Abstract

This study aims to develop a measure of sexual offenders' attitudes towards their offence, victim and perceived need for treatment. A 45-item questionnaire was developed to assess sexual offenders cognitive distortions about their offences and victims. The main advantage over previous measures of cognitive distortions is that the Sex Offence Inforamtion Questionnaire (SOIQ) can be used independent of whether the victim or victims were male or female, adult or child. Broadly speaking, the scale measures issues relating to the offender's perceived level of responsibility for the offence, the impact and culpability of the victim, and the offender's belief in personal control. A total of 92 sexual offenders completed the questionnaire. A reliable (alpha = .81) totatl SOIQ scale was developed. As expected, SOIQ scores were significantly related to other general measures of attitudes towards sexual aggression, but were not related to measures of social desirability. In addition, 30 sexual offenders completed the SOIQ before and after participation on a treatment programme aimed at changing their offence behaviour. As predicted, SOIQ scores were shown to reduce significantly as a function of clinical intervention.