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Using Indirect Measures of Sexual Interest in Forensic Contexts: Past, Present, and Future

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Challenges in the Management of People Convicted of a Sexual Offence

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society ((PSRCS))

Abstract

Paraphilic interests are a cornerstone of forensic assessment. Self-reports of sexual inclinations are fraught with limitations when working with individuals who face extensive personal ramifications from the justice system. A brief overview of indirect measures of pedohebephilic interest as diagnostic adjunct is given focusing on Viewing Time measures and Implicit Association Tests. Introducing the Explicit and Implicit Sexual Interest Profile, we outline the diagnostic potential of combining conceptually different measures into a test battery. We underscore the importance of measurement reliability for applied diagnostic decisions at the individual level. Underlying psychological processes of Viewing Time measures and their relation to fakeability are explained. Summarizing the state of the art, we conclude with open questions and venues for future research that are relevant to applied forensic contexts.

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Pedophilic interests refer to sexual interest in prepubescent children and hebephilic interests to pubescent children. The term pedohebephilia is used to refer to sexual interests in both target maturity categories.

  2. 2.

    Comparing CISACs with versus without clinical diagnoses of pedophilic disorder revealed ds of 0.61 and 0.69 for VT and IAT preference indices (recalculated from Schmidt et al., 2010), respectively. But note that this clinical criterion suffers from decreased validity as outlined above (Mokros et al., 2018).

  3. 3.

    Whether change of pedohebephilic preferences is possible at all is a debated, empirically open question. Although most clinicians doubt that psychologically significant change can be achieved, it might be possible for subtypes who develop paraphilic sexual preferences only later in life (Imhoff et al., 2017; Smid & Wever, 2019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Social and Legal Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Alexander F. Schmidt

  2. Department of Psychology, Social and Legal Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Rainer Banse

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  1. Alexander F. Schmidt
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  2. Rainer Banse
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Correspondence to Alexander F. Schmidt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Van der Hoeven Kliniek, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Kasia Uzieblo

  2. The Forensic Care Specialists, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Wineke J. Smid

  3. Department of Criminology, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Kieran McCartan

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Schmidt, A.F., Banse, R. (2022). Using Indirect Measures of Sexual Interest in Forensic Contexts: Past, Present, and Future. In: Uzieblo, K., Smid, W.J., McCartan, K. (eds) Challenges in the Management of People Convicted of a Sexual Offence. Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80212-7_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80212-7_5

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