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Abstract
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the knowledge of sex offender’s childhood physical and sexual abuse and its effect on public perception. Sex offenses and sex offenders generally evoke strong negative emotions compared to non-sex-related offenses. Much of the current sex offender laws and policies are enacted due to the public’s negative perception of sex offenders, which can be counterproductive in the reintegration of sex offenders who are released from prison. The current criminal justice system is founded upon the retributive model, in which the system focuses more on the punishment of the offenders that make reintegration difficult. Sex offenders have a higher rate of childhood physical and sexual abuse compared to the general population. Social learning theory and sexually abused-sexual abuser hypothesis explore the behavioral consequences of childhood abuse influencing adult sexual offenses. A one-way ANOVA analysis was used to compare the participant’s Attitude Toward Sex Offenders (ATS-21) scores, a survey used to measure participant’s level of attitude toward sex offenders, from three groups: physical, sexual, and the control group. The data found that individuals who were aware of the sex offender’s childhood physical abuse had a more positive attitude toward sex offenders compared to participants who were not aware of the abuse. In addition, the data was found to have no difference in the ATS-21 scores for those that knew of the sex offender’s childhood sexual abuse and those who were not aware of the sexual abuse. Results suggest that the general public is more likely to feel empathetic toward sex offenders who experienced childhood physical abuse, but not childhood sexual abuse. This study can be used to support that fostering empathy and having a positive attitude toward sex offenders is possible once the general public learns of the childhood abuse of sex offenders, which in return can assist in policymaking to practice restorative justice. The restorative justice model can assist sex offenders released from prison to receive appropriate services and resources to help with rehabilitation and reintegration to reduce the likelihood of future offenses.
