Women who sexually offend: an assessment of the descriptive model of female sexual offending

The Descriptive Model of Female Sexual Offending^{Footnote 1} was able to effectively characterize most women sex offenders who participated in interviews. The pathways approach underlying this model, which accounts for the contributory roles of cognitive, behavioural, affective, and contextual factors in women's sexual offending (see Table), could potentially inform treatment targets for this group.

Our recommended augmentations to the model could also facilitate its utilization as an assessment tool. Further quantitative research should be conducted to validate the new proposed pathway and the proposed changes to the checklist.

The pathways model of women's sexual offending was able to classify most, but not all, women sex offenders who participated in the study. Fifty percent of these women were classified as Directed-Avoidant, or as coerced into offending by a co-offender. Another 29% were classified as Explicit-Approach, or as actively planning their offences. Finally, Implicit-Disorganized offenders, or those who offend impulsively, represented 7% of the sample, with the remaining 14% not classifiable.

Exploratory follow-up analyses led the researchers to recommend a fourth pathway, Adopted-Approach, which characterizes women sex offenders who actively approach co-offending to please their intimate partner.

Very little research has been conducted on women who sexually offend. In collaboration with Theresa Gannon (University of Kent, UK), who developed the Descriptive Model of Female Sexual Offending, we applied the model to a Canadian sample of women sex offenders to examine its validity.

Fourteen women sex offenders completed qualitative semi-structured interviews. These offence narratives were then coded using established guidelines, and allowed the women sex offenders to be characterized into pathways.

Lutfy, M. & Derkzen, D. (2014) Women who sexually offend: An assessment of the descriptive model of female sexual offending(Research Report R-334). Ottawa, Ontario: Correctional Service of Canada.

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