Debate Guide: All child molesters are pedophiles

Sexual abusers of children, abuse because of a sexual preference for their targets.
Child sex abuse and pedophilia are partners in crime. The latter is the cause of almost all cases of the former

While estimates vary, research tends to suggest that only 20% of CSOs meet the regular criteria for pedophilia. Research: Pedophiles in the criminal population gives an excellent summary of the findings. Many of these men, particularly among the higher estimates of 25-50% likely to be nonpreferentials, or misdiagnosed hebephiles. The vast majority of offenders are non-pedophiles who have been driven to offend by their personal situations. Such "situational" offending is particularly common in crimes of incest involving younger children. Possible causes include general proximity or convenience, the removal/ageing/disablement of adult partners and general lack of confidence approaching socially appropriate adults.

One could even argue that child sex offending is lower among pedophiles. While it does involve some chicanery, it stands as a good example of what you can do with statistics:

• Project pedophilia in the general population at 10% from the 30% equal or greater arousal to prepubescent children in the Kent State Study and various others.
• Project pedophilia among child sex offenders at 5% from Lautmann's study in our reading list.

Thus, one could argue that men in the general population have a 2x higher risk of offending against a child, when compared to true pedophiles.

Of course, research would seem to indicate the real numbers are likely to be closer to 2-3% true pedophiles in the male general population and at most 10% pedophiles in the (predominantly male) child sex offender population. This would infer a 4x higher risk of offending among true pedophiles, although it should be cautioned that this is from a very low baseline, and would confirm the existence of large numbers of non-offending pedophiles in the population. When we expand the definition to all pedohebephilic MAPs, we find that the "risk" only roughly doubles, meaning that a preferential attraction to younger minors is a very weak predictor of criminal inclination, weaker than some "racial" characteristics, for example.

See also

• Research: Pedophiles in the criminal population
• Research: How many pedophiles offend?