25. In one study, fewer than a fifth of pedophiles interviewed said they desired genital sex, whereas another fifth wanted "non-sexual, platonic friendships." Glenn D. Wilson and David N. Cox,
26. Okami and Goldberg, "Personality Correlates," 297-328. A study of the members of a British pedophile organization found that "the majority [of subjects] showed no sign of clinically significant psychopathy or thought disorder." Wilson and Cox,
27. Wilson and Cox (
28. There was no proof of a sexual relationship between the two men. Nor was there any of a general propensity toward child molesting in the Sicari family, although police inferred one from the conviction of Salvi's sixteen-year-old brother in a sexual encounter with a ten-year-old boy. The gay historian Allan Bérubé suggested that the crime fit another stereotype and piqued another fear: that the child molester's prey is not only a boy but a white boy (author conversation with Bérubé).
29. Margaret A. Alexander, "Quasi-Meta-Analysis II, Oshkosh Correctional Institution," State of Wisconsin Department of Corrections/Oshkosh Correctional Institution report, Oshkosh, 1994; Lita Furby et al., "Sex Offender Recidivism: A Review,"
30. These numbers are inflated by reoffenses by adult rapists. In her metanalysis of seventy-nine studies encompassing almost eleven thousand subjects, Oshkosh (Wisconsin) Correctional Institution clinical director Margaret Alexander reconfirmed the fact that men who rape adult women are the most intransigent, with about a fifth striking again whether they undergo a treatment program in prison or not. But men arrested for having sex with children are usually overcome with shame and remorse; they want to stop. For them, good treatment has made a great difference: Since 1943, an average of 11 percent of "child molesters" who were treated in jails, hospitals, and outpatient clinics found their way back to prison, compared with 32 percent of those who took part in no treatment. Margaret A. Alexander, "Sexual Offender Treatment Efficacy Revisited," State of Wisconsin Department of Corrections/Oshkosh Correctional Institution report, Oshkosh, May 1998. There's also evidence that better treatment is increasingly successful. Before 1980, recidivism among treated sex offenders was almost 30 percent; after 1980, it dropped to 8.4 percent. Eric Lotke, "Sex Offenders: Does Treatment Work?" National Center for Institutions and Alternatives report, Washington, D.C., 1996, 5.
31. James R. Kincaid,
32. Judith Lewis Herman,
33.
34. Ellen Bass and Laura Davis,