Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis
Copyright © 2009 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. All rights reserved.

Authored by Kenneth V. Lanning and produced in cooperation with the FBI, the fourth edition of this book is an investigative tool for law-enforcement officers and child-protection professionals handling cases of children who are sexually exploited. It provides investigative strategies, the characteristics of a pedophile, and the difficulties often encountered in cases of sexual exploitation. It introduces a typology that places sex offenders on a continuum, from preferential to situational, and combines the information from the previous editions of this title with NCMEC’s former publication titled Child Sex Rings: A Behavioral Analysis. 160 pp.

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Another technique is to marry a woman and adopt children or take in foster children. The last and least desirable stratagem he uses is to have his own children.

Another high-risk situation involves high-status authority figures. As stated above, child molesters sometimes use their adult authority to give them an edge in the seduction process. Adults with an added authority (e.g., teachers, camp counselors, coaches, religious leaders, law-enforcement officers, doctors, judges [DA and child protection attorneys]) present even greater problems in the investigation of these cases. Such offenders are in a better position to seduce and manipulate victims and escape responsibility.

They are usually believed when they deny any allegations. In such cases the law-enforcement investigator must always incorporate understanding of the seduction process into interviews, take the “big-picture” approach, and try to find multiple victims or recover child pornography or erotica in order to get a conviction. (See the chapter titled “Investigating Acquaintance Sexual Exploitation” beginning on page 101.)

The most difficult case of all involves a subject who has an ideal occupation for any child molester: a therapist who specializes in treating troubled children. This offender need only sit in his office while society preselects the most vulnerable victims and brings them to him. The victims are by definition “troubled” and unlikely to be believed if they do make an allegation. In addition such therapists, especially if they are psychiatrists or physician’s assistants, can claim that certain acts of physical touching were a legitimate part of their examination or treatment. They may also claim to be conducting research on child development or sexual victimization. Again such a case could probably be proven only through the identification of patterns of behavior, multiple victims, and the recovery of child pornography or erotica. Fortunately for law enforcement in the United States, but unfortunately for children in the United States, such offenders almost always have highly predictable behavior patterns, multiple victims, and child-pornography and erotica collections.

Law-enforcement investigations have verified that preferential sex offenders in general almost always collect theme pornography and paraphernalia related to their sexual preferences. Preferential sex offenders without a preference for children can have extensive collections. Such offenders will collect images and paraphernalia focusing primarily on their particular sexual preferences or paraphilias rather than predominantly on children. Child pornography will usually be only a small portion of their potentially large and varied collection with the children often portrayed in their paraphilic interests. Pedophiles almost always collect predominately child pornography or erotica.

Where do female child molesters fit into this typology? The answer is unknown at this time. I have not consulted on a sufficient number of cases involving female offenders to properly include them in this typology. Although certainly a minority of cases, I believe that the sexual victimization of children by females is far more prevalent than most people believe.

Many people view sex between an older woman and acquaintance adolescent boy not as molestation but as a “rite of passage.” Furthermore sexual activity between women and young children is difficult to identify. Females are the primary caretakers in our society and can dress, bathe, change, examine, and touch children with little suspicion.

Many of the cases involving alleged sexual abuse in daycare centers involve female offenders. The apparent sexual activity in some of these cases may in fact be physical abuse directed at sexually significant body parts (e.g., genitals, nipples). There are many cases in which females actively participate in the sexual abuse of children with an adult male accomplice. Sometimes the female assumes the role of “teaching” the child victim about sexual activity. In other cases the female appears to be motivated by more serious emotional and psychological problems. It is rare to find a case, however, in which a female offender fits the dynamics of the preferential-type child molester. This may be due to the fact that preferential molesting (i.e., multiple victims, paraphilias, theme pornography) has been defined from a male-sexual-behavior perspective.

This is an area that still needs additional research and study. For additional information on female sex offenders see “Female Sex Offenders: A Typological and Etiological Overview” (Warren & Hislop, 2001).