An Examination of Escalation in Burglaries Committed by Sexual Offenders.

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research-article2014

IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X14533109International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyPedneault et al.

Article

An Examination of Escalation in Burglaries Committed by Sexual Offenders

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 2015, Vol. 59(11) 1203–1221 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0306624X14533109 ijo.sagepub.com

Amelie Pedneault1, Danielle A. Harris2, and Raymond A. Knight3

Abstract Research in the field of sexual aggression often assumes escalation in the criminal careers of sexual offenders. Sexual offenders are thought to begin their criminal careers with non-contact sexual offenses or non-sexual offenses and then escalate to more serious crimes, specifically sexual violence. The commission of one crime in particular—burglary—has been found to be a predictor of future violence in sexual offenders. The present study investigated the nature and extent of escalation in the criminal histories of 161 sex offenders who committed at least two burglaries. Six types of escalations were considered: type of burglary, occupancy, violence, weapon, frequency, and the victim–offender relationship. Escalators and non-escalators were compared, differences between the groups were reviewed, and the cumulative effect of various forms of escalation was analyzed. Results indicated that escalators and nonescalators could be differentiated on a number of important dimensions that might assist in the earlier detection of subsequently more dangerous offenders. Keywords sexual aggression, serial burglary, escalation, criminal career, violence I had been in hundreds of houses and apartments by that time and this urge had gotten worse all the time until finally I had to do it to one of them . . . The front door was locked, but it was easy to slip the lock. I was feeling a kind of excitement. I would say that it was

1Simon

Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada Jose State University, CA, USA 3Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA 2San

Corresponding Author: Amelie Pedneault, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, Centre for Research on Sexual Violence, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada. Email: [email protected]

Downloaded from ijo.sagepub.com at CHINESE CULTURE UNIV on September 17, 2015

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sexual. There is something about going into one of them buildings, even the smells of them, that makes me excited . . . All of them [breaking and entering] jobs as I see it now was leading me somewhere. They was leading me to the day when I would feel that I could take on some woman and make her do what I wanted. Lots of times, when I was in a place, I stood in a bedroom doorway and looked at one woman in bed asleep and I would have a big rail on but didn’t have the guts to do something to her Rae (1967, pp. 75, 99)

Albert Henry DeSalvo was identified as (and confessed to being) the “Boston Strangler”—the man allegedly responsible for the sexual assaults and murder of 13 women in their Boston homes between 1962 and 1964. Although neither he nor anyone was ever charged in any of the killings, his case is one of many that have contributed to a rich body of clinical experience and anecdotal evidence that suggests that burglary can serve as a pathway to future—and sometimes lethal—violence for offenders who subsequently commit crimes such as kidnapping, rape, or murder (DeLisi & Scherer, 2006; DeLisi & Walters, 2011; Douglas & Olshaker, 1998; Hazelwood & Warren, 1989; Schlesinger & Revitch, 1999). The present retrospective study focused on investigating the role of burglary in offending escalation toward offending dangerousness in sexual offenders. For the purpose of the present study, we defined “burglary” as the illegal entry and presence of an offender in a building and “dangerousness” as the implication in the most serious form of crime, specifically in sexual and/or violent offenses.

Escalation in Sexual Offenders Escalation in offending refers to the tendency of an offender to commit increasingly more serious crimes over time (Piquero, Farrington, & Blumstein, 2003). It is commonly thought that “career criminals” (Blumstein, Cohen, Roth, & Visher, 1986) or “life-course-persistent offenders” (Moffitt, 1993) typically start their criminal activity with a misdemeanor or non-serious offense and subsequently advance to engaging in more serious and more dangerous felonies as time progresses. This assumed offending pattern informs two enduring notions—that offenders convicted of especially dangerous or predatory crimes have protracted criminal histories and, perhaps more problematically, that someone caught for a single offense is destined for a life of crime. Previous studies have aimed to determine if sexual offenders escalate in offending seriousness over time. Stermac and Hall (1989) studied the criminal histories of 50 sexual offenders admitted to a psychiatric treatment facility in Canada. They compared first-time sex offenders (with no previous record of sexual offense) with nonescalator sex offenders (whose most recent index offense was not more serious than any other past sexual offense) and with escalator sex offenders (whose most recent sexual offense was rated as more serious than any other prior offenses). They found that escalators were the youngest group, more likely to commit sexual offenses


