Childhood trauma history of female sex offenders: A systematic review

Abstract

Objectives

This review examined the existing empirical literature on trauma histories of female sex offenders to investigate the effects of childhood sexual abuse along with other traumatic experiences that lead to developmental traumas.

Material and methods

For this, validated questionnaire were used; we searched for articles in PsycInfo, PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, and EMBASE. The inclusion criteria comprised studies that employed the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and that were published in English from 2007–2020. To direct this review, the articles’ selection followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews guidelines. After reviewing 2039 abstracts, 78 met the criteria; after removing duplicates, 12 articles were assessed for eligibility. Eventually, four abstracts that used the validated questionnaires were considered admissible and their methods involved non-randomized convenience samples of sex offenders either in prison or in treatment programs.

Results

Statistics on female sex offender prosecutions were relatively low compared to victim reports of sexual abuse committed by females. Compared with males, sexual abuse perpetrated by females had more damaging effects on the victims. The results indicated that childhood sexual abuse history was the most common type of maltreatment, along with physical abandonment, emotional abandonment, mental illness at home, and family instability due to divorced or unmarried parents, contributing to the development of sex offending behaviors.

Conclusion

Future research should address policies that allow for early intervention and treatments that target the understanding of maltreatment histories to ameliorate the child sexual abuse effects in life's early stages.