Criminal Profile of Pedophiles in East Java

Reno Fitria Sari

and Margaretha

Forensic Master Program, Universitas Airlangga, Airlangga Street, Surabaya, Indonesia

Departement of Forensic Science, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Keywords: Criminal Profiling, Inmates, Pedophiles.

Abstract: Pedophilia is one of the most prevalent crimes in Indonesia, especially in East Java. Approximately 300 cases

of sexual assault occur in East Java and tend to increase every year. For most of these cases, the victims are

women and young girls who have been sexually abused by adult males. It’s also found out that most

perpretators have a close relationship with the victims. The criminal profiling is a must in assisting the

investigation process until the evaluation. This study aims to make criminal profiling against pedophiles in

Indonesia, especially in East Java. The researcher moves two commonly used tools in the forensic world,

Static-99R and Turvey’s criminal profile. Static-99R serves as a tool for evaluation of the behavior of

pedophiles that arise and detection behavior that will reappear or not. Turvey’s criminal profile is used to

describe the pedophile actor not only psychically but also see the impetus that arises so that the behavior can

occur. This study resulted that Turvey and Static-99R criminal profiles can be used for pedophilia and require

further evaluation.

1 INTRODUCTION

The increasing rate of sexual assault requires special

attention. Nowadays, not only women are susceptible

to this crime but also children. The statistics in

February 2017 from Class IIA-Correctional

Institution A in Sidoarjo describe that there were 47

inmates convicted for this crime based on Indonesian

Child Protection Law. This number makes up for a

third of the crime handled by this facility after drug

abuse and theft.

Sexual violence is defined by World Health

Organization (WHO, 2002) as “any sexual act,

attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual

comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise

directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion,

by any person regardless of their relationship to the

victim, in any setting, including but not limited to

home and work”. The definition refer to the forms of

sexual assault including rape or sexual assault. The

perpetrators are not merely strangers but they might

have a close relation with the victims, such as

neighbors, or even consanguineous relations, such as

siblings or parents. They use diverse modus operandi

to coerce sexual act, such as intimidation, threats and

manipulation.

According to Indonesian Child Protection

Commission, the number of sexual violence against

children in Indonesia has been dramatically rising. In

2011, there were 2.178 crimes, which significantly

increased to 3.512 cases in 2012. In 2013 and 2014,

respectively, the number reached 4.311 and 5.066

cases. Among these 5.066 cases in 2014, there were

2.726 cases of violence against children and more

than half of it was sexual violence. However, only

179 victims reported to Witness and Victim

Protection Agency (http://

http://bankdata.kpai.go.id/tabulasi-data-

perlindungan-anak). With this trend, it is projected

that the sexual violence against children will

increasingly climb up every year.

The perpetrator of sexual violence against

children is called a pedophile. However, to be

diagnosed as a pedophile, he/she must have

committed recurring sexual activity with minor(s)

over a 6-month period. He also must be at least 16

years old and at least five years older than the victims

(DSM-V, 2013).

In several interviews with child rapists, they tempt

the victims covertly into a committing sexual. The

examples of their modus operandi are explained as

follows.

Sari, R. and Margareta, M.

Criminal Proﬁle of Pedophiles in East Java.

DOI: 10.5220/0007548906530659

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School (ICPS 2018), pages 653-659

ISBN: 978-989-758-348-3

653

1. Finding children who need special attention.

At the beginning, the perpetrator

attentively listens to victims’ stories and

problems so that the victims feel safe to

trusts him. After an emotional bond is

formed, the perpetrator starts to touch and

then do comitting sexual with the victims.

This abuse usually recurs for a long time

since the victims have been emotionally

dependent on the perpetrator.

2. Picking-up and driving children from/to

school.

The perpetrator does this action to

build an emotional bond with his victim.

3. Others.

The perpetrator regularly shops at the stalls where

the children are around. He starts to make a chat with

the children and shows friendly and protective

manners. Consequently, It is hard for adults in

neighborhood around to believe that the sexual

offender is someone who is close to the victims.

Child protection against sexual violence is

explicitly stated in The Law of The Republic of

Indonesia No. 23 Year 2002 Article 59 to 71 and

Indonesia’s Penal Code. However, the regulation

does not significantly reduce the number sexual

violence against children. Therefore, another means

is required to solve this problem, such as criminal

profiling (Crawford, 2014; Young & Varano, 2006).