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against adult females, and to have psychiatric histories. The escalators also had previous charges for non-contact sexual offenses, including obscene phone calls or indecent exposure. Rabinowitz Greenberg, Firestone, Bradford, and Greenberg (2002) followed up a sample of 221 exhibitionists over a period of 7 years to investigate escalation in the recidivism history of those nuisance offenders. Their results indicated that 6.3% escalated with a hands-on sexual offense and 16.8% with a violent offense. More recently, Miethe, Olson, and Mitchell (2006) examined national data from 10,000 sex offenders released from prison in 1994 to explore arrest patterns and cycles of sex offenses and other offenses. By dividing their criminal records into thirds, they found that approximately 39% of serial rapists had no arrests for rape in the first third of their criminal careers, but had at least one rape charge in the second or third part of their criminal career. In addition, Cale and Lussier (2012) found that sexual aggressors of women who recidivated violently and/or sexually in the 4-year follow-up period after incarceration were characterized by an early onset of criminal activity and by escalation in their antisocial and criminal activities from childhood to adolescence. Some research also looked at sexual offenders’ escalation to murder, arguably constituting the ultimate escalation. Francis and Soothill (2000) followed more than 7,000 sexual offenders up to 20 years. Their results indicated that 2.6% of sexual offenders committed a subsequent murder. Sample (2006) examined the histories of offenders charged with sexually motivated homicide to assess their likelihood of recidivism. She sought to answer the question of whether sexual offenders were any more likely to kill their victims than non-sexual offenders. She found that 3% of sexual offenses were accompanied by a homicide charge and that only 2.9% of the sexual offenders in the study recidivated with a homicide offense within 5 years, indicating that sexual homicide is a separate category of sexual offense. Empirical evidence examining sexual offending and murder indicates that it is a rare occurrence (Francis & Soothill, 2000; Sample, 2006). Generally, evidence of escalation has been found in the criminal histories of some sexual offenders. Prior criminological research on escalation (not specifically on sexual offenders) has mostly followed up juvenile samples that are at the beginning of either a criminal career or desistance; such young offenders are prime targets for escalation, persistence, and desistance research. A different way of addressing this question is by looking at the criminal histories of serious and/or chronic offenders (such as sex offenders) retrospectively, to see if patterns of escalation can be found. The two approaches have different goals: The former identifies the degree to which general samples of the population or offenders escalate to sexual offending while the latter identifies common characteristics among high-risk populations. This last approach is adopted here because it enables us to identify connections and links and provides valuable insight about the process by which sexual offenders have escalated to sexual offenses; in consequence, our results do not generalize to all sex offenders and cannot be used to predict future offending, but can shed light on the escalation process of the most serious offenders.


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Burglary as a “Gateway” Toward Sexual Offending One idea discussed in the literature links burglary with escalation toward criminal dangerousness (LeBlanc & Fréchette, 1989). Little research has been aimed specifically at determining what factors, if any, predict specific sequences of offending or whether particular offense histories can be identified. Of course, if patterns do exist and they could be identified early on, it might be possible to predict how an offender might behave in the future, based on their past criminal history. LeBlanc and Fréchette (1989) noted crimes committed by Canadian adolescents: (1) burglary was relatively common, (2) burglary tended to co-exist with other crimes, and (3) burglary was indicative of escalation. These three characteristics have received some support from the literature on sexual offenders. Escalation from burglary to rape makes intuitive sense when considering apparent correspondences in motivations and behaviors involved in these two offenses (for a complete review of similarities between rape and burglary, see Harris, Pedneault, & Knight, 2013). From a motivational perspective, rape and burglary can be described as crimes of power and control, invasion, and/or thrill (burglary: Cromwell & Olson, 2004; DeLisi et al., 2011; Hakim, Rengert, & Shachmurove, 2001; Vaughn, DeLisi, Beaver, & Howard, 2008; rape: Knight & Prentky, 1990). In addition, behaviors such as planning, mental rehearsal of the offense, identification of targets, and detectionavoidance steps are common to both rapists and burglars (Davies, Wittebrood, & Jackson, 1997; Horning, Salfati, & Crawford, 2010; Nee & Meenaghan, 2006; Polaschek, Hudson, Ward, & Siegert, 2001). A considerable proportion of convicted sexual offenders have been found to have a history of burglary (Harris et al., 2013; Hazelwood & Warren, 1989; Scully & Marolla, 1985; Soothill, Francis, Sanderson, & Ackerley, 2000); some authors also noted that burglary was one of the most common offenses found in sexual offenders1 (Hazelwood & Warren, 1989). In addition, burglary can be associated with various other crimes, not all of them motivated by financial gain. Schlesinger and Revitch (1999) have argued that some burglaries that were ostensibly gain-oriented may in fact be more correctly understood as having voyeuristic or fetishistic motivations. DeLisi and Walters (2011) noted that although burglary is most often motivated by access to property, some burglaries co-occur with kidnapping, rape, and/or murder. Further studies have suggested that rape occurs as an unplanned or added bonus to theft during residential burglaries (Davies & Dale, 1996; Monahan, Marolla, & Bromley, 2005; Scully & Marolla, 1985). Crime scene features can shed light on the nature of burglary, and they have been found to hold valuable insight about their perpetrators (Fox & Farrington, 2012). A recent analysis of sexual burglary found different types of sexual burglaries: fetishistic non-contact, sexual contact, and versatile contact (Pedneault, Harris, & Knight, 2012). In each type, breaking and entering was associated with a different combination of offending behaviors. Change in crime scene variables in offenders’ burglary sequence can possibly indicate escalation. The present study was specifically concerned with the catalyzing character of burglary. LeBlanc & Fréchette (1989) identified burglary as “a crucial form of criminal


