“Although concerning sexual practices between adults and children have existed throughout history and across cultures, whether such behavior was conceived of and defined as ‘abuse’ has been dependent on the societal values of the particular period” (Denov, 2004). In today’s society, sex offending has become an increasingly, concerning phenomenon that individuals must become more aware of. Although generally regarded as a male phenomenon, over time, female perpetrators have become equally important as male perpetrators. Due to the lack of public awareness, female sexual predators go unreported. As a result, society must become more aware of female sexual perpetrators, as many incidents of females assaulting both young men and women have gone unreported for some time. The following paper will focus specifically on why female sex offending is an important issue that the public must become more aware of. Historically, female perpetrators of sex offenses …show more content…
The authors received, and analyzed data on 111 cases of female perpetrators, which was obtained from the women after they had been charged with sex offenses. Among the characteristics of the offenders under investigation, it appeared that offenders “emerged as intellectually low in the average functioning group, with a high prevalence of psychiatric or personality disorders, a high prevalence of neglect and (especially sexual) abuse” (Wijkman, Bijleveld, Hendriks, 2010). From the conducted study, it was also evident that the victims of the offenders were relatively young (median age 13) and mostly of the female sex. In 93% of the cases, the victim was either an own child, a relative’s child or an acquaintance. Often, the abuse was carried out with a male partner (Wijkman, Bijleveld, Hendriks,