Forensic Insights: Criminal Paraphilia Program Transcript

Forensic Insights: Criminal Paraphilia

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ERIC HICKEY: Paraphilia is a very interesting area of research to study. I would say from my research that probably 10% of American males engage in some form of paraphilia. But again, that's just in general. Some men like-- maybe they want to have sex with door knobs. That's not a crime.

We're looking at criminal pedophilia. So maybe of that 10%, maybe 3% or 4% would be criminal paraphilia, where they are doing things that are against the law, like peeping through windows, and touching people, and so on. There are hundreds of criminal paraphilia. Some are more dangerous than others. And to understand sex crimes, a person has to have a pretty good understanding of criminal paraphilia and how they cluster.

It's like a pedophile-- you don't wake up one day and say, I'm a pedophile. You wake up-- I mean, there are different kinds of paraphilic interests that help build into that. Same with a necrophile. By the time you reach the necrophilic stage, how did you get there? Well, there's all kinds of things, all kinds of paraphilia that build to that.

Paraphilia is sexual arousal through bizarre imageries, fantasies, and behavior. A paraphilia has three components. It has the etiology. In other words, where did it come from? What is the fantasy? And what is the behavior? When you put those three together, then they'll help you understand what a paraphilia is.

And when we talk about paraphilia, we think in the context of men. Because most women do not have paraphilia. Now, when you see a woman acting out with paraphilia, usually there is a man involved in some way, some kind of context. So when men have pedophilia, they might have three or four at one time. Or at least they've experimented with them.

There are what we call preparatory or low level paraphilia, like voyeurism, and peeping Toms, frotteurism, men who touch women with their hands, they touch them or they rub up against them. Or they're exhibitionists, they expose themselves. It's kind of low level, nobody gets hurt. But men are sexually aroused by that-- some men.

As we think about paraphilia, we think about the low level paraphilias, the preparatory ones that we almost would call like courtship disorders, where they attach themselves sexually to their victims. Healthy people, they meet each-- say you meet someone in a store. You wave to them. They wave to you. You go over, you shake hands.

I mean, this is normal interactions. Well, men with paraphilia do the same thing, but they do it in a sexual way. So they attach themselves to their victims sexually. So the exhibitionist, the voyeur, the frotteur, they're all kind of going through this courtship phase.

There are paraphilia which are what we call wobblers. For example, a man who has a foot fetish, that's not a crime to have a foot fetish. He loves women's feet. I find that rather unusual. And yet there are clubs on the internet where people, men, join these clubs and they have foot fetishes.

ERIC HICKEY: A man might marry someone because he had a foot fetish and that's what they do for their entertainment. He washes her feet, and puts toenail polish on, and so on. It's a wobbler in that-- now, if that man would break into someone else's home to steal her shoes, that's a crime. But he has a foot fetish.

We had a case where the woman woke up in the middle of the night and a stranger came into her house and peeled off her blanket and was sucking on her toes. That's a crime. He had a foot fetish, but it moved into the criminal paraphilia because he started then breaking into homes to get access to women's feet.

So there's a number of wobblers out there, paraphilic wobblers. Again, but it's still low level that no one's getting physically harmed. Some of the paraphilia lead to more serious types of paraphilia. OK

As they go down on that spectrum, or that continuum, then they enter into the phase of maybe they become pedophiles, or they become less killers. They become cannibals and so on, and they're sexually aroused by that. And these are very harmful, obviously. People get killed. They get maimed. You've got serial rapists.

And the different types of rapist, but there's a type 4 rapist is heavily into paraphilia. And these are the ones that do all the physical harm in our society. Necrophilia, having sex with dead bodies. Most people don't do that, and yet it's a very interesting area of study, because it's not an uncommon crime for certain kinds of people.

Somnophilia, in where men will do what we call hot burglaries. And they'll break into homes because they know you're there and you're asleep. They won't go into your home unless you're there, but it's still a burglary. And then they'll steal something, but they'll also watch you sleep. And they're sexually aroused by that. That's called somnophilia.

Somnophilia is really a gateway then to men who become serial rapists. And we've seen many cases of that. So the idea is to try to understand which one of these are going to end up over here? Because not all these are going to end up over here. And then so the prediction is kind of an interesting phase we're in. But

we're still at the phase of understanding, which of these paraphilia align themselves with the major paraphilia that will take you down this road.

If you know that, then it's great for investigations, for prosecution, for sentencing, for treatment, containment. It's important. And people really haven't focused on this very much. Thus, that's what I'm doing. That was my research is to create typologies and understanding sex crimes in a way that will be fruitful for us as we go forward in our society.

When we think about stalking, for example, people say well, stalking is a crime in and of itself. Well, that's true. Stalking is a crime that leads to a crime. In that context, all sexual predators are stalkers. Indeed, all sex offenders in some way have stalking techniques. Because they go after victims, and they find different ways to get to the victims.