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activity, . . . the most capable of being associated with the most dangerous forms of criminal activity, . . . [laying] at the heart of the process of amplification and escalation” (p. 97). Specifically, it is the prevalence of burglaries in the criminal histories of the most serious offenders that has been noted and that fuels the characterization of sexual burglary as a “stepping stone” or “gateway” toward sexual violence. Although a rare occurrence, sexual murder has particularly been associated with sexual burglary (Ressler, Burgess, & Douglas, 1995; Schlesinger & Revitch, 1999). As many as three quarters of serial sexual homicide victims were killed by offenders with a history of burglary (Schlesinger & Revitch, 1999) and 80% of rapes committed by serial offenders involve the illegal entry of a residence (LeBeau, 1987). An analysis of the criminal careers of a sample of burglars revealed that a small proportion of them (6.1%) could be classified as “sexual predator burglars” (Vaughn et al., 2008). These offenders were disproportionately implicated in the most serious types of crimes, particularly violent sexual offenses (Vaughn et al., 2008). Furthermore, Davies et al. (1997) found that offenders who committed their rapes in the homes of their victims were “five times more likely to have prior convictions for burglary than those who did not” (p. 166). The predictive potency of burglary among sex offenders has resulted in the inclusion of an officially recorded history of burglary in the Risk Matrix (RM2000; Thornton et al., 2003), an actuarial tool designed to assess risk of sexual recidivism. A recent study compared sexual offenders with a history of burglary to sexual offenders without a history of burglary (Harris et al., 2013). Those with a history of burglary were found to have a significantly earlier age of onset, to have committed almost twice as many offenses, and to be more likely to recidivate within 10 years of release than the men who had never been charged for burglary. Not all sexual offenders have as equally serious criminal careers; previous findings have indicated variability in offending trajectories of sexual offenders (Francis, Harris, Wallace, Knight, & Soothill, 2013; Lussier & Davies, 2011; Lussier, Tzoumakis, Cale, & Amirault, 2010), their rates of sexual offending, and their success at getting away with their crimes (Abel et al., 1987; Lussier, Bouchard, & Beauregard, 2011). Clearly, the link between burglary and sexual dangerousness warrants further attention and can yield important information about a group of serious offenders.

Aim of the Study The present study builds on the results of Harris et al. (2013) by focusing specifically on escalation in burglaries in a sample of 161 offenders with at least two incidents of burglary in their criminal histories. In this study, we further explore the transitions between offenses over time to assess escalation from burglary to sexual offending during burglary, specifically. In addition, this study identifies the frequency of certain types of escalations in the individual incidents of burglary committed by sexual offenders, and compares escalators with non-escalators. This study contributes to our understanding of whether offense escalation exists in sexual offending. Although the study is exploratory in nature, ultimately we test the gateway theory and predicted that offenders who committed contact sexual burglaries would show


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patterns of escalation, starting with less serious gain-oriented residential break-ins and progressing to more serious contact sexual burglaries. We developed and assessed six different types of escalation measures to capture offense escalation. Essentially, we sought to understand the full process by which a “burglar” may become a “sexual offender” during the course of burglary. Although we use categorical labels to describe the types of offenses committed on various occasions, we do so for ease of language and intend neither to propose that the differences we describe are taxonic nor to contribute to any offense-based stigmatization.

Method Participants The original sample included 828 convicted sexual offenders who were referred for civil commitment to the Massachusetts Treatment Center (MTC) for Sexually Dangerous Persons between 1959 and 1991. A review of their criminal histories indicated that a third of the offenders (n = 281, 33.9%) had committed at least one burglary. Because the focus was on escalation, we ultimately selected only those participants who had committed two or more burglaries. This left a final sample of 161 participants (accounting for more than half of the burglars in the original sample) who committed a total of 645 burglaries (M = 3.98, range = 2-20). Participants included a range of sexual offender types: rapists (54.3%), extra-familial child molesters (29.6%), offenders with both adult and child victims (9.9%), and offenders whose sexual offenses were exclusively non-contact (1.8%).2 The general characteristics of offenders with two burglaries or more are presented in Table 1. Racial diversity was limited in this sample with White participants constituting 81.5% of the sample. African Americans accounted for 14.8% of the sample and other ethnicities (including Caribbean, Native American, and Hispanic) accounted for 3.7%. On average, the participants were 15 years old at the time of their first officially recorded offense and had a criminal career that lasted 12 years. Each criminal career included an average of 25 separate charges mostly consisting of property and public order offenses.

Measures As mentioned earlier, membership in the sample was predicted upon having a history of at least two officially recorded charges of burglary. In accordance with the Boston Police Department (personal communication, 2010) and the Massachusetts Criminal Code, our use of the term burglary includes charges such as breaking and entering (daytime), breaking and entering (nighttime), or burglary (see also Harris et al., 2013). Available data for offenders with a history of burglary were reviewed. On closer examination, it became apparent that some burglaries could more correctly be considered rapes that occurred in the home of the victim, but where a charge of “burglary” could not be made. Consequently, by way of acknowledging the limitations of relying solely


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Table 1. Characteristics of Sexual Offenders Who Committed At Least Two Burglaries (n = 161).

