Understanding Sex Offender Typologies: Groth, Holmes, and Scully

Sex Offender Typologies: Groth, Holmes, and Scully

Nicolas Groth's Typologies: Key Components

Groth identified key components in the psychology of sex offenders:

• Hostility: Violation involves more violence than necessary, with sexual arousal stemming from the aggressor's display of strength and anger towards women.
• Power: Seeking sexual conquest to assert identity.
• Sadistic Rape: Premeditated aggression where inflicting injury on the victim causes sexual tension. This is the most dangerous type.

Bridgewater Treatment Center (1969): Four Groups of Violators

• Violators of Displaced Aggression: Desire to humiliate the woman, employing sadistic techniques like tying and wounding. The victim is random, similar to Groth's sadistic rapist.
• Compensatory Violators: Aim to demonstrate sexual competition through aggression, corresponding to Groth's power rapist.
• Sexually Aggressive Rapist: Requires physical harm to become excited, needing to attack the victim for sexual pleasure, similar to Groth's hostile rapist.
• Impulse Rapist: An opportunistic rapist who seizes the chance to violate.

Ronald Holmes' Rape Classifications

• Rape by Assertion of Power: Involves deviant sexual behaviors, such as possessing women's underwear, using only the force necessary to subdue the victim.
• Rape-Revenge: Motivated by offense, especially by women, using available weapons to terrorize and humiliate the victim. This type is impulsive and violent, potentially leading to the victim's death.
• Rapist Predator: Seeks to express masculinity through rape, acting opportunistically and not concealing their identity.
• Sadistic Rape: The most dangerous type, aiming to terrorize and harm the victim. These individuals are intelligent, plan their attacks, and are difficult to capture. They may be psychopaths and serial rapists.

Scully (1990): Reasons for Rape

Scully analyzed the reasons behind rape, categorizing them by the type of situation:

• Violation satisfies the desire for revenge or punishment.
• Violation is a means to achieve sexual intercourse when the woman is unwilling.
• Violation provides the opportunity to enjoy power and absolute control over a woman's body.
• Violation is seen as a recreational activity and adventure.
• Violation is an added opportunity presented while committing another crime.