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Even though much of the prior sex offender literature focuses on males, recent research has included females as offenders. Such research, however, has been limited by small sample sizes. Several researchers have proposed typologies of female sex offenders that include both females who act alone (i.e., solo offenders) and females who act with another person (i.e., co-offenders), often a male. The current research includes a cross-national sample of 123 females who were solo offenders and 104 who were co-offenders. It was found that the two groups of females were not significantly different in regard to their age, race, time of offense, and the location of the offense. Co-offenders were more likely than solo offenders to have more than one victim, to have both male and female victims, to be related to the victim, and to have a nonsexual offense in addition to the sexual offense listed.
Keywords: female sex offender; solo offender; co-offender; logistic regression
Much of the prior literature on sex offenders has focused solely on males (see Barnard, Fuller, & Robbins, 1989; Knight, Rosenberg, & Schneider, 1985; Kuznestov & Pierson, 1992; Prentky, Cohen, & Seghorn, 1985; Rosenberg, Knight, Prentky, & Lee, 1988); recently, however, sex offender research has included female offenders (see Denov, 2004; Lewis & Stanley, 2000; Nathan & Ward. 2002; Vandiver & Kercher, 2004). Official law enforcement reports for 2002 (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003) indicate that females were arrested for 6.7% of sex offenses (forcible rape and other sex offenses, excluding prostitution). Some researchers, however, have suggested official numbers of female sex offenders are underestimated (Finkelhor, Hotaling, Lewis, & Smith, 1990). Sex offenses, in general, often go unreported to law enforcement. Females may be better able to hide the offense by engaging in such offenses during normal child-rearing practices, such as bathing, dressing, and other normal routine tasks (Groth & Birnbaum, 1979). Additionally, the cases reported to law enforcement do not always result in an arrest (Allen, 1991). It is often perceived that females simply cannot sexually assault another person; society has been geared towards assuming sex offenders are only males and females are incapable of committing such offenses (Denov, 2004).
Prior research on female sex offenders has been limited by small sample sizes, making it difficult to generalize...