This technique can assist in criminal investigation by

outlining the characters of the sexual offender.

Criminal profiling identifies physical,

psychological, social, geographical and relational

traits of the perpetrator (Turvey, 2017). In this study,

we focus more on explaining what are the

perpetrator’s reason in conducting their crime

conduct. The thoughts before, during and after

committing the crime also needs to describe. These

include the color of the clothes used, the location of

the incident, the victim gets any treatment until the

perpetrator deliberately omits the his real evidence.

All of these traits can provide insights into the

behaviors of the perpetrator before, during and after

committing sexual violence.

We combined the format of Turvey’s criminal

profiling method with predictor of sexual violence

from Static-99R. Static-99R as the most worldwide

used risk assessment instrument for sexual offender

that consists of 10 risk factors (Phenix et. al., 2016).

Static 99 R is the most well studied, well-validated,

and most commonly used static risk consideration as

a tool to assess the risk of recidivism caused by sexual

offenders (Hanson et. al., 2016). Static 99 only

utilizes static (unchanged) factors that have been seen

and correlated with sexual reconviction in adult

males. Estimates of sexual and violent recidivisms

generated by static 99 can be considered as the basis

of the risk of violent and sexual reconviction. From

this baseline long-term risk assessment, treatment

strategies and supervision can be put in place to

reduce the risk of sexual recidivism. By identifying

the risk of repeated sexual violence, it hopes that

sexual violence against children is able to prevent.

In Indonesia, criminal profiling procedure is

stated at Legislation on Republic of Indonesia State

Police No. 1 Year 2007. This procedure weighs

heavily on identifying the psychological attributes of

the sexual offender (Wahono, 2016), which may

mislead to a diagnosis of personality disorder instead

of crime. In consequence, court judgment opts for

psychological treatment instead of criminal penalty.

Specifically for Regional Police of Eat Java, their

criminal profiling procedure is still inadequate to

prevent or help criminal investigation (Wahono,

2016).

1.1 Sexual Violence

The paper Sexual violence is closely related to

character and coercion of physical contacts. Often,

these contacts will result in concrete physical marks,

such as bruise or torn hymen. These can be evidence

of sexual violence that can be supported or denied by

the witness’ or victims’ statements (Savino & Turvey,

2011).

Sexual violence is a forced upon others or against

the will of the other party, where the other party does

not give his consent or cannot fight (Snyder, 2000).

Sexual violence is also a sexual contact or other form

of unwanted sexual acts. Commonly, sexual violence

is accompanied with psychological pressure or

physical threat (Matlin, 2008). Rape is one of the

most common and specific act of sexual violence.

Rape is defined as coerced penetration with physical

abuse (Matlin, 2008).

Based on the identity of the perpetrator, sexual

violence is classified into two categories.

a. Familial Abuse

Incest is a sexual violence that is committed

by people who have blood relation or part of the

immediate family. Based on this definition, when

father-in-law or domestic partner sexually abuse

his children, it is categorized as familial abuse.

According to Meyer (1983), there are three

degrees of incest. First, sexual molestation is a

noncapital sexual interaction, such as petting,

fondling, exhibitionism and voyeurism. This

interaction intends to sexually stimulate the

ICPS 2018 - 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School

654

sexual offender. Secondly, sexual assault that

involves oral sex, such as fellatio and

cunnilingus. The most severe degree of incest is

forcible rape. Meyer said that abuse and threat

creates fear in the victims’ lives, especially for

the victims who suffer sexual assault and forcible

rape. The severity of this crime also correlates

with the degree of trauma that the victims must

endure. For instance, the trauma that the victims

of sexual molestation suffer is different from the

victims of forcible rape.

b. Extrafamilial Abuse

Extrafamilial abuse is sexual violence

committed by the people outside the victims’

family or strangers. For example, pedophilia,

literally defined as children-liking, is perpetrated

by adult who engage in a sexual activity with

children (Tower, 2002). When the perpetrator is

an adult-male and the victims are boy, the act is

called pedetrasy (Tower, 2002). There are many

definitions of sexual violence. But the key

components are that sexual violence includes

coercion by the perpetrator to the victims.

1.2 Pedophilia

Based on Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental

Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM V; APA, 2015).

