Summary

Several studies have been done on the cycle of sexual abuse--that is, the likelihood that child victims of sexual abuse will become adult abusers. Most of the studies were retrospective in design. The studies began with a sample of known sex offenders of children and sought to determine whether they were sexually abused during childhood. The chief weakness of these studies is that studying a known group of sexual offenders cannot provide any direct information on the extent to which children who are sexually abused become adult sexual abusers. The two studies GAO reviewed that were prospective in design attempted to overcome this limitation by identifying samples of sexually victimized children and tracking them into adulthood. These studies also had shortcomings, which made it hard to reach any definitive conclusions about the cycle of sexual abuse. Despite these limitations, the retrospective studies, prospective studies, and research reviews suggest that childhood sexual victimization is quite likely neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of adult sexual offending. Further research would be needed to determine which experiences magnify the likelihood that sexually victimized children will become adult abusers and, alternatively, what experiences help prevent victimized children from becoming adult abusers.

GAO found that: (1) there was no consensus among the 23 retrospective and 2 prospective studies reviewed that childhood sexual abuse led directly to the victim becoming an adult sexual abuser; (2) the retrospective studies, which sought to determine whether a sample of known sex offenders had been sexually abused as children, differed considerably in the types of offenders studied, use of control or comparison groups, and definition and reporting of childhood sexual abuse; (3) although some of the retrospective studies concluded that childhood sexual abuse may increase the risk that victims will commit sexual abuse later, most of the studies noted that the majority of sex offenders had not been sexually abused as children; (4) the prospective studies, which tracked sexually abused children into adulthood to determine how many became sex offenders, studied sample populations that may not be representative of the entire population of childhood sexual abuse victims; and (5) the prospective studies found that victims of childhood sexual abuse were not more likely than nonvictims to be arrested for sex offenses.