So what I do is separate sex offenders and sexual predators. A lot of sexual predators have paraphilic interests. Some sex offenders do too. But sex offenders are often people who are not paraphilic. They recognize they've done wrong. They're amenable to treatment. They're not psychopathic.

Whereas you will see much higher levels of lack of attachment with sexual predators. And they don't have the attachments. They are often paraphilic. And they're much more dangerous that way. And they're much more harmful to their victims.

So you have predators who you really can't treat, who are going to re-offend, versus sex offenders who we really can treat, or at least we-- we can't cure them, but we can contain them. We can control them. And so there's a spectrum. But you'll find that stalking is used-- how they groom their victims. How they find them. That's very, very common.

When we think about child predators, take a pedophile who actually attaches himself to his victims, emotionally attaches himself. Pedophiles are not people who are going to rape children. Not going to abduct them and kill them. They love children in their own minds. They love children.

They're still predators. They're still doing harm. But they're not physically going to hit a child. That's not what they do. They manipulate the child. They trick them. And they're very nice to them. And then they can be wonderful schoolteachers, or Boy Scout masters, or priests, or youth ministers.

And then they manipulate the child into sexual activities. And so the grooming is a form of stalking. How they set the child up. And they might have several children in different levels of progression, where they get closer and closer to where they can actually do the acting out. And I think that's important that we

understand that this kind of technique is used by sex offenders and sexual predators to find victims. Especially for children, but also for women.

Now, the internet is used a lot for predators to find victims. And they're very charming people on the internet. And they lure people, and people fall for it. So they go meet these people. And next thing you know, they show up dead. Or they become rape victims. So we always warn people about the internet, and just meeting people on blind dates from the internet.

There is a real difference between true pedophiles and child molesters. True pedophiles are people who have a real emotional attachment to children. They love children. They will admit that. And they don't think they're being inappropriate. They're pretty much in denial, of course, about this. Whereas child molesters don't have that attachment. And so they don't have an emotional-- so they'll have a lot more victims. They exploit children as well. And they are not in denial about it.

In California, and I think pretty much nationwide in the US, 2/3 of all sex crimes are crimes against children. And so when you think about that, you realize there's a real war out there against kids. And so who's going to protect them? Who's going to protect them? Especially now with the internet. We have an obligation-- law enforcement, through families, through communities-- to protect our children. Absolutely.

Victims of sex crimes are quite common. The Los Angeles Times did a survey years ago and found that 20% of women by the time they reach the age of 18 have been sexually assaulted. That's a lot of people. That's millions of people.

And that's true, and I think it probably holds up. And I say sexually assaulted, whether it's incest, or child molestation, rape, all kinds of things that could happen to them sexually, have been exploited. So the problem is that there's a long-term lifetime impact of sexual assault.

Women don't forget this. It's not like, oh, get over it. There's no getting over being raped. There's no getting over being stalked, or being sexually harassed. Men think, oh, you'll get over it. They don't. They can manage it, but you don't forget that kind of experience.

And children are the same way. They're damaged. And it affects who they become as adults when children are exploited. And I think some of the greatest damage we ever do to children and families is sexual exploitation and then minimizing it. When men often do.

Now, most men are not sexual predators. And certainly most men are not just sex offenders in general. Most men respect women and respect children and would never do that. But the ones who do have a lot of victims. And they're the

ones that we read about in the newspapers. And we see their pictures. And we register sex offenders and so on.

But keep in mind that for-- like in California, California probably has 125,000 registered sex offenders. And for everyone that's registered, there should be maybe two more should be registered. And there's another 50,000 that have just disappeared, that didn't re-register when they're supposed to. We have sex offenders everywhere.

Forensic Insights: Criminal Paraphilia Additional Content Attribution

MUSIC: MOJO-066_3RFML1065_11-Focused_Intensity_Full "Biographies." Used by permission, RoyaltyFreeMusicLibrary.com

FOOTAGE: GettyLicense_117192255 (Woman’s feet on scale) [Henry Arden]/[Cultura]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_476972415 (Investigation) [aijohn784]/[iStock / Getty Images Plus]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_87332375 (Prosecution) [Image Source]/[Photodisc]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_82150006 (Treatment) [Jose Luis Pelaez Inc]/[Blend Images]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_118657765 (Containment) [Dan Bannister]/[Stock / Getty Images Plus]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_157198998 (Man Detached from Friends) [Kris Hanke]/[E+]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_498191838 (Ext. Crime Scene) [Luka Lajst]/[iStock / Getty Images Plus]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_82796636 (Kids running) [Jose Luis Pelaez Inc]/[Blend Images]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_469868421 (Woman on Computer) [alvarez]/[Vetta]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_94538245 (Woman in pain) [Vanessa Galeote]/[Hemera / Getty Images Plus]/Getty Images

GettyLicense_179186836 (Woman in pain) [prudkov]/[iStock / Getty Images Plus]/Getty Images

GettyLicense168631725_7 [Courtney Keating]/[E+]/Getty Images

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