Les adolescents auteurs d’agression sexuelle pris en charge par le système judiciaire québécois entre 2005 et 2010 : lien entre la délinquance et la victimisation

Several questions remain unanswered and debates persist with regard to adolescent sexual offenders (ASO). Their similarities to other juvenile offenders and the relevance of a victim’s age-based typology are among them. Furthermore, although it is recognized that many ASO were victims of maltreatment as children, the proportion has to be clarified. Current literature has methodological limitations such as insufficient sample size and lack of control groups. To overcome these constraints, this thesis evaluates 1,429 ASO who have committed one or more sexual offenses between 2005 and 2010. This cohort was extracted from research funded by the FRQSC entitled “The Implementation of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, Seven Years Later”. The data comes from the “Centre jeunesse” database.  The first study aims to describe the ASO’s official delinquency and childhood experience of maltreatment. Results show the heterogeneity of the ASO population and identify three main profiles of delinquency. The parameters of delinquency studied (intensity, variety, persistence, frequency) are distributed very asymmetrically. For example, 30,4% of ASO have committed only one offense (or more than one, but during the same event), while 10% have committed more than eleven. In addition, 81.6% of ASO were reported to the Direction of Youth Protection for a variety of reasons. Their profile of maltreatment during childhood is also heterogeneous.  The second study aims to compare the ASO to 1,429 adolescents who have committed non-sexual offenses using various forms of abuse. Results indicate ASO are distinct from other juvenile offenders, their history of maltreatment being more severe. Secondly, ASO were divided into two sub-groups: those who committed only sexual offenses (ASO-O) and those who also committed non-sexual offenses (ASO+). These groups were compared to non-sexual offenders on the basis of the same variables of maltreatment. ASO-O were similar to the comparison group, while ASO + differed with a more severe history of abuse than non-sexual offenders. This study also identified the history of sexual abuse as the most predictive factor for the inclusion of an adolescent to the ASO group.  The third study aims to develop a typology based on maltreatment variables for all ASO, ASO-O and ASO+, who have committed at least two sexual offenses (regardless of non-sexual offenses). In all cases, two classes were identified: ASO-maltreated and ASO-non-maltreated. In fact, the presence of maltreatment itself is more important than its nature, regardless of the group of ASO studied. The ASO-maltreated and ASO-non-maltreated have been compared on the different delinquency parameters. The ones who had antecedents of maltreatment before committing their first offense have a tendency to have an earlier, more varied, intense and persistent delinquency than the ASO-non-maltreated.  The overall results of the thesis bring additional information on the abused-abusive model and the degree of specialization of ASO.

Keyphrases: Adolescent sexual offenders, Maltreatment, Victimization, Sexual abuse, Typology, Juvenile delinquency, Juvenile sex offenders, Specialist/versatile