Ethnicity White African American Other Type of perpetratorsa Rapists Extra-familial child molesters Mixed offenders Non-contact offenders Age of onset (in years) Length of criminal career (in years) Total number of charges Total number of violent charges Total number of sexual charges Total number of property charges Total number of other charges Total burglaries a4.4%

n (%)

M (SD)

132 (81.5) 24 (14.8) 6 (3.7)

— — —

88 (54.3) 48 (29.6) 16 (9.9) 3 (1.8) — — — — — — — —

— — — — 15.76 (5.09) 12.24 (8.45) 25.12 (15.83) 3.94 (4.62) 4.17 (3.85) 8.83 (8.42) 8.19 (8.67) 3.98 (2.93)

missing data.

on official records, we also reviewed the records of any rapists whose index offense was committed in their victim’s residence. This allowed us to review the police or victim’s description of the event and to identify any additional burglaries that may not have attracted a formal charge. In the research on escalation, the construct has been defined in multiple ways. Given that the present work was largely exploratory, we developed six separate operationalizations of escalation, which we labeled “nature of burglary,” “occupancy,” “weapon,” “violence,” “frequency,” and “victim–offender relationship.” Each one is described in turn below. “Nature of burglary” was measured on a 4-point scale from 0-3 and referred to the underlying motivation of the offense (assessed using all available data information). Each individual burglary incident was categorized as a non-sexual burglary (0), a noncontact sexual burglary (1), a non-sexual violent burglary (2), or a contact sexual burglary (3). A typical non-sexual burglary would be one in which an offender breaks into an unoccupied residence and steals valuable or marketable property, such as money, jewelry, weapons, alcohol, or food (Harris et al., 2013). A non-contact sexual burglary may or may not involve theft and may or may not occur when someone is present. For example, an offender breaks into an occupied residence to watch the resident undressing, or sleeping, or an offender breaks into an unoccupied residence and steals goods that suggest covert or fetishistic motivations (Vaughn et al., 2008). This might include theft of women’s lingerie or accessories (e.g., shoes or handbags; Schlesinger &


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Revitch, 1999). We defined a violent burglary as the breaking and entering of a private residence, in which the resident was attacked, but not sexually assaulted and valuable property may or may not have been stolen. Finally, a contact sexual burglary occurred when a resident was sexually assaulted in his or her own home, after the offender had broken in or gained entry through force or fraud. In these incidents, valuable goods may have been stolen (Pedneault et al., 2012). This measure was designed to capture the offender who “seeks sexual gratification via direct involvement in sexual acts committed during burglaries” (Vaughn et al., 2008, p. 1287). This variable was ultimately dichotomized for inclusion in the escalation score (ES; see below) into “did/did not escalate in nature of burglary.” “Occupancy” was a dichotomous item that assessed whether anyone was in the residence at the time of the burglary. The presence of a “weapon” and the presence of “violence” during each burglary were also assessed dichotomously. “Frequency” was obtained by collecting the date of each incident and calculating the time that elapsed between incidents. This measure was designed to capture individuals who progressed from committing sporadic or occasional burglaries to participating in more frequent incidents. Finally, for the contact sexual burglaries, the relationship between the offender and his victim was recorded, along with various demographics of the victim (i.e., age, sex, and race) where available. A composite “escalation score” was calculated, based on the methods of Belanger and Burton (2009). The ES ranged on a scale from 0 to 6, with all forms of escalation being dichotomized as present or absent. Thus, escalating in frequency was not seen to be more or less serious than escalating in violence. For example, if someone had progressed from not using a weapon to using a weapon (demonstrating escalation in “weapon”), and from burglarizing empty homes to burglarizing occupied homes (demonstrating escalation in “occupancy”), his ES would be 2. It should be noted that this dichotomization and summing of escalation measures do not necessarily create two groups that are differentiable by incident dangerousness. Offenders whose first burglary incident presented high levels of dangerousness (with sexual contact with an occupant, including weapon and violence) get low ES. One group is distinguished only if escalation occurred in a majority of offenders with dangerous burglaries. Escalators and non-escalators were compared on the following dependent variables: age of onset (operationalized as age at first official charge), length of criminal career (operationalized as time between age of onset and index offense), total number of charges in criminal history, total number of sexual charges, total number of nonsexual violent charges, total number of property charges, total number of public order charges, and recidivism (any recidivism, sexual recidivism, and non-sexual violent recidivism). Total charges were calculated using the official criminal records of each participant. These records were coded for a previous study (Harris, 2008) and charges were ultimately collapsed from 20 categories into the 4 used in the present analysis (sexual, non-sexual violent, property, and public order). The recidivism data included in our analyses were drawn from a wealth of information about each individual’s postrelease offending. Participants were followed up for up to 10 years as part of a previous study (Knight & Thornton, 2007). Because there are drawbacks to relying on a single source of official statistics for recidivism, multiple sources of data on criminal


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Pedneault et al. Table 2. Types of Escalation.