Pedophile (from the word of pedos means “child” in

Greek) is an adult who is sexually satisfied by

physical contact prepubescent children who do not

have blood relation with him. However, there is

strong research that disagrees that pedophile prefers

prepubescent children, who are not allowed to engage

in a sexual act with an adult (Marshall, 1997). He is

sexually aroused by girls, boys or both sexes. Only

when one has committed to this urge or fantasy can

be diagnosed as pedophile although he denies distress

or decrease in his sexual function (APA, 2015).

Pedophilia is, simply said, an adult’s sexual

attraction towards children. For a specific attraction

towards boys, it is called Pederasty. Based on

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental

Disorders (APA, 2013), pedophilia is characterized

by repeated sexual acts with children of 13 years of

age or younger, intense fantasy and strong sexual

attraction.

Based on DSM-V in 2015, pedophilia is

characterized as follows:

a. In a period of at least six months, a person

fantasizes about sexual activity, possesses sexual

urge or conduct recurring sexual acts that

involves children (generally 13 years old or

younger).

b. A person has acted upon this sexual urge or a

fantasy that causes interpersonal problems.

c. A person is at least 16 years old and at least five

years older than the child victims as stated in

point a.

Most of pedophiles are men. This disorder often

coexists with other mood disorders, anxiety,

substance abuse and paraphilia (Raymond et. al.,

1999). A pedophile can be heterosexual or

homosexual. In the last few years, internet plays a

vital role in pedophilia. Many pedophiles use the

internet to access child pornography and to contact

his prospective victims (Durkin, 1997).

The most common acts of pedophilia are touch

and genital exposure. Oral, vaginal or anal sex seldom

happens but rape and kidnap commonly occur (Fagan

et. al., 2002). The pedophile can be known or stranger

to the victims. Sedlak & Boardhurst (1996) compiled

statistic that 30% of pedophiles are the victims’

parents. Another 30% of pedophiles are somebody

else’s parents, while the rest is other people, such as

neighbors. This means 30% of pedophilia is also

incest. Although a perpetrator of incest and a

pedophile sexually abuse children, the perpetrator of

incest usually prefers pubescent children (Rice &

Harris, 2002).

Girls is more likely to be targeted as victims of

pedophilia compared to boys (Abel & Oxborn, 1992).

Girls are perceived to be weaker and more

impressionable than boys. In addition, girls are

generally more easily intimidated to report the abuse

due to shame. This condition is often taken advantage

by a pedophile to commit his crime.

1.2.1 Characteristics of Pedophiles

Adult male with pedophilia indicate that they realize

their sexual preference to children around puberty-the

same time when other adult males who are physical

attracted to adult males or adult females realize their

sexual preference. Diagnosing pedophilia where one

realizes sexual attraction to children tends to be

difficult. Teenagers usually possess high sexual

curiosity; hence it is hard to differentiate sexual

curiosity from genuine sexual attraction (DSM-V,

2013). Failure to identify the correct sexual attraction

may lead to choosing the wrong sexual partners.

Besides that, failure to find the correct information to

fulfill one’s sexual curiosity can also lead to choosing

the wrong sexual partners. For example, watching

child pornography can cause pedophilia.

Pedophilia, however, must cover other factors that

can continuously change with or without treatment,

such as self-imposed pressure (remorse, shame,

Criminal Proﬁle of Pedophiles in East Java

655

intense sexual frustration or feeling of isolation),

psychosocial issues or tendency to act sexual with

children. Therefore, the severity of pedophilia can

fluctuate according to age (DSM-V, 2013).

Risks and prognostics of pedophilia are:

a. Emotional Regulation

Temperament is the weakness of a pedophile

during social interaction. A person with this trait

tends to make children as his sexual partner.

Therefore, a person with antisocial disorder may

possess the risk of pedophilia.

b. Environment

Adult male with pedophilia were often sexually

assaulted in their childhood. However, it is unclear

whether this factor directly causes pedophilia.

c. Genes and physiology

There has been evidence that shows that certain

neurodevelopment disorder increases the probability

of pedophilia.

There are many factors that can breed pedophilia.

Therefore, it is generally required to evaluate

evidence or contributing factors in detailed to avoid

misdiagnose pedophilia from other disorders. The

contributing factors include:

a. Antisocial Disorder

This disorder increases the likelihood that

someone who is physically attracted to adult will

approach children in one or few occasions. The

person often violates law repeatedly.

b. Alcohol and substance abuse

Alcohol and substance abuse can raise the

probability of an adult’s attraction to children.

