Featuring a collection of essays by leading experts, Female Sexual Offenders: Theory, Assessment and Treatment is the first book to bring together current research, clinical assessment, and treatment techniques of female sexual offenders into one accessible volume. Describes the most recent research data regarding female sexual offenders, covering such issues as female-perpetrated sexual abuse prevalence and juvenile offenders Includes an assessment of the risk of recidivism, international treatment initiatives, and a discussion on the use of the polygraph with female sexual offenders Features practitioner-focused essays which evaluate current assessment strategies, treatment needs, effectiveness, and processes for female sexual offenders

This unprecedented look at female sexual predators explains why and how they prey on our children and youths and what adults—and children and youths themselves—should understand to prevent victimization. In Female Sexual Predators: Understanding and Identifying Them to Protect Our Children and Youths, social worker and therapist Karen A. Duncan helps adults be proactive so children will not fall prey to this violation. Vignettes pulled from news headlines and interviews with female sexual predators Duncan has encountered in her own practice are used to help readers understand these crimes and the women who commit them, as well as the impact these crimes can have on victims. The women profiled were in positions of authority at churches, schools, sports institutions, and the home. Victims explain how these women exploited their positions of trust, planned their crimes, groomed their victims, deceived adults into not detecting their behavior, and how they did not stop even when they recognized the danger and the harm to themselves and their victims. Duncan addresses the issue of maternal sexual abuse answering questions about mothers who willingly sexual abuse their own children and at times commit child sexual abuse with other adults, as well as women who sexually abuse girls. Four types of female sex offenders are presented within the emerging research on this topic, along with questions regarding assessment, treatment, and management of female sex offenders in the community. It also addresses the controversial issues of female pedophilia and female sexual deviance within the context of what we know about human sexuality.

This book organizes existing knowledge on female sexual abusers, explores their backgrounds, methods of abuse and the impact on victims. It begins with a fictional account of the development of a girl into an offender, based on actual experiences described by female sex offenders to researchers and therapists. Subsequent chapters discuss the incidence of female sexual offending and social reluctance to recognize it, and the treatment options for offenders.

The issue of child sexual abuse has gained widespread attention over the last three decades, but minimal attention has been paid to sexual abuse by women. Victims of female sex offenders have been virtually ignored or neglected from serious study. Consequently we have little knowledge of the experience of victims or of professional perspectives on female sex offending. Myriam Denov fills these critical gaps in the literature by examining the life histories and experiences of both male and female victims of female sex offenders, and by investigating the impact and consequences of the sexual abuse. She also explores professional responses to female sex offending and the ways in which police officers and psychiatrists have understood, portrayed and managed such cases. In addition to filling the substantial empirical void that surrounds the issue, the book contributes to policy and practice issues relating to victims and to the training of different professional groups involved in child sex abuse.

​Female offenders are often perceived as victims who commit crimes as a self-defense mechanism or as criminal deviants whose actions strayed from typical ‘womanly’ behavior. Such cultural norms for violence exist in our gendered society and there has been scholarly debate about how male and female offenders are perceived and how this perception leads to differential treatment in the criminal justice system. This debate is primarily based upon theories associated with stereotypes and social norms and how these prescriptive norms can influence both public and criminal justice response. Scholars in psychology, sociology, and criminology have found that female offenders are perceived differently than male offenders and this ultimately leads to differential treatment in the criminal justice system. This interdisciplinary book provides an evidence based approach of how female offenders are perceived in society and how this translates to differential treatment within the criminal justice system and explores the ramifications of such differences. Quite often perceptions of female offenders are at odds with research findings. This book will provide a comprehensive evidence-based review of the research that is valuable to laypersons, researchers, practitioners, advocates, treatment providers, lawyers, judges, and anyone interested in equality in the criminal justice system. ​

In the era of #MeToo and mass incarceration, The Feminist and the Sex Offender makes a powerful feminist case for accountability without punishment and sexual safety and pleasure without injustice. With analytical clarity and narrative force, The Feminist and the Sex Offender contends with two problems that are typically siloed in the era of #MeToo and mass incarceration: sexual and gender violence, on the one hand, and the state’s unjust, ineffective, and soul-destroying response to it on the other. Is it possible to confront the culture of abuse? Is it possible to hold harm-doers accountable without recourse to a criminal justice system that redoubles injuries, fails survivors, and retrenches the conditions that made such abuse possible? Drawing on interviews, extensive research, reportage, and history, The Feminist and the Sex Offender develops an intersectional feminist approach to ending sexual violence. It maps with considerable detail the unjust sex offender regime while highlighting the alternatives we urgently need.