A Newswise press release reported today that Canadian research in the June 2007 issue of the Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability has found that male sexual offenders may commit these crimes because of exposure to “corrective” sex education, “contrary to the common thought that men with low IQs sexually offend because of a lack of knowledge or sexual deviance.”

A team of North American researchers compared two samples of individuals with and without an intellectual disability and a history of sexual offence and found that sexual offenders with intellectual disability who had committed a serious sexual offence, such as rape or pedophilia, actually demonstrated a greater sexual knowledge than non-offenders. This increased sexual knowledge may be from “corrective” sex education that the offender was given in the past. It can then be concluded that the higher level of knowledge of those who had committed some form of sexual offence was the direct result of their exposure to formal or informal sex education.

The data indicates that there may be two categories of persons with intellectual disabilities that sexually offend: Individuals who are knowledgeable and who offend in more serious ways and Individuals who appear to have a lack of sexual knowledge and whose offence may be the result of that lack of knowledge. The latter is termed counterfeit deviance.

“This study provides support for the need to assess sexual knowledge, sexual attitudes and prior sex education when an individual commits a sexual offence,” says Watson. “Only a careful diagnosis will reveal whether the offence is motivated by sexual urges and fantasies consistent with serious sexual offence or by other factors.”

I thought this article was interesting because it links sex education, which is usually associated with uncomfortable discussions or videos for middle or high schoolers, with criminal sexual offenders. One unanswered question was how researchers were able to establish that there was a causal relationship - that greater sexual knowledge actually leads these offenders to commit sex crimes, which is what the press release’s language seems to suggest. The release seems to approach the issue from the standpoint of the best way to treat sex offenders and to help prevent recidivism. What content is in current “corrective” sex education programs for offenders?

You can view the U.S. Department of Justice’s Center for Sex Offender Management curricula for learning to treat sex offenders. Beyond sex education, many of these rehabilitation programs utilize cognitive behavioral therapy and stress positive relationship building. For more information, you can also view the Colorado Department of Corrections’ survey released in 2000 that surveyed sex offender treatment programs in prisons by state.

You can also read a related article, “Research and Literature on Sex Offenders with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities,” from the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research.

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