I found a fascinating link to an article on understanding the Psychology of Child Molesters at a blog called Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out. The article is from a 2005 issue of Police Chief Magazine.
Understand the Thinking Process: One of the critical keys to interviewing child molesters is understanding how they think. There are several different types of child molester; and each child molester has a particular way to meet his or her needs and justify his or her behavior. Molesters use distorted thinking to rationalize and justify their crimes, to make their own needs most important and to minimize their behavior. Many offenders convince themselves that the relationship they had with their victim was different; that it was a mutual, loving, caring relationship; that the sexual acts were consensual; or that the child somehow benefited from the relationship. The more an investigator understands the way a sexual offender thinks, the more prepared he will be to elicit a confession.
Source: Police Chief Magazine
The article goes into why pedophiles confess. It is chilling.
- Desire to prevent the victim from having to publicly identify him in court as a sexual offender
- Desire to save the victim from being traumatized by the system
- Because of his love and concern for the victim, desire to spare the victim the negative publicity associated with being a victim of sexual abuse
- Desire to avoid embarrassing the suspect's family
- Desire to obtain treatment and learn to control his sexual attraction to children
- Desire to express remorse for his actions and demonstrate his concern by helping the victims find answers and closure
- Desire to take responsibility for his actions
- Disgust with himself
- Guilt (the internal acknowledgment that one is responsible for one's criminal deeds) greater than shame (the reaction to public knowledge of the crime)
This list goes on....