Frequency n (%) Type of burglary Occupancy Violence Weapon Frequency Victim–offender relationship

60/161 (37.2) 57/161 (35.2) 36/161 (22.2) 38/161 (23.6) 64/101 (63.4) 5/42 (11.9)

Figure 1. Frequency of escalation patterns in type of burglary.

events were incorporated including those maintained by the Massachusetts Board of Probation, the Massachusetts Parole Board, the MTC Authorized Absence Program, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI; Harris, Knight, Smallbone, & Dennison, 2011; Knight & Thornton, 2007).

Results Types of Escalation The individual burglary incidents committed by each offender were reviewed and coded for the six types of escalation mentioned previously. The prevalence of these types of escalation among the 161 offenders is presented in Table 2. The most common types of offense escalation included an increase in the frequency of incidents across time, a progression in the nature of burglary, and a progression from breaking into unoccupied residences to occupied residences. More than a third of participants (n = 60; 37.2%) escalated in type of burglary. To understand this further, we examined the progression of burglaries to see how they increased in seriousness over subsequent events. Each progression was plotted graphically and is presented in Figure 1. The most common escalation pattern was the direct


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progression from non-sexual (property-oriented) burglary to sexual burglary (n = 44; 73.3%). Although some offenders were observed to progress from covert (non-contact) sexual to overt sexual burglaries (n = 7; 11.7%), it is interesting to note that no participants escalated by passing through all of the steps or types of burglaries. “Occupancy” escalation indicated a progression from breaking into unoccupied residences to occupied residences. This was observed in more than a third (35.2%) of participants. The progressions from the absence to the presence of “violence” or the use of a “weapon” were both found in less than a quarter of participants. It should be noted that these variables were especially difficult to code. Evidently, use of violence and/or a weapon was obviously absent in cases of unoccupied burglaries, but it was often assumed in the police reports of burglaries when someone was at home. Regardless, it was not always clearly described in the available data, and this finding should be interpreted with caution. “Frequency” escalation could only be measured in the 101 participants who had committed at least three burglaries because this variable relied on the length of time that elapsed between incidents. Almost two thirds (63.0%) of eligible burglars progressed from committing sporadic or occasional burglaries to committing more frequent burglaries. For example, offender A entered the homes of six different women while they were sleeping and assaulted them. His first two sexual burglaries were 1 year apart. His third sexual burglary occurred 2 months after the second, his fourth 3 days after the third, and his fifth and sixth on the same night. His case is demonstrative of an increase in frequency and is perhaps indicative of an increasing sexual urge. “Victim–offender relationship” was coded into the following categories: partner/ ex-partner, family member, known acquaintance, unknown acquaintance, or stranger. This variable was intended to identify offenders who escalated from offending against known victim to offending against stranger victims. To be considered for this type of escalation, the offender needed to have committed at least two contact sexual burglaries with identifiable victims. Only 42 offenders met this criterion. Of them, only 5 (11.9%) escalated from having a known to having an unknown victim.

Comparing Escalators and Non-Escalators Offenders were classified as either an escalator or a non-escalator on each type of escalation. Independent-samples t tests were calculated to compare escalators and nonescalators for each type of escalation. Due to the low number of participants for whom we had victim–offender relationship details (n = 42), this variable was excluded from subsequent analyses. The results of the t tests are reported in Table 3. Across all five forms of escalation considered, escalators accrued significantly more violent charges in their criminal histories than non-escalators. In addition, “occupancy” escalators and “frequency” escalators had significantly more property charges than non-escalators. Men who escalated in “nature of burglary,” “occupancy,” and “frequency” each accrued significantly more property charges than the non-escalators in each category. Overall, “violence” escalators were charged significantly more often than non-escalators. Finally, “frequency” escalators received more charges for property crimes than non-escalators. This might suggest that theft and burglary were compulsive behaviors


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Pedneault et al. Table 3. Number of Charges for Escalators and Non-Escalators. Non-escalators

Escalators

M (SD)

M (SD)

t value

23.83 (14.90) 3.11 (3.31) 4.44 (4.10) 7.83 (7.44) 8.45 (9.45)

27.32 (17.20) 5.35 (6.03) 3.70 (3.36) 10.52 (9.69) 7.75 (7.21)

1.36 2.65** 1.19 1.98* .50

23.41 (14.37) 3.28 (3.83) 4.54 (4.3) 7.69 (7.55) 7.90 (8.83)

28.28 (17.92) 5.16 (5.65) 3.47 (2.75) 10.93 (9.53) 8.72 (8.41)

1.89b 2.25* 1.93b 2.38* .57

23.31 (14.70) 2.98 (3.19) 3.99 (3.72) 8.21 (7.69) 8.13 (8.92)

