Offending Patterns, Control Balance, and Affective Rewards among Convicted Sex Offenders

AbstractWe present results from a survey of 125 incarcerated sex offenders enrolled in a residential sex offender treatment program that reveal their offending behaviors, reasons for offending, and the affective states they say they experienced while committing their crimes. We supplement this survey information with qualitative data from audio-taped focus groups with these same offenders. Results provide a unique glimpse of the self-reported offending patterns of these offenders, as well as characteristics of their victims and the relationship of the offenders to their victims. Employing concepts from locus of control and control balance perspectives, we argue that many sex offenders, particularly high-volume and high-frequency offenders, are motivated to commit crimes due to an externalized locus of control (a control deficit), which reflects a perceived lack of control over events in their own lives. Their crimes can be viewed as a strategy or device that allows them to experience positive affect and sensations of power and control—even if only temporarily. Findings with regard to offending patterns, motivations, and affective rewards common to these offenders lend qualified support to control balance theory and the locus of control concept and help us understand what drives people to commit sex offenses. Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/udbh. NotesColor versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/udbh.1 While the data are from 1997, we can think of no reason why the behaviors and motivations that characterize sex offenders like those in our sample would have changed significantly since then.2 In reporting these categories, an offender's girlfriend or the children of a girlfriend were considered to be family members.Additional informationFundingThis research was supported by funds from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Research Consortium.Notes on contributorsPeter B. WoodPETER B. WOOD is Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University and Editor-in-Chief of Sociological Inquiry. He is currently Chair of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Public Policy Committee and serves on the Editorial Board of Justice Quarterly. Wood's work has appeared in Justice Quarterly, Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Punishment and Society, Sociological Inquiry, Deviant Behavior, The Prison Journal, Journal of Criminal Justice, Crime and Delinquency, and several other refereed outlets.James A. WilsonJAMES A. WILSON is Senior Program Officer at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York where he directs the Foundation's program in Social Inequality. His research interests are focused on processes of offender reentry, the policies and institutions that facilitate or impede successful reintegration into the community, and how processes of educational attainment have changed over time. His work has appeared in American Sociological Review, Criminology, Criminology and Public Policy, The Prison Journal, NIJ Journal, and Social Science Research.Daric P. ThorneDARIC P. THORNE is an archivist at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data housed within the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), a member organization of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. Thorne received his Master's degree in Sociology from Eastern Michigan University in 2013. His primary research interests include network methods and virtual communities, especially those related to emerging social structures in the digital age. Among his current projects is work on the Law Enforcement Agency Identifiers Crosswalk, a dataset that helps researchers connect information from agencies with U.S. Census and Bureau of Justice Statistics data for easier analysis.