Rodriguez Marcelo, Boyce Philip, Hodges John
a School of Psychiatry , University of New South Wales.
b Sydney Medical School , University of Sydney , Australia.
Neurocase. 2017 Apr;23(2):154-161. doi: 10.1080/13554794.2017.1334802. Epub 2017 Jun 14.
BACKGROUND/AIMS: The issue of whether sex offenders have cognitive deficits remains controversial. The objective of this study was to compare the neuropsychological function of older adult first time sex-offenders (FTSO), who had not previously been charged with a sexual offence prior to the age of 50, to historical long-term sex offenders (HSO) and non-sex offenders (NSO). The hypotheses were (a) that FTSO would demonstrate greater deficits in executive function, decision-making, and memory compared to non-sex offenders; and (b) the HSOs would present similar neuropsychological deficits to non-sex offenders.
A battery of neuropsychological measures was administered to 100 participants comprising 32 FTSOs, 36 HSOs, and 32 NSOs.
Both FTSOs and HSOs showed significant impairment on tests of executive function (including verbal fluency, trail-making, and the Hayling test of response inhibition) as well as on tests of verbal and verbal memory compared to NSOs; however, there was no difference between the two sex offender groups.
Older adult sex offenders, overall, demonstrated poorer neuropsychological performance than older adult non-sex offenders did, although there was no difference between older first-time and historical offenders. Cognitive deficits may increase the risk of sexual offending due to impaired capacity in self-regulation, planning, judgment, and inhibition. A proportion of older adult sex offenders may be harboring acquired frontal lobe pathology.
背景/目的：性犯罪者是否存在认知缺陷这一问题仍存在争议。本研究的目的是比较首次性犯罪者（FTSO）的神经心理功能，这些首次性犯罪者在50岁之前未曾被指控犯有性犯罪，将他们与长期有性犯罪史的性犯罪者（HSO）和非性犯罪者（NSO）进行比较。假设如下：（a）与非性犯罪者相比，首次性犯罪者在执行功能、决策和记忆方面会表现出更大的缺陷；（b）有长期性犯罪史的性犯罪者与非性犯罪者会表现出相似的神经心理缺陷。
对100名参与者进行了一系列神经心理测试，其中包括32名首次性犯罪者、36名有长期性犯罪史的性犯罪者和32名非性犯罪者。
与非性犯罪者相比，首次性犯罪者和有长期性犯罪史的性犯罪者在执行功能测试（包括言语流畅性、连线测试和海林反应抑制测试）以及言语和言语记忆测试中均表现出显著损伤；然而，这两组性犯罪者之间没有差异。
总体而言，成年性犯罪者的神经心理表现比成年非性犯罪者差，尽管首次犯罪的成年性犯罪者和有长期犯罪史的成年性犯罪者之间没有差异。认知缺陷可能会增加性犯罪的风险，因为自我调节、计划、判断和抑制能力受损。一部分成年性犯罪者可能存在后天额叶病变。