31.47 (18.10) 7.28 (6.87) 4.78 (4.24) 11.00 (10.40) 8.42 (7.85)

2.79** 3.37*** 1.08 1.77b .18

24.88 (15.27) 3.28 (3.57) 4.06 (3.76) 8.34 (7.68) 9.20 (9.36)

25.92 (17.75) 6.08 (6.66) 4.53 (4.14) 10.42 (10.42) 4.89 (4.57)

.35 2.48* .66 1.34 3.84***

23.45 (11.03) 3.39 (3.24) 4.67 (5.00) 7.79 (4.48) 7.60 (7.06)

30.31 (17.46) 5.19 (5.70) 4.06 (3.40) 11.70 (10.26) 9.36 (9.01

2.36* 1.97* .73 2.61** .97

Nature of burglary Total charges Total violent chargesa Total sexual charges Total property charges Total other charges Occupancy Total charges Total violent chargesa Total sexual charges Total property charges Total other charges Use of violence Total charges Total violent chargesa Total sexual charges Total property charges Total other charges Use of weapon Total charges Total violent chargesa Total sexual charges Total property charges Total other chargesa Frequency Total charges Total violent chargesa Total sexual charges Total property chargesa Total other charges aEqual

variance not assumed. significant or p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01.***p < .001. bMarginally

for them. An alternative explanation might be that they offended out of necessity and stole money and food to survive, or to maintain an addiction.

Exploring Cumulative Escalation The second part of the study explored the cumulative effect of different types of escalation in incidents of burglary. Here, we predicted that offenders who had escalated in


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Table 4. Number of Types of Escalation. Numbers of types of escalation

Frequency n (%)

No escalation One type of escalation Two types of escalations Three types of escalations Four types of escalations Five types of escalations Six types of escalations

64 (39.5) 30 (18.5) 16 (9.9) 17 (10.5) 20 (12.3) 13 (8) 0

Table 5. Number of Charges and Types of Escalation.

Total charges Total violent chargesb Total sexual charges Total property charges Total other charges

Non-escalators (n = 64)

Low escalators (n = 46)

High escalators (n = 50)

M (SD)

M (SD)

M (SD)

F value

22.28 (14.56) 2.86(3.45) 4.58 (4.54) 7.31 (7.16) 7.63 (8.87)

23.65 (15.21) 2.87 (2.83) 3.70 (3.15) 8.37 (7.74) 8.72 (9.78)

30.28 (17.22) 6.68 (6.21) 4.08 (3.54) 11.38 (10.05) 7.06 (7.54)

3.92*,a 11.10***,a,c 0.71 3.48*,a 0.24

aNon-escalators

were significantly different from high escalators. of homogeneity of variance was violated; therefore, Games-Howell post hoc analysis was conducted to identify differences between groups. cLow escalators were significantly different from high escalators. *p < .05. ***p < .001. bAssumption

a variety of different dimensions, regardless of specific type, would reveal longer, more persistent, and more dangerous criminal careers than their non-escalating counterparts. Table 4 presents the total number of forms of escalation in the sample. The typical criminal history contained at least some escalation with almost two thirds (60.5%) of offenders having at least one form of escalation in their burglary incidents and no offenders demonstrating all six forms of escalation. Next, offenders were arranged in three groups based on the number of different forms of escalation they displayed in their incidents of burglary. Non-escalators (n = 64) showed no evidence of escalation, low escalators (n = 46) escalated in either one or two types, and high escalators (n = 50) exhibited three or more types of escalations. This analysis concerned the cumulative effect of different types of escalations and did not privilege any specific type of escalation over another. Analyses of variance were conducted to investigate the differences between these categories of offenders, and the results are presented in Table 5. With regard to total number of charges in criminal histories, high escalators accrued more charges than non-escalators. Consistent with our expectations, high escalators


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Pedneault et al. Table 6. Recidivism and Types of Escalation.

Any recidivism Violent recidivism Sexual recidivism

Non-escalators (n = 64) n (%)

Low escalators (n = 46) n (%)

High escalators (n = 50) n (%)

χ2

29 (59.2) 17 (34.7) 10 (20.4)

17 (56.7) 8 (26.7) 5 (16.7)

17 (70.8) 14 (58.3) 11 (45.8)

1.28 6.08* 7.17*

*p < .05. ***p < .001.

committed significantly more violent crimes than low escalators or non-escalators. Correlations analyses indicated a medium-sized positive relationship between the number of types of escalations an offender demonstrated and his total number of violent charges, r = .312, p (two-tailed) = .001. The more types of escalation an offender demonstrated, the more total violent charges he accrued. In addition, there were significant differences in the total number of property charges accrued across groups. Again, high escalators received significantly more property charges than non-escalators. There was a significant small effect positive relation between the number of forms of escalation of an offender and his total number of property charges, r = .195, p (two-tailed) = .013. There was no significant difference between types of escalators on their total number of sexual charges. Finally, Pearson’s chi-square test was calculated to compare the three groups of escalators on likelihood of recidivism. These results are presented in Table 6. High escalators were more likely to commit both violent and sexual offenses upon release from custody when compared with low escalators and non-escalators. The groups did not differ in their likelihood of committing any type of offense upon release.