Most pedophiles do not physically harm their

victims; however, they make a threat the victims by,

for instance, killing their pets or treating to hurt them

if they talk to their parents. Sometimes, the pedophile

caresses his victims’ hair, plays with the victims

‘genitals, encourages his victims to play with their

genitals and, less often, penetrates his genital to his

victims’. The sexual assault can occur in weeks,

months or years if it is not known by other adults or

if the victims do not talk to other adults.

A smaller number of pedophiles that can be

classified as sexual sadist or psychopath, physically

hurt their victims to the extent of acute injury or

murder. Those pedophiles may be more appropriately

called child rapist and are fundamentally different

with pedophiles regarding their desire to physically

harm their victims at least until they are sexually

satisfied (Groth et. al., 1982).

As is the case with people with paraphilia, strong

attraction drives their actions. According to Gebhard

and his colleagues (1965), a pedophile usually knows

the children he abuses; they are usually neighbors or

friend’s family member. Alcohol and stress can also

increase the chance that someone will sexually assault

children. The Data shows that a pedophile has low

social maturity, self-esteem, self-control and

interpersonal skills (Kalichman, 1991; Overholser &

Beck, 1986). Most of heterosexual pedophiles are

married of have married at least once in their life. A

pedophile is often socially isolated and possesses

lower social skills compared to other people in the

same age group who commit non-sexual crime

(Becker & Hunter, 1997).

1.3 Criminal Profiling

The criminal profile is an investigative instrument

that describes the characteristics of criminals based

on the processing of the place where the case occurs

and the behavior it engenders before and after its

crime. This is an inferential process that involves an

analysis of his criminal behavior, interaction with

crime scenes and weapons choice (Petherick, 2003).

This criminal profile is intended to mark a criminal to

be distinguished from the general public conducted

by a legal institution. The characteristics are made in

such a way that only people who connect with

criminals who can recognize it (Hazelwood et. al.,

1995).

The criminal profile created may contain

identification of the offender in terms of mental

characteristics, emotional and psychological offender

(Petherick, 2006). It can then be developed into a

search query against the actions of the perpetrator.

This criminal profile is created as a tool to assist

investigations for investigators in describing the

characteristics of the offender (Turvey, 2016).

Because there are occasions to find cases of crimes

whose perpetrators are hard to find so that the

criminal profile is needed as a guide for investigators.

A criminal profile is a report that contains relevant

investigation and the criminal’s characteristics who is

responsible for a crime or a series of crimes according

to crime scene analysis. It also covers criminal

analysis and information from the victims, logical

analysis and evidence as basis to establish the

criminal’s characteristics. Basically, a criminal

profile is generated based victimology and cannot be

otherwise (Turvey, 2016).

Criminal profiling weighs heavily on collecting

physical characteristics (body height, weight and

disability), demographic characteristics (age, sex and

ethnicity) and behaviors (personality, motivation,

lifestyle, fantasy, victim selection, behaviors before

and after committing a crime on the crime scene)

ICPS 2018 - 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School

656

according to O’Toole (1999) and Snook et. al. (2008).

Crime scene includes primary and secondary crime

scenes, where evidence and hints exist (Horswell,

2004).

Turvey (1999; 2002) said that criminal profiling

begins with investigation. In the end, this phase can

inform the investigators about the criminal’s

intelligence. Guidance on criminal profiling shall

include the following ideas:

1. Illustration based on the criminal’s behaviors.

2. Illustration based on the victimology.

3. Convincing arguments regarding the risks due to

each victim’s lifestyle.

4. Convincing arguments regarding the situational

risks for each victim.

5. Convincing arguments regarding the risks that

were taken by criminal to obtain victims.

6. Analysis of crime reconstruction based on:

a. Crime scene and reconstruction

b. Meeting-up location

c. Modus operand in approaching victims

d. Modus operandi in attacking victims

e. Modus operandi in controlling victims

f. Use of weapons

g. Coercion

h. Victims’ resistance

i. Sexual assault

j. Prevention method

k. Contradictory acts

l. Evidence of planning

m. Level of violation

n. Items collected by the criminal

o. Items left by the criminal

p. Verbal communication

q. Modus operandi

r. Motives

7. Convincing arguments regarding the criminal’s

motives.

