The Diversity of Offenders and Criminal Acts
As a means of exploring these propositions, a sample pool in a hypothetical offender homology study will be considered. In this context, what will be examined is whether the analyzed pool of data was more likely reflective of a homogenous group of people that may have feasibly demonstrated attributes of offender homology or, rather, more likely a diverse heterogeneous group of individuals where homology, beyond a legally contrived title such as “sex offender,” was unlikely to be found from the outset. As a starting point, the sample pool for this hypothetical homology study will be conceived as consisting of 100 male stranger sex offenders from which 62 have only perpetrated
322 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 59(3)
a single sexual assault upon a single victim while the remaining 38 have committed multiple sexual offences and are colloquially referred to as “serial” sex offenders.
From the outset, three issues arise in respect of this hypothetical sample. The first is consideration of the potential diversity that can readily exist among human beings who may be labeled as sex offenders as a result of having sexually assaulted a single victim. The second issue is to consider the potential diversity that can readily exist among individuals who may be labeled as “serial” sex offenders. The third is to con- sider the possible diversity that can exist between people who perpetrate single versus serial sex offences.
The spectrum of individuals and circumstances that can conceivably be described as a single assault sex offender is substantial. Moreover, the elements surrounding the concept of acquaintance so as to constitute a “stranger” seem equally nebulous. As a hypothetical example to illustrate some of these issues consider the case where, in a befuddled state of intoxication, a man sexually assaults a woman whom he happens to encounter late in the evening while staggering home through a park. A second example could for instance involve a man who encounters a previously unknown woman in a bar. The pair initially decide to spend an evening together; however, at some juncture the woman wishes to discontinue the plan but the man forcibly continues to have inter- course. As a third example, while travelling on an ocean cruise ship a man participates in a gang rape by having intercourse with a heavily intoxicated and thus effectively unconscious woman who has been brought back to a cabin he shares with two other companions who have previously had intercourse with the woman in the cabin.
As a fourth example, during a cultural festival a young man encounters a previously unknown girl. The pair later have intercourse but in the following days the mother, upon discovering this event from her daughter, has the man charged as her daughter is under the legal age of consent. A fifth example could involve a drug dealer who storms the home of a rival and during this invasion sexually assaults the wife of his rival who simply happens to be present. A sixth example could be a sexual predator who, driven by pedophilic fantasies, breaks into a house where he suspects a young girl is alone. He finds and rapes the young girl but is thereafter apprehended and imprisoned for 25 years. A seventh example could be a homeless man who during a psychotic episode featuring command hallucinations sexually assaults an unknown homeless woman he encounters in another section of the same shelter. Arguably, all of the aforementioned examples feasibly constitute single sexual assaults by a stranger within a legal concep- tualization of “rape,” “sexual assault,” or “sexual intercourse without consent.” However, the clinical psychiatric/psychological assessment and forensic explanation of the human beings, their circumstances, and their behaviors as to how and why these differing sexual assaults were perpetrated are patently different and statistical analysis of such an eclectic group would perhaps unsurprisingly struggle to find evidence of homology among them.