffended against reduced.  </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">The good-lives model is an excellent overall framework for risk management. This model, as outlined by Ward, Polaschek and Beech (2006), is an example of a treatment model that has a positive psychological approach with a strengths-based perspective. The goal of this model of treatment is to instil offenders with the knowledge, skills and also the competencies to put in place a realistic good lives plan that they can use in the environment that they are released into. Agency, psychological well-being and the opportunities that they have to live an alternative lifestyle to the criminal lifestyle that they had been living is the main focus of this treatment.  In order to change offender’s ideas about themselves and to help them to gain the life they want to live, they need to possess the skills and capabilities and be offered opportunities and supports within their communities. This is a huge task for offenders and can through up a lot of issues relating to what the offender wants and what is realistic. The offender would need to be able to change their whole opinion of themselves and create a totally new identity in order to meet the aims of this model. </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">The Finkelhor precondition model, as pointed out by Ward et al (2006), was perhaps the first model of treatment to note that child abuse is a complicated phenomenon and is the result of a number of different factors. Finkehor noted that any theory used to work with sexual offenders needs to be individual to the offender and should be able to be tailored to meet their individual needs. This is true of any client within social care practice and agrees with the idea of person centred planning and the notion that a one size fits all theory will not meet the needs of all clients. Finkelhor’s theory outlines four underlying factors that have been involved in accounting for sexually abusive behaviour. These four factors are emotional congruence, sexual arousal, blockage and disinhibition. In relation to women who sexually abuse children the fourth factor of Finkelhor’s model which looks at disinhibiting factors is very relevant due to the fact that women who sexually abuse are often abusers of alcohol and or drugs. They use their addiction to try and weaken or remove any emotional or cognitive restraints that would ordinarily prevent them from becoming sexually involved with children.    </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">The essential force behind Finkelhor’s argument for his theory is that these factors can be grouped together into four preconditions that need to be satisfied before the sexual abuse of a child can take place. These preconditions are motivation to sexually abuse, overcoming internal inhibitors, overcoming external inhibitors and overcoming the resistance of the child. This model has been widely used in the treatment of sexual abusers and one of the main advantages of the theory is its simplicity, which makes it easy to use with offenders. A major disadvantage is the fact that although Finkelhor states that all four preconditions need to be gone through before abuse will take place, it could be argued that abuse is already taking place during the first three stages and it is possible that a victim is already suffering abuse before getting to the final precondition stage.</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">      </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Work that has been carried out with female sex offenders, as outlined by Beech et al (2009), has clearly identified a number of treatment needs that relate to both male and female sexual offenders: these include denial, distorted cognitions, minimisation, limited understanding of the impact of their offending on victims, interpersonal problems and, in some cases, more specific factors such as deviant sexual arousal.  Sexual deviance in females, as stated by Gannon and Cortoni (2010), has remained absent in research on female sexual offending and the continued ignoring and overlooking of these deviant sexual arousal patterns has contributed to the continuation of child abuse by females. The development of specific treatments for women who sexually offend is also lagging far behind treatment that which exists for men.       </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Gannon and Cortoni (2010) state that when a child has experienced sexual abuse by a female in a society that still has not accepted that this type of abuse really does happen, the child has an increased sense of powerlessness which is made even worse if the perpetrator is the victim’s mother. Where this is the case, the entire life of the child is controlled by the abuser. This sense of powerlessness created by the abuse can result in the child having an overriding desire to be in control. The possible results of this are an increased possibility of aggression and exploitation towards others. This goes along with the research on female sexual offending, which concurs that women who have been abused have the potential to abuse. </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">The prevention of child abuse by women will only come about as society is made aware that women do actually commit sexual crimes. Child protection services, law enforcement, healthcare professionals, researchers and the mental health system all need to replace the myths about women sex offenders and begin to educate society about the reality of female sex offenders. The traditional view of women, as outlined by Laws and Donohue (2008), which was as non-violent, nurturing, and protectors of the vulnerable, children in particular, are being increasingly acknowledged as flawed. There is a lot more clarity now on the types of abuse perpetrated by females. There is also an increased awareness in society of the differences between male and female abusers and the need for female specific treatments. As a result of this increased awareness, there is more guidance available to practitioners in relation to the treatment and assessment of females who sexually abuse and also about the management and assessment of their risks to others.                   </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> Bibliography  </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Beech, A., Craig, L., Browne, D. (2009) <em>Assessment and treatment of sex offenders: a handbook </em>UK: John Wiley and Sons</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Boer, D, Eher, R, Pfafflin, Craig, L, Friedmann, M. (2010) International Perspectives on the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders: Theory, Practice and <em>Research </em>UK: John Wiley and Sons</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Duncan, K. (2004) <em>Healing from the trauma of childhood sexual abuse: the journey for women</em> USA: Greenwood Publishing Group</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Duncan, K. (2010) <em>Female Sexual Predators: Understanding them to protect our children and youth</em> USA: ABC- CLIO</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Elliott, M. (1994) <em>Female sexual abuse of children</em> USA: Guildford Press</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Ford, H. (2006) <em>Women who sexually abuse children</em> England: John Wiley and Sons</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Gannon, T., Cortoni, F. (2010) <em>Female sexual offenders: Theory assessment and Treatment</em> UK: John Wiley and Sons</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0122/roscommon.htm%20l%20(online" style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0122/roscommon.htm l (online</a>) 22th January 2009 Accessed 12<sup>th</sup> April 2011</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Laws,R., O’Donohue, T. (2008) <em>Sexual Deviance: Theory Assessment and Treatment </em>New York: The Guildford Press</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Mathis, J. (1972) <em>Clear Thinking about Sexual Deviation</em> USA: Nelson- Hall Company</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Ramsland, K., Mc Grain, P. (2010) <em>Inside the minds of sexual predators </em>USA: ABC-CLIO</p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;"> </p><p style="font-size: 13px;text-align: left;">Ward, T., Polaschek, D., Beech, A. (2006) <em>Theories of sexual offending</em> England: John Wiley and Sons</p><!--EndFragment--><p><br/></p><p><br/></p>