Dark Side: Compulsive-Repetitive Sexually Motivated Offenders

Individuals who repetitively and similarly commit crimes–specifically when internal forces push them to kill, rape, expose themselves, set fires, or molest children–do so because of abhorrent sexual drives. The vast majority of psychiatric, psychological, and criminal-investigative practitioners and researchers agree that such internally driven offenses are sexually motivated. These offenders have a serious disturbance in the sexual area, and they achieve gratification through various forms of acting out, including violence. After a period of engaging in deviant sexual fantasy—usually for a number of years—offenders begin to act their fantasies out by engaging in sexually sadistic behaviors (perhaps directed toward animals), setting fires, molesting children, and the like. These offenders have an inner urge to act on their disturbed sexual fantasies; and once they kill or rape or set fires, they  typically repeat the behavior until apprehended.

 

In many cases, the compulsive-repetitive offender does not display an overt manifestation of genitality, which has led a few researchers to question whether the underlying motivation for these offenders is actually sexual. For example, with regard to the compulsive-repetitive murderer “sex is only an instrument used by the killer to obtain power and domination over his victim _ _ _ [the sexual aspect] frequently present in [these] murders _ _ _ is not the central motivating factor for the killer, but merely an instrument used to dominate, control, and destroy the victim”. For compulsive-repetitive offenders, their antisocial behavior—be it killing, torture, molestation, fire setting, or rape—is eroticized and sexually gratifying.

 

Although serial may be easier to understand than compulsive, it may not necessarily be the best adjective to describe repetitive offenders because it raises several notable problems in classification. For example, individuals who kill a series of people for profit (e.g., contract killers) have different underlying motivations than do those who are driven to kill for sexual gratification. Similarly, the repetitive arsonist may set a series of fires, but his motivation may be anger, revenge, or perhaps profit through the collection of insurance money. Even the individual who “exposes” himself on various occasions may do so for purposes of group affiliation, such as when college students engage in “streaking.” Moreover, the number of victims necessary for a person to qualify as a serial offender is totally arbitrary and usually has little to do with the drive to act out in a repetitive way.

 

Thus, the serial nature of the crime often has more to do with circumstances outside the offender than with the underlying dynamics motivating his criminal conduct. Because of the vicious nature of such acts—especially the seemingly gratuitous violence, including torture, cannibalism, dismemberment, and disembowelment—premodern people believed that a supernatural force, such as a vampire or werewolf (rather than a man), must have been responsible. Common to all compulsive-repetitive sexually motivated offenders—but especially offenders who plan their crimes—is a rich fantasy life that leads to future acting out. Deviant sexual fantasies involving force or abnormal sexual stimulation play a significant role in sexually motivated crimes.  Although not all individuals who have deviant sexual fantasies act out, many do. In their study of the relationship between sadistic fantasy and criminally sadistic behavior.

 

If deviant sexual fantasies are not sufficient for determining whether an individual has committed a crime, the question then arises as to why some individuals act on their disturbed fantasies and others do not. Although an offender can describe his fantasies simply by reporting his thoughts, a compulsion is more abstract and difficult to explain. Offenders, therefore, often do not attempt a description of an inner drive to act out, and many examiners also overlook the importance of the underlying compulsion when they evaluate such subjects. Following the act, the offender returns to his premorbid state, and the cycle repeats itself; the result is multiple (or serial) offenses, committed particularly by those who plan their crimes.

 

Compulsive-repetitive offenders of all types (i.e., murderers, traditional sex offenders, and those who commit other sexually motivated antisocial acts) can be envisioned as falling on a hypothetical spectrum. On one end are those who plan their crimes in detail and release their compulsion with such care that they are often not apprehended for long periods of time. On the other end are those individuals who act out their inner compulsion in an unplanned, impulsive, spontaneous fashion. Because the latter group of offenders leave a great deal of evidence at the crime scene, they are often arrested after their first or second offense. In between these extremes lie the majority of compulsive offenders, who exhibit a mixture of both planning and spontaneity in their criminal conduct.

 

Whether an offense is planned or spontaneous is not a result of the offender’s fantasies or even his compulsion to act out; rather, it is a result primarily of his personality. Personality is thus an intervening variable between an offender’s inner life and the way the crime is committed. People who have reasonably intact personalities, with little overt disturbance, direct their lives in an orderly fashion. When such individuals commit crimes, they are likely to do so with some degree of planning and logic. For example, if such an individual has a compulsion to kill, he is likely to plan the homicide in an orderly way. Compulsive-repetitive offenders who commit planned crimes typically have psychopathic, sociopathic, narcissistic, antisocial, and other personality disorders that do not disorganize their thinking and behavior. They may be manipulative and deceptive, but they are not distracted by overt psychopathological symptoms (e.g., hallucinations and delusions) that interfere with the ability to behave in a methodical fashion.

 

Conversely, compulsive-repetitive offenders who act in an unplanned, impulsive, spontaneous fashion do not do so because of different types of fantasies or a different type of inner compulsion to act out. Instead, they have more overt disturbance, usually falling within the borderline, schizotypal, or schizoid spectrum of personality disorders, which results in a decreased ability to carefully plan. Individuals with these disorders do not necessarily act out spontaneously all the time; however, to a large degree, they do lack the controls necessary to contain their behavior. Thus, when their fantasies build to a point where the compulsion becomes overbearing, they may act out in an impulsive, high-risk manner that is likely to get them apprehended. Such offenders are distracted by their symptoms and lack the inner resources necessary to plan much of their behavior, including their criminal behavior.

 

Sometimes compulsive-repetitive offenders who do not plan are profoundly mentally ill, suffering from schizophrenia. When these individuals have an underlying compulsion to act out, they do so in a disorganized, spontaneous fashion, primarily because the severe symptoms of their mental illness makes planning impossible for them. An exception to this rule is found in the paranoid form of schizophrenia because here the psychopathological symptoms do not disorganize the underlying character structure, and the individual is able to act in a highly planned way. In addition, individuals with reasonably intact personalities can also act in an impulsive manner if they have an impulse control disorder or if they are under the influence of substances.

Acknowledgements:

www.politie.nl  and a Chief Inspector – Mr. Henk van Essen©

www.aivd.nl       AIVD – Mr. Erik Akerboom ©

 

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