THE RELATIONSHIP OF CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE ON THE COMMISSION
OF SEXUAL AND/OR OTHER ABUSIVE CRIMES IN ADOLESCENCE:
Increasingly, the existing literature on childhood sexual abuse has shown that the abuse is associated with a variety of psycho-emotional and behavioral problems in both adolescence and adulthood. For example, sexual abuse in childhood has been found to be contributive to eating disorders (Beckman & Burns, 1990), low self-esteem and depression (Rew, 1989) and to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Coons, Bowman, Pellow & Schneider, 1989).
Of direct relevance to the proposed study is the finding by Vadasy (1989) that one consequence of childhood sexual abuse is that often the victim of the abuse will grow up to be an abuser. For example, in their study of the life histories and psychological profiles of 59 incestuous stepfathers, Erickson, Walbek, and Seely (1987) found that when compared to other groups of fathers, incestuous stepfathers were more likely to report sexual abuse in childhood. Similarly, Berlin and Krout (1986) reported that pedophiles often state that they were sexually victimized as children.
What the foregoing findings may be said to indicate is that childhood sexual abuse victims can sometimes become victimizers. In this regard, it is possible that not only do victims of childhood sexual abuse sometimes victimize others in explicitly sexual ways but may also victimize others in non-sexual ways such as through the commission of a violent non-sexual crime. In an effort to further understand this victim-victimizer relationships, the proposed study will examine for relationships between childhood sexual abuse victims and their commission, in adolescence, of sexual or other abusive crimes.
The proposed study is significant in several ways. First, the existing literature on the victim-victimizer relationship has almost exclusively focused on the commission of sexual crimes by victims of child...