Abstract: Pedophilic Disorder and its Risk for Sexual Reoffending in Child Molesters

Although pedophilic child sexual abusers are consistently reported as a subgroup of sexual offenders with higher risk for re-offending, a clinical diagnosis of pedophilia set by DSM criteria so far has failed to be of much predictive relevance. A DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of pedophilia (or DSM-5 criteria for pedophilic disorder), obviously, can hardly be expected to predict sexual reoffense owing to their broad definition criteria. On the other hand, a subcategory of pedophilia (exclusive pedophilia) was recently found to be a robust predictor for sexual reoffense (Eher et al, 2010). Also, pedophilia as defined by other means than by DSM criteria has well been shown to be associated with increased risk (Seto, Harris, et al., 2004). The SSPI, phallometrically measured sexual deviance, and the number of prior sexual offenses were found to be uniquely relevant indicators of pedophilic interests and for the risk of reoffense.

In this presentation, a summary will be given highlighting the clinical factors associated with a forensic relevant pedophilic disorder and its risk for reoffense.