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Sexual offenders' implicit planning: a conceptual model
1Department of Criminology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. t.ward@criminology.unimelb.edu.au
Sexual Abuse : a Journal of Research and Treatment
|July 25, 2000
Summary
Offenders
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Criminology
- Social Cognition
Background:
- Sexual offending research highlights decision-making processes.
- Offense planning can be explicit or implicit.
- Implicit decisions are termed 'seemingly unimportant decisions'.
Observation:
- Offenders exhibit implicit decision-making styles.
- This implicit decision making appears automatic: fast, effortless, and less conscious.
- It is associated with goal-dependent action plans.
Findings:
- Two social cognitive mechanisms explain implicit offender decision-making.
- These mechanisms are offense scripts and mental simulations.
- Automatic, goal-dependent action plans underlie these decisions.
Implications:
- Understanding implicit decision-making aids in offender profiling and intervention.
- Future research should explore offense scripts and mental simulations.
- This offers new hypotheses for sexual offending behavior.