Use of implicit measures of sexual interest in offenders who have accessed indecent images of children and comparison controls

Meta-analyses of IIOC offenders have established that they are lower on antisociality than CSOs but higher on Deviant Sexual Interest, indicating that this is a key area for clinical assessment. Differing measures of DSI exist, including self-report, psychometric and psychophysiological assessments, but there is increasing interest in indirect cognitive measures. However, little research has examined this issue with offenders who have accessed Indecent Images of Children (IIOC). The current study compared IIOC offenders with community controls on direct (self-report) and indirect (implicit cognitive) measures of sexual interest, using the Explicit and Implicit Sexual Interest Profile. There were differences between the groups in measures of Viewing Time (VT), self-report and Implicit Association Tests (IATs). Although these measures were found to discriminate between IIOC offenders and controls at above chance level, the direct self-report measure showed the most discriminatory ability. Given the presence of, and ability to assess DSI for IIOC offenders, it would be important to investigate how this might relate to risk of recidivism and cross-over to contact offending.