The Geriatric Sex Offender: Senile Or Pedophile‪?‬

I. INTRODUCTION Rape, child molestation, and other sexual offenses are undoubtedly among the most egregious crimes that plague our society. In recent years, there has been a significant amount of discussion and research focusing on the motivations and psychological disorders that lead sex offenders to commit their crimes; however, there has been very little discussion about those sex offenders who commit their crimes in their golden years. While the commission of most types of crimes tends to decline with age, sex offenses generally decline at a much lesser rate than other types of crimes. (1) Furthermore, studies have suggested that sex offenders are more likely to start committing their crimes, or to keep committing them, in their elder years. (2) In the United States for the year 2006 there were 2,571 persons over the age of sixty who were arrested for sex offenses (excluding forcible rape and prostitution) and an additional 287 persons in the same age group who were arrested for forcible rape. (3) This article will look in detail at elderly sex offenders (considered individuals over the age of sixty for the purposes of this article) and the crimes that they commit, as well as special problems and issues that offenders of this type and age present. It will examine how these perpetrators can live seemingly "normal" lives, raise families, be good standing members of their communities, and then turn into "dirty old men" (4) as they enter the final years of their lives.