Developing and validating a screening scale for primary hebephilic interests

Abstract

This thesis sought to create a behavioural measure to assess for primary hebephilia (i.e., a primary sexual interest in pubescent children between the ages of 11 and 14) in male perpetrators of child sexual abuse, and to examine the measure’s ability to predict sexual recidivism. In Study 1, two victim characteristics were associated with primary hebephilia (i.e., boy victims under 15 and offences for child pornography), and a behavioural measure of primary hebephilia was not able to be created. Since a measure was not developed in Study 1, Study 2 instead examined the predictive validity of the SSPI-2 and whether the SSPI-2 contributed additional variance beyond the Static-99R in predicting sexual recidivism. Results revealed that total SSPI-2 scores were positively associated with an increased likelihood of sexual recidivism. Challenges of assessing hebephilia and the implications of the association between pedohebephilia and sexual recidivism are discussed.