Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Sex Abuse. 2020 Sep;32(6):706-726. doi: 10.1177/1079063219843899. Epub 2019 Apr 23.
The current study investigates the modus operandi specificities for the sexual abuse against the elderly. A comparison between sex crimes against adult and elderly victims is conducted following the criminal event approach. The comparison is based on the precrime, crime, and postcrime phases of the modus operandi, operationalized through 53 variables. The sample comes from a French national police database including a total of 1,829 cases-including 130 cases of elderly sexual abuse and 1,699 cases of sexual abuse against victims aged between 18 and 45 years. Bivariate and multivariate analyses are performed to examine the differences in the two groups. Several differences are observed between the two modus operandi. Findings indicate that the precrime phase is the most important to explain these differences, and this phase of the criminal event affects the rest of the decisions taken during the crime and postcrime phases. Specifically, we have highlighted that sexual crimes against the elderly are more violent and occur more often in the victim's residence. This study suggests that offenders targeting the elderly use specific crime characteristics, and this allows to highlight practical implications in terms of investigation and offender management.
本研究旨在调查针对老年人的性虐待行为的具体作案手法。通过犯罪事件方法，对成年受害者和老年受害者的性犯罪进行了比较。比较的依据是作案手法的犯罪前、犯罪中和犯罪后阶段，并通过 53 个变量来实现操作化。样本来自一个法国国家警察数据库，其中包括总共 1829 起案件，包括 130 起老年性虐待案件和 1699 起针对 18 至 45 岁受害者的性虐待案件。为了研究两组之间的差异，进行了双变量和多变量分析。在两种作案手法之间观察到了一些差异。研究结果表明，犯罪前阶段对于解释这些差异最为重要，并且犯罪事件的这一阶段影响犯罪和犯罪后阶段的其他决策。具体而言，我们强调了针对老年人的性犯罪更加暴力，并且更经常发生在受害者的住所。本研究表明，针对老年人的犯罪者使用了特定的犯罪特征，这有助于突出在调查和罪犯管理方面的实际意义。
