To Be or Not to Be Empathic: the Role of Empathy in Child Sexual Offending

Abstract

Although treatment providers very often use empathy training in treatment for those who sexually offend, it is essential to further investigate the predictive capacity of this construct for committing a child sexual offending. This study aimed to examine the relationship between empathy and different types of offending behavior (i.e., child sexual offending and nonsexual offending). The sample was composed of 113 male individuals who sexually offended minors (ISOMs) and 146 individuals convicted of nonsexual crimes. Four separate binary logistic regression analyses were conducted controlling for sociodemographic variables. Only cognitive empathy emerged as a predictor for committing a sexual crime against a minor, with ISOMs being more likely to score less in cognitive empathy than the nonsexual group. Therefore, extrafamilial ISOMs are more likely to score higher in cognitive empathy than intrafamilial. This study highlighted the importance of addressing cognitive empathy in psychological intervention for ISOMs.