Sexual Assaults in a Forensic Population

Abstract

Introduction

Determine the prevalence of sexual assault in an inpatient forensic population.

Objectives

Find individual-biological-social factors that may be associated with sex offending.

Method

A cross-sectional study of patients admitted to a Canadian forensic unit.

Results

Sample of 23 patients (95.7% male), of whom 13% had committed a sex offense. All men, 17% had attempted a murder, 17% had committed a murder, 48% had commited an assault and 5% had commited a different type of crime. 61% of the sample were in the low socioeconomic class and 39% to the medium one. 35% were diagnosed with developmental delay and 30% with personality disorders.

A person that had committed a sexual offense crime was much older, compared to the rest of the forensic population (43.33 ± 17.67 vs. 30.80 ± 11.93 years). Moreover the average stay in the hospital was almost the double for the sexual offenders compared with rest of the sample (199.67 months vs. 89.35 months).

Among the sexual offenders the prevalences of the diagnoses of AXIS I were, 67% psychoses, 33% mood disorders and 67% substance abuse. However all the sexual offenders were diagnosed with a comorbidity different than those compared with those that were not sexual offenders (100% vs 20%, p=0.003)

Conclusions

Older population who commits a sexual offense have a longer average stay at forensic unit.

Increased presence of comorbidities, associated at main diagnosis in axis I and organic comorbidities, as well as different treatments used.