8. Convincing arguments regarding the suitable

investigation strategy based on the criminal’s

characteristics, such as:

a. Criminal’s relationship with his victims

b. Criminal’s familiarity with the crime scene

c. Criminal record

d. Evidence related to the criminal’s state of

mind

e. Evidence related to psychopath, such as

superficiality, deceitfulness, impulsivity,

lack of empathy, lack of remorse,

egocentricity or need for instant

gratification

f. Evidence of personal and sexual conflicts

g. Evidence of sexual fantasy

1.4 STATIC-99R

Static-99 is an actuarial assessment tool to predict the

recidivism risks of adult male sexual abusers who are

at least 18 years old at the time of release. It was

created by R. Karl Hanson, Ph. D, a general attorney

from Canada and David Thornton, Ph. D who worked

at London’s Her Majesty’s Prison Service. It is

created by amalgamating two risk assessment

instruments: RRASOR and SACJ-Min. RRASOR

(Rapid Risk Assessment of Sexual Offence

Recidivism), created by Dr. Hanson, consists of four

parameters: history of sexual abuse, male victim,

unrelated victim and whether the criminal’s age is

between 18 and 25 years old. These items were then

merged with SACJ-Min (Structured Anchored

Clinical Judgment-Minimum), which is a risk

assessment tool that that was created by Dr. Thorton

(Grubin, 1998). SACJ-Min comprises of nine items:

current sexual offence, history of sexual offence,

current non-sexual offence, history of non-sexual

offence, had four or more sentencing occasions in the

past, never married, noncontact sexual offence,

stranger victims and male victims.

Static-99 has advantages of empirically proven

risk factors and detailed procedure on how to

combine these factors to produce final recidivism

score. This instrument generates clear possibilities

regarding sexual reconviction, easy procedure and

proven result in several cases based on various

samples. On the other hand, Static-99 is only

moderately accurate (ROC=0,71) and it does not

cover all factors that might be included in general risk

assessment (Doren, 2002).

2 DISCUSSION

Basic research for dynamic risk factors (causal) is for

sexual offenders. A number of potential dynamic risk

factors for sexual offenders have been proposed, and

many are trying to predict the act of sexual recidivism

(Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2004, 2005). Static 99

is present to predict the action as well. However, the

need for factors is about to ensure a decrease in the

risk of recidivism. In this regard, the researcher wants

to pluck Static 99 with Turvey's criminal profile base.

Because, Turvey describes a person's perpetrator

using behavioral evidence analysis where it is seen as

a whole from a criminal. These factors can be

physical characteristics, residential environment,

workplace, social life and relationships with the

surrounding relationships. The basis of Tuvrey

Criminal Proﬁle of Pedophiles in East Java

657

complements the questions contained in the Static 99

form.

The combination of criminal profiles with static-

99 to be the right thing because:

1. criminal profiles that have been targeted to the

characteristics of pedophiles that have been

studied since they are taken from static 99 as the

base.

2. static 99 is used to measure the risk of repetition

of detailed pedophilia behaviour

3. making a systematic criminal profile and

complete data as it refers to Turvey's criminal

profile.

2.1 STATIC-99R

In addition, the researcher makes the steps of making

a criminal profile as one of the procedures that must

be passed to create a pedophile criminal profile. The

flowchart below illustrates the process of criminal

profiling (Sari & Margaretha, 2017).

Sexual violence against children that is committed

by a pedophile is a sexual disorder as well as crime.

A pedophile establish rapport with children to gain a

trust by being a protective and friendly person. While

he seems to be kind, he tries to hide his ill intention

so that the children and their parents do not realize

that he is preying the children.

A pedophile’s behavior is not only due to his

attraction to children but also because of his failed

relationship or troubled relationship with the opposite

sex. Several pedophiles admitted that their ex-wives

rejected their sexual advandces. It creates an opinion

that children will obey his commands and fulfill his

needs different from the adult opposite sex

Figure 1: The Process of Criminal Profiling.

ICPS 2018 - 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School

658

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Revised 4th ed.

(2000). American Psychiatric Association: Washington

DC.

Turvey, Brent. E. (2017). Behavioral Evidence Analysis:

International Forensic Practice and Protocols. Forensic

Solutions LLC: Sitka, Alaska, United States.

Thorton, David., Amy Phenix., Yolanda Fernandez.,

Andrew, J.R. Harris., et al. (2016). Static-99R Coding

Rules Revised – 2016. In Press: United States.

World Health Organization. (2003). Guidelines for medico-

legal care for victims of sexual violence. World Health

Organization: Geneva.

http:// http://bankdata.kpai.go.id/tabulasi-data-

perlindungan-anak

Criminal Proﬁle of Pedophiles in East Java

659