Comparing serial and nonserial sexual offenders: alcohol and street drug consumption, impulsiveness and history of sexual abuse.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the differences between serial and nonserial sexual offenders in terms of alcohol and drug consumption, impulsivity, and personal history of being sexually abused. METHOD A sectional and retrospective study carried out by the team of the outpatient clinic for the treatment of sexual disorders at Faculdade de Medicina do ABC - Santo André, Brazil. Three groups of subjects (n = 198) consisting of sexual offenders against one victim, two victims and three or more victims were examined. Convicts sentenced only for sexual crimes were evaluated with the Drug Addiction Screening Test, the CAGE, the Short Alcohol Dependence Data, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, the Sexual Addiction Screening Test, and the Static-99. RESULTS Sexual offenders against three or more victims showed more frequent history of being sexually abused than the sexual offenders against one victim. A one-way analysis of variance indicated that sexual offenders against three or more victims evidenced significantly higher scores on the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and on the Sexual Addiction Screening Test than did the sexual aggressors against one victim. After a multinomial logistic regression analysis, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and the history of being sexually abused were predicting factors for the group of aggressors against three or more victims in relation to the aggressors against one victim. CONCLUSIONS Sexual offenders against three or more victims present different characteristics from other groups of sexual offenders and these findings can help to create proposals for the management of this type of inmates.