TY - JOUR

T1 - The Emotional Experience behind Sexually Offending in Context

T2 - Affective States before, during, and after Crime Events

AU - Leclerc, Benoit

AU - Lindegaard, Marie Rosenkrantz

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Objectives: The current study focused on the role of affective states in adultsexual offending. We look at the prevalence of a range of affective statesthroughout sexual crime events. We break down the crime event intothree stages—immediately before, during, and after the offense. We examinetransitions of affective states—stage by stage—but also across victims.Finally, we investigate the impact of situational factors on affective states.Method: The sample consisted of a total of 553 adult males who had beenconvicted of a sexual offense. Self-report data on sexual crime events werecollected from these offenders. Apart from descriptive and bivariate analysis,“affective state-switching patterns” are investigated through transition1 School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University,Brisbane, Queensland, Australia2Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, theNetherlands3 Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen K, DenmarkCorresponding Author:Benoit Leclerc, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Mt GravattCampus, Brisbane, Queensland 4111, Australia.Email: b.leclerc@griffith.edu.auJournal of Research in Crime andDelinquency1-36ª The Author(s) 2017Reprints and permission:sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0022427817743783journals.sagepub.com/home/jrcmatrices. Results: Findings show large variations in affective states before,during, and after the offense but show little variation across victims. Alcoholusage and offender–victim relationship were related to affective states ofoffenders. Conclusions: We conclude that the found association betweenaffective states and decision-making of sexual offenders calls for moreresearch on within crime event variations especially, and future researchshould focus on causal mechanisms related to affective states

AB - Objectives: The current study focused on the role of affective states in adultsexual offending. We look at the prevalence of a range of affective statesthroughout sexual crime events. We break down the crime event intothree stages—immediately before, during, and after the offense. We examinetransitions of affective states—stage by stage—but also across victims.Finally, we investigate the impact of situational factors on affective states.Method: The sample consisted of a total of 553 adult males who had beenconvicted of a sexual offense. Self-report data on sexual crime events werecollected from these offenders. Apart from descriptive and bivariate analysis,“affective state-switching patterns” are investigated through transition1 School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University,Brisbane, Queensland, Australia2Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, theNetherlands3 Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen K, DenmarkCorresponding Author:Benoit Leclerc, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Mt GravattCampus, Brisbane, Queensland 4111, Australia.Email: b.leclerc@griffith.edu.auJournal of Research in Crime andDelinquency1-36ª The Author(s) 2017Reprints and permission:sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0022427817743783journals.sagepub.com/home/jrcmatrices. Results: Findings show large variations in affective states before,during, and after the offense but show little variation across victims. Alcoholusage and offender–victim relationship were related to affective states ofoffenders. Conclusions: We conclude that the found association betweenaffective states and decision-making of sexual offenders calls for moreresearch on within crime event variations especially, and future researchshould focus on causal mechanisms related to affective states

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - sexual offending

KW - affective states

KW - sexual crime events

KW - offender decisionmaking

KW - emotions

U2 - 10.1177/0022427817743783

DO - 10.1177/0022427817743783

M3 - Journal article

VL - 55

SP - 242

EP - 277

JO - Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

JF - Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

SN - 0022-4278

IS - 2

ER -