Author ORCID Identifier
Cynthia Najdowski: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3624-9188
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000028
Abstract
We investigated whether and how a juvenile’s history of experiencing sexual abuse affects public perceptions of juvenile sex offenders in a series of 5 studies. When asked about juvenile sex offenders in an abstract manner (Studies 1 and 2), the more participants (community members and undergraduates) believed that a history of being sexually abused as a child causes later sexually abusive behavior, the less likely they were to support sex offender registration for juveniles. Yet when participants considered specific sexual offenses, a juvenile’s history of sexual abuse was not considered to be a mitigating factor. This was true when participants considered a severe sexual offense (forced rape; Study 3 and Study 4) and a case involving less severe sexual offenses (i.e., statutory rape), when a juvenile’s history of sexual abuse backfired and was used as an aggravating factor, increasing support for registering the offender (Study 3 and Study 5). Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Najdowski, Cynthia J.; Stevenson, M. C.; Salerno, J. M.; Wiley, T. R. A.; Bottoms, B. L.; and Farnum, K. M., "The influence of a Juvenile's Abuse History on Support for Sex Offender Registration" (2015). Psychology Faculty Scholarship. 7.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/psychology_fac_scholar/7
Included in
Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, Developmental Psychology Commons, Family Law Commons, Juvenile Law Commons, Law and Psychology Commons, Personality and Social Contexts Commons, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons, Public Policy Commons, Sexuality and the Law Commons, Social Psychology Commons, Social Psychology and Interaction Commons
Terms of Use
This work is made available under the Scholars Archive Terms of Use.
Comments
Publisher Acknowledgement:
This is the Author’s Original Manuscript. The version of the record appears here: Stevenson, M. C., Najdowski, C. J., Salerno, J. M., Wiley, T. R. A., Bottoms, B. L., & Farnum, K. M. (2015). The influence of a juvenile's abuse history on support for sex offender registration. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 21 (1), 35-49. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000028