During the past four years, our research team has been engaged in a project aimed at organizing a complex multivariate database on sexual offenders into homogenous and reliable scales and dimensions for the purpose of generating useful taxonomies of this important, but inadequately studied, offender sample. Initial reliability and concurrent validity results of both our clinical and empirical strategies of clustering life history and offense data have been very promising. These results, however, have been based on a rather select sample--offenders currently committed to the Massachusetts Treatment Center as """"""""sexually dangerous persons"""""""" --and have relied solely on concurrent data sources. The practical usefulness of our taxonomic solutions can only be evaluated in the context of generalization and follow-up data. The proposed research, therefore, aims at: (1) assessing the generalization and coverage of our typologies when applied to (a) the large sample of offenders observed at the Massachusetts Treatment Center and found to be """"""""not sexually dangerous"""""""" and (b) a smaller sample of sexual offenders seen at the Oak Ridge Division of the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada; (2) examining the cross-situational and prognostic utility of our dimensions and types by a follow-up of released sexual offenders (both """"""""sexually dangerous"""""""" and """"""""not sexually dangerous"""""""") through state and federal records; (3) using this follow-up data also as a means of unconfounding or collapsing subtypes as a function of their predictive validity; and (4) beginning to asses aspects of person-situation interactions and institutional programs as they affect post-release outcome and recidivism. The significance of the proposed research lies primarily in the benefits a valid, predictive, widely applicable taxonomy would have both for subsequent research into the etiology, diagnosis, treatment, and management of sexual aggression and for the elucidation this admittedly preliminary data would provided for current decision-making about such offenders.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
2R01MH032309-07
Application #
3375320
Study Section
Criminal and Violent Behavior Research Review Committee (CVR)
Project Start
1980-04-01
Project End
1988-11-30
Budget Start
1987-08-01
Budget End
1988-11-30
Support Year
7
Fiscal Year
1987
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Brandeis University
Department
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
616845814
City
Waltham
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02454
Robertson, Carrie A; Knight, Raymond A (2014) Relating sexual sadism and psychopathy to one another, non-sexual violence, and sexual crime behaviors. Aggress Behav 40:12-23
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Knight, R A; Manoach, D S; Elliott, D S et al. (2000) Perceptual organization in schizophrenia: the processing of symmetrical configurations. J Abnorm Psychol 109:575-87
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Prentky, R A; Knight, R A; Lee, A F (1997) Risk factors associated with recidivism among extrafamilial child molesters. J Consult Clin Psychol 65:141-9
Prentky, R A; Knight, R A; Burgess, A W et al. (1991) Child molesters who abduct. Violence Vict 6:213-24
Prentky, R A; Knight, R A (1991) Identifying critical dimensions for discriminating among rapists. J Consult Clin Psychol 59:643-61
Ullman, S E; Knight, R A (1991) A multivariate model for predicting rape and physical injury outcomes during sexual assaults. J Consult Clin Psychol 59:724-31
Prentky, R; Burgess, A W (1990) Rehabilitation of child molesters: a cost-benefit analysis. Am J Orthopsychiatry 60:108-17
Prentky, R A; Burgess, A W; Rokous, F et al. (1989) The presumptive role of fantasy in serial sexual homicide. Am J Psychiatry 146:887-91

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