Studies Investigate Female Sex Offenders

Finding Offenders, Victims Willing To Talk Proves Difficult

POSTED: 8:33 pm EST November 15, 2006

UPDATED: 12:29 am EST November 16, 2006

MANCHESTER, Conn. -- Getting inside the minds of female sex offenders proves complicated and difficult.

Tammy Imre was sentenced last November after she admitted to repeatedly sleeping with her daughter's 8-year-old friend at Imre's Stratford home.

High school teachers Mary Kay Letourneau and Debra Lafave were charged with having sex with their students.

Who Female Sex Offenders Are

Manchester police Sgt. John Maston has investigated crimes against children for more than a decade, including a number of cases involving female sex offenders.

"It's sisters, it's babysitters; we've investigated grandmothers, mothers, aunts," he said. "We're not preparing (victims for the risks of) women at all."

Dr. Catherine Lewis is a forensic psychiatrist and the director of medical student education at the University of Connecticut. Lewis is internationally renowned for her studies on female sex offenders.

"I've always been interested in studying female criminality," she said.

Lewis said female sex offenders comprise 2 percent of all sexual abusers. Among 4,226 people on Connecticut's sex offender registry, 66 are women, amounting to just 1.5 percent.

"I think the most widely accepted hypothesis has to do with males, overall, being more aggressive and being responsible for more violent crimes, of which rape is a violent crime," Lewis said.

Researchers Determine Types Of Offenders

Channel 3 I-Team reporter Len Besthoff reported female sex offenders are often abuse victims themselves; however, the similarities end there. Depending on which researcher with whom you speak, female sex offenders fall into anywhere between four to six types.

Lewis said the most common category of female sex offender that has garnered news headlines is the teacher, parent or authority figure who abuses boys. That category is technically known as a heterosexual nurturer.

"The woman's fantasy is that's she's nurturing," Lewis explained. "It's certainly not violent and the perpetrator usually believes they're not hurting the child in any way."

Slightly less common are homosexual female offenders, followed by more rare types. Lewis recalled one woman amongst her study participants who has violent tendencies.

Lewis explained the category as "women who were involved in an ongoing abusive relationship with a male who participated in rape of other women. So, either they witnessed the male partner, helped restrain the victim, or participated in raping the victim themselves."

The Victims Of Female Sex Offenders

Boys who are victims of female sex offenders, though, seem to receive less sympathy from friends, family and the public, who often look at having sex with an older woman as a conquest.

"They are embarrassed because there are a lot of kids who really aren't prepared sexually, or they know about it, they know they're not supposed to do it," Maston said.

Maston added that the male victims often think, "'(Am I) going to be in trouble? And, because they are the male, 'Is there something wrong with me?' 'Are they going to complain because they didn't like it?'"

"Often, young victims of these offenders do have difficulties, (including) depression, suicide attempts, drug use," Lewis said. "Those are things that can happen."

A better understanding of female sex offenders and their victims remains elusive. Despite studies like those completed by Lewis, many others have encountered difficulty in finding offenders and victims willing to talk.

Link.

Lewis said female sex offenders comprise 2 percent of all sexual abusers. Among 4,226 people on Connecticut's sex offender registry, 66 are women, amounting to just 1.5 percent.

This is very incorrect. Look for example here: http://www.vaonline.org/vls6.html:

In looking at the limited information and research available on female offenders, it would appear that based on what information is slowly surfacing on the subject, approximately one third or 33% of sexual offences are committed by females.

Also this book called: Female Sex Offenders: What Therapists, Law Enforcement and Child Protective Services Need to Know
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Female-Sex-Offenders-Enforcement-Protective/dp/1930461003"]Amazon.com: Female Sex Offenders: What Therapists, Law Enforcement and Child Protective Services Need to Know: Julia Hislop: Books[/ame]