Escalation by Burglary Type and Sexual Offense Type Finally, the sample was compared on two additional dimensions: Those who committed at least one sexual burglary were compared with those who committed only nonsexual burglaries, and rapists, child molesters, were compared. Our results indicated that rapists were more likely to escalate in their incidents of burglary than child molesters (R: n = 62, 71.3%, CM: n = 20, 42.6%), χ2 = 10.59, p = .001, and had a higher mean number of types of esccalation (R: M = 2.01, SD = 1.75; CM: M = 2.01, SD = 1.72), t = 3.30, p = .001. To determine if this distinction would subsist when accounting for escalation in burglary, subsequent analyses were conducted and showed that for the rapists and child molesters who had committed sexual burglaries, however, both groups (R: n = 45, 84.9%; CM: n = 7, 77.8%) were more likely to have escalated in their incidents of burglary in comparison with rapists and child molesters who committed only non-sexual burglaries (R: n = 17, 50%; CM: n = 13, 34.2%), χ2 = 12.32, p = .001. Generally, sexual burglars demonstrated significantly more types of escalations (M = 2.8, SD = 1.69) than non-sexual burglars (M = 0.69, SD = 1.32), t = 8.79, p < .001 and any perpetrator of a sexual burglary, independent of his offender


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classification, was more likely to be classified as a high escalator (n = 45, 60%) than one who did not commit sexual burglary (n = 5; 5.9%), χ2 = 60.57, p < .001.

Discussion The present study explored the nature and extent of offense escalation within the burglary events committed by a sample of men convicted of sexual, and generally tested the gateway theory. Six different types of escalations were considered, and the relationship between offense escalation and various criminal career measures was examined. Our results pointed to an escalation process occurring in the increased seriousness of the burglaries committed by a majority of offenders. Offense escalation in the incidents of burglary was also associated with significantly more violent offending for the sample.3 Offenders who committed increasingly more serious burglaries over time were more violent than non-escalators, regardless of whether they progressed in types of burglaries, occupancy, violence, weapon, or frequency. Our results also demonstrated a cumulative effect to adding various forms of offense escalation: Offenders who escalated on multiple aspects in their burglaries, although not more likely than low escalators or non-escalators to recidivate in any type of crime, were more likely to commit sexual and violent crimes upon release. The link between escalation in burglaries and a history of violence is clear—sexual offenders who escalated in their burglaries were more often implicated in violent crimes. Generally, our results are not only consistent with the use of burglary as a predictive variable of future non-sexual violence in the RM2000 but also add to the understanding about its role in the escalation process by pointing to the disproportionate involvement in the most serious crimes of these offenders who escalate in their burglaries, reinforcing the need to better understand these offenders, and confirming LeBlanc and Fréchette’s (1989) qualification of burglary as a “catalyst” toward offending seriousness. This underscores the importance of considering the non-sexual criminal histories of sexual offenders and illustrates the potential of predicting future offenses based on previous offense characteristics and established modus operandi. Our results indicate that offenders most often progressed directly from non-sexual property (or gain-motivated) burglaries to contact sexual offending in the home of their victim, without passing through the non-contact sexual burglary stage that allegedly includes fetishism or voyeurism. At this point, it is unclear whether covertly sexual burglaries are simply rare events or whether they go undetected and/or unreported because of their context of occurrence (i.e., property of little monetary value stolen in unoccupied residences). Our results also suggest that overtly sexual burglaries were rarely preceded by violent or covertly sexual burglaries but instead by non-sexual gain-motivated burglaries. The present study aimed to test the gateway theory, specifically the possible role of burglary as a catalyst toward serious offending. Our findings suggest that burglary might act as a training ground for a variety of other offenses for some offenders. Perhaps the successful completion of financial gain burglaries reinforced the use of burglary as a means to obtain gratification in various ways. This might be seen as an indication of an evolving thought process of some offenders whose initial burglaries


