THE OFFENCE BEHAVIOR: OFFICIAL RECORD.
When the official record is examined there is a considerable change in this general interpretation, especially toward a greater recognition of resistance in aggression offenses and in those involving children. The authorities are not at all concerned with the degree of encouragement that a naive seven- or eight-year-old girl gives an offender. That the child did not resist, discourage, or may even have encouraged the offender is ignored in light of the moral and legal implications of his behavior. Not surprisingly the official reports show no record of objects in the “mixed” response category shifting from resistance to encouragement. The opposite picture, that of encouragement shifting to resistance, is authenticated by the records in a few scattered cases spread out over several categories, but they appear much less frequently than reported by the offender. They total only nine cases in all categories, in strong contrast to the 47 so described by the offender.
The motif of “only encouragement” is represented strongly in heterosexual nonforce offenses vs. minors and adults (88 per cent and 88 per cent) and in homosexual offenses in the same two age groups, but again not quite to the extent reported by the subject. The frequency with which the official reports recognize that cooperation existed is one of the most remarkable aspects of the present table. However, since the records contain large no-data gaps on this point (well over a half in some instances), direct comparisons with the subject’s report must be made with considerable reservation, for the cases summarized in the percentages are far from identical.
An attitude of passivity is not emphasized in the official version of the offense in any categories. It appears to a small degree in the heterosexual and homosexual offenses vs. children, in the incest and homosexual offenses vs. minors, and with a final high of almost a quarter of the cases in incest offenses vs. adults. This last represents only three offenses, however. It is clear that passivity can be discounted as a feature which while sometimes recognized is not considered deserving of much attention in the official report of the offense circumstances.
Resistance by the object is strongly supported in the official reports of the aggression offenses, and ranges from 95 to 100 per cent of the cases in the three categories. This is roughly a third higher than in the offenders’ accounts. While the percentages naturally run highest in these cases of aggression, they are also massed in several other offense types, notably in pedophilic offenses and incest cases.
It is clear that the official accounts minimize the degree of encouragement and maximize the degree of resistance encountered in comparison to the offenders’ stories of similar events. In an attempt to examine this relationship in a more orderly fashion, cases in which both accounts were available were cross-tabulated. Incomplete reporting of offense circumstances by one source or the other reduced considerably the number of cases available for analysis.
While some categories are cut to half or less of the original numbers, notably those involving children, two show up with double reports for as many as 80 per cent of the cases. Support for the offender’s account is strongest in the nonforce offenses vs. minors and adults. Here the discrepancies on object response were only 4 to 5 per cent in the two accounts. From this supporting evidence one gathers that the offenders’ accounts of the offense behavior and circumstances are not too far from the truth. Disagreement is also low in homosexual offenses. There is little aggression in these offenses, and divergence between official and offender’s reports ranges from 2 to 14 per cent. Coverage is again less than adequate, but in the oldest group this can be partly accounted for by police-entrapment cases, for which such an item as the response of the object is not included in the official reports since it is immaterial to the case. It might well be assumed that the decoy officer in these cases was encouraging, but we have not assumed it here.
The pedophilic offenses rank rather high in disagreement, but the data here are sparser than in any other categories, doubtless because, as mentioned earlier, the authorities are not concerned with object response in such cases. The coverage is reduced to a third or even a sixth of the cases in some categories. In the cases remaining, disagreement runs over 25 per cent, except for homosexual pedophilia. Incest double-data are spotty; contradictory data are high, about equal to that in the force cases, ranging from 30 to 60 per cent.
Considered in terms of relative moral turpitude, it appears that the more reprehensible the offense, the more the offender endeavors to bend the account in his favor. Thus his description of object response in incest, aggression, and pedophilic offenses shows the greatest disagreement with the official accounts. In his account of other offenses, notably those without aggression and against minors and adult females, there is much less disagreement. One could also premise an interpretation that is at direct variance to this. It is possible that the official account is distorted the other way when the offense is one that is more highly condemned by society. In any case, whether the distortion is on one side or the other, or somewhat on each, the discrepancies clearly reflect the varying pressures of our social mores.
*382\161\2*
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