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Indirect Measures of Sexual Interest in Child Sex Offenders: A Multimethod Approach

NCJ Number
229780
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 37 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2010 Pages: 319-335
Author(s)
Rainer Banse; Alexander F. Schmidt; Jane Clarbour
Date Published
March 2010
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article introduces the Explicit and Implicit Sexual Interest Profile (EISIP) an alternative approach for assessment for child sex offenders.
Abstract
Although there is strong meta-analytical evidence that deviant sexual interest in children is a major risk factor for recidivism in child sex offenders, the assessment of deviant sexual interest with self-report or phallometric measures is problematic. As an alternative approach for assessment, the Explicit and Implicit Sexual Interest Profile (EISIP) is introduced. It features direct self-report and indirect latency-based measures (Implicit Association Tests [IATs] and viewing time measures) of sexual interest in adults and children. The reliability and validity of the EISIP was investigated using a selected sample of child sex offenders (n = 38) and offender (n = 37) and nonoffender (n = 38) controls. Among the indirect measures, viewing time measures showed higher reliability and convergent and criterion validity than the IATs. However, the IATs independently accounted for criterion variance in multivariate analyses. The combined indirect measures showed good discriminative validity between child sex offenders and controls. Tables and references (Published Abstract)