anual, Treating Adolescent Sex Offenders in the Community, Steen & Monnette (1989) note, "close to 60 percent of convicted adult offenders report the onset of their deviant sexual arousal prior to the age of 18. Almost none received treatment until they were adults. That should tell us something" (p. 3). Clearly, studies aimed at identifying and treating juvenile sex offenders are indicated. Investigators should be mindful of the significance of the research on adult offenders; however, the same investigators must concurrently avoid the tendency to adopt adult models of sexual offense in assessing and treating adolescents.
Studies of juvenile sexual offending behavior are virtually unanimous in identifying the family as a crucial influence in the development or elicitation of the offending behavior. Steen & Monnette (1989) report that most adolescent sex offenders come from dysfunctional family settings and have themselves been sexually, physically, or emotionally abused. "Therefore, their sexual acting-out behavior is a deviant way of coping with their environment which, if untreated, becomes a chronic cycle of sexual aggression" (p. 7).
A host of studies outlined in the NCPCR report (1985) point to an etiology of home and family factors. Workers in the field of juvenile sexual delinquency suggest a variety of mechanisms ranging from the minimal (lack of emotional support) to the maximal (sexual abuse perpetrated by parents, relatives, or siblings). The following list (NCPCR, 1985) illustrates several "ranges of causes": (1) increased family trauma, to failure of the family to provide adequate emotional support; (2) confused family relations, including unwitting parental participation in the offense or seductive maternal behavior, to abuse by parents; (3) abuse by family members, to scapegoating within the family (p. 167).
Hunter & Becker (1994) cite Ryan's 1987 research theorizing that exposure to aggressive and v...