ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at sexual offending as a perverse expression of violence occurring within an attachment disorder. High profile media attention is paid to sexual crimes, since their occurrence is more commonly reported and known about. Attention tends more towards the issue of punishment and sentencing of sexual offenders, while any understanding of why such a crime should be committed remains in the background. Since 1995, men entering the several therapeutic communities at Grendon have been routinely interviewed on arrival and asked at initial psychological screening whether they have been subject to violence, sexual or other abuses. The kinds of sexual abuses experienced by the interviewees were all of a severe kind, being forced or violent. The sexual act had become a breach of trust and a misuse of the power relationship between the younger victim and older abuser.