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may trigger dormant deviant sexual fantasies and result in subsequent sexual offending; our finding that offenders who committed sexual burglary were more likely to have escalated indicates so. As noted by some authors, burglary has an undetermined nature and it can be associated with a variety of offenses, possibly contributing to burglary acting as a gateway toward serious offending (DeLisi & Walters, 2011; Harris et al., 2013; LeBlanc & Fréchette, 1989; Pedneault et al., 2012; Schlesinger & Revitch, 1999). Situational cues like those described by DeSalvo of breaking and entering to commit a theft and finding a woman sleeping or personal stressors (e.g., heightened sexual preoccupation) could be influential factors on this learning process of offenders. The cognitive factors that might be involved in this growing awareness of other possible gratifications in some offenders are unknown at this point, but should be the object of future study. Another point that warrants emphasis is our focus on the retrospective criminal careers of serious sexual offenders. The importance of understanding processes of escalation in serious offenders should be the object of further investigation, but the results obtained need to be framed carefully. This study explored the criminal histories of already identified persistent sexual offenders. Our approach identified commonalities in sexual escalation through burglary in a high-risk population; we now know more about the type and conditions of such escalation. There are multiple important factors in risk prediction of sexual offenders (Amirault & Lussier, 2011; Cale & Lussier, 2012; Lussier & Davies, 2011), but it would be problematic to assume that someone caught for burglary is destined for a life of crime, specifically the most serious form of crime. It is not our intention to conclude that a single charge (or even series of charges) for non-sexual, gain-motivated burglary in any way necessarily assures that an offender will escalate to covert or overt sexual offenses. To establish that any burglary leads to sexual offending would require a prospective examination of a sample of burglars, whereas our study retrospectively looked over a sample of sexual offenders (for an example of a study looking at rates of burglars escalating to sexual offending, see Sample & Bray, 2003).

Limitations This study is limited by our definition of escalation, our reliance on official records, and the retrospective nature of the data. First, we did not account for de-escalation, desistance, or zigzag offending patterns (Laub & Sampson, 2003). Rather than considering the specific trajectories per se, our approach concentrated only on evidence of escalation from burglary to sexual offending during burglary. Second, although we explored six different types of escalations, there may be additional types of escalations that we have not addressed. The difficulties of relying on official records have been discussed elsewhere (Farrington, 1986). Although we made every effort to account for this shortcoming by returning to records where possible, it is acknowledged that official charges might not necessarily reflect the true nature of the offense. Evidently, some instances of truly


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sexually motivated burglaries might have ended up being charged as, or pled down to, less serious property crimes. Similarly, burglaries that were initially motivated by material gain and directed only at empty houses may have actually been occupied and subsequently attracted a more serious charge than was anticipated. Finally, non-contact sexual burglaries (i.e., those with fetishistic or voyeuristic motivations) are likely underreported. Such incidents might be either not noticed or not reported by the victim. An investigation of the prevalence of these kinds of offenses that draws from the self-reported criminal histories of sexual offenders would be a worthwhile step for future research. Finally, this is a retrospective study where we have oversampled men with chronic criminal careers who progressed to commit serious sexual offenses. Our findings about escalation should therefore be interpreted with caution and viewed primarily as speculative hypotheses that require replication in prospective studies.

Future Directions The findings presented in this article contribute to the general treatment of burglary in the sexual offending literature, where burglary is almost systematically classified as a property offense. As emphasized by LeBlanc and Fréchette (1989), the common, polyvalent, and catalyzing characteristics of burglary require that it be considered differently. We recommend that the incidence, prevalence, and circumstances of burglaries in the criminal careers of sexual offenders be examined more closely. In addition to escalation, the complete sequence of offending (including de-escalation and zigzag offending) should be studied. Finally, it also remains to be investigated in depth whether these findings apply to all types of sexual offenders (rapists, hebephiles, extra-familial child molesters, intra-familial child molesters). Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes 1. This reported high frequency of burglary was the description of an observed pattern in a sample of serial rapists. It did not bear comparison with any other type of offenders, nor did it identify burglary as a marker predicting future sexual dangerousness. 2. No intra-familial child molesters in the sample had committed burglary. 3. It should be noted that we found no case of burglary occurring jointly with sexual murder, but we specifically did not investigate any subsequent sexual murder occurring apart from burglary.


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Drug involvement in crimes committed by mentally ill offenders.

An integrated treatment program for sexual offenders.

Recidivism in sexual offenders.

A psychometric examination of treatment change in a multisite sample of treated Canadian federal sexual offenders.

[Treatment management of sexual offenders].

An incident-based comparison of female and male sexual offenders.

Sadism and Violent Reoffending in Sexual Offenders.

Sadism in sexual offenders: evidence for dimensionality.

An examination of change in dynamic risk of offending over time among serious juvenile offenders.

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Female sexual homicide offenders: an analysis of the offender racial profiles in offending process.

What is so special about female sexual offenders? Introduction to the special issue on female sexual offenders.

Adult interpersonal features of subtypes of sexual offenders.

The sexual information examination.

Early maladaptive schemas in convicted sexual offenders: preliminary findings.

Examining the developmental trajectories of adolescent sexual offenders.

Three methods of developing MMPI taxonomies of sexual offenders.

Female offenders in child sexual abuse cases: a national picture.

Psychosurgery on sex offenders and sexual "deviants" in West Germany.

Stumbling into sexual crime: the passive perpetrator in accounts by male internet sex offenders.

Executive Dysfunction Predicts Delinquency But Not Characteristics of Sexual Aggression Among Adolescent Sexual Offenders.

Juvenile Sexual Homicide Offenders: Thirty-Year Follow-Up Investigation.

An examination of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) among male adolescent offenders: an item response theory analysis.

Is committed desire intentional? A qualitative exploration of sexual desire and differentiation of self in couples.