Profiling the Offending Pedophile

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At the culmination of my 21-year law enforcement career, which included serving as an undercover SVU detective, I was tasked with developing a previously non-existent investigative division with the purpose of identifying and apprehending child predators and pedophiles who sought to harm children. This division was extremely successful and included flushing out a fugitive from justice on Canada’s Most Wanted — an individual wanted for 900 counts of possession of child pornography and sexual assault of children.

I began receiving requests from different communities to speak on the topics of child and internet safety and the characteristics of predators and pedophiles. I discovered that most people have no, or very little, knowledge in these areas. This is an overview of the profiling.

What is a pedophile?

According to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition), pedophilia is a Paraphilic Disorder called Pedophilic Disorder and assigned to adults (16 years of age or older) who have sexual desires for prepubescent children.

There are two primary classifications of pedophiles, Preferential and Situational.

The Preferential pedophile seeks children as their sole source for sexual gratification. They have no interest in adults to achieve their sexual fantasies and desires. Within the scope of this classification lies two sub-classifications.

The first is that of the Fixated pedophile. This individual wishes to become close and intimate with a child and uses grooming techniques such as being nice to the child, including providing him or her with gifts to win their trust and confidence. Often, this individual will exhibit little interaction with adults, choosing to be with children which makes him more comfortable. In many cases, this individual can be observed to possess juvenile traits and exhibit childlike behavior himself and may show an absence of any aggressiveness in his personality. This pedophile has no desire to hurt the child, and any sex comes much later in their interaction.

The second sub-classification of the Preferential Pedophile is Mysoped and is gravely different from the Fixated counterpart. The Mysoped has no emotional attachment or feelings for the child beyond his need to fulfill his sexual fantasies. His sexual gratification is to see the victim suffer. The word sadist can be used to describe this individual. The Mysoped exhibits anti-social personality traits and the abduction, torture, and murder are almost always premeditated. Unlike the Fixated individual, the Mysoped is a stranger to his victim and has previously stalked the child. Commonly, the victim will be tortured while alive and post-mortem, and the offender may practice cannibalism or necrophilia with the victim, but their ultimate gratification arises from their murder of the child. (Of note by Beauregard, Stone, Proulx, and Michaud, 2008, a large number suffer from dysregulated attachment patterns.)

The second primary classification in the dichotomy is that of the Situational pedophile. As the name implies, the child-victim selection is based upon the situation, or the availability, of a victim. In this classification, the offender is not truly interested in children, but will use a child if a child is that is all that is available. Other potential victims are individuals who are elderly or who have a mental illness or some other debilitating condition – someone who, in their opinion, will offer less resistance.

This primary classification has four sub-classifications: Inadequate, Regressed, Morally Indiscriminate, and Sexually Indiscriminate.

The Inadequate typically possess some mental disorder (psychoses, senility, etc.) which precludes them from the ability to ascertain what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Often classified by others as “weird” or “strange,” they are typically loners; no one wants to be around them. While this offender may have physical contact with children in the form of kissing, groping, or rubbing, intercourse is usually not present.

The Regressed pedophile’s characteristics exhibit inadequate life-coping skills and low self-esteem. A child is a substitute for the lack of an adult. This situation of selecting a child can be temporary; this offender will pick an adult when possible.

The third sub-classification of the Situational pedophile is that of the Morally Indiscriminate. This individual is a user and abuser of people and children are part of that. The Morally Indiscriminate offender will abuse family, friends, and even strangers if that use and abuse completes a need they possess for something different. Often, the decision to assault a child comes to a question they ask themselves: “Why not?”

The Sexual Indiscriminate is the final sub-classification and is known to be the sexual experimenter, seeking some experiences beyond his normal activity. He simply wants something different.