[Criminologic aspects in the treatment of sex offenders]

The conditions determining statutory offences as represented by indictable sex offences, have been amended and revised by the 4th Penal Reform Law of the Federal German Penal Code, in 1973, under the heading "Indictable Offences against Sexual Self-Determination". This heading, which is meant to convey a programme, however, does not agree with the actual contents or core of various paragraphs. These new statutes have been violently criticised by opponents coming from quite different camps. The development of sexual delinquency shows a rather decreasing crime rate since the end of World War II, compared to the increase in other categories of crime. The most frequently recorded sexual offences concern the performance of sexual acts with children, rape and exhibitionism. It is in these groups of criminal offences that we are most likely to find delinquents in whom psychotherapy seems indicated. Criteria for indicating such treatment are the desire of the person in question to receive treatment, and the presence of a personality disturbance; it is not the deed by itself. The article then cites the paragraphs under German penal legislation which are important when arriving at a decision to refer a delinquent to psychotherapeutic treatment; these are Sections 56 c, 63, 64 German Penal Code, Section 10 Penal Code for Adolescents, and Section 9 of the Federal Law Enforcement Act.