Characteristics of adolescent sexual offenders and their victims: A study of judicial processes

Sexual violence practiced by adolescents is poorly studied in Brazil. It is essential to know these subjects to understand the phenomenon and to develop preventive actions. This article presents characteristics of adolescent sexual offenders, as well as their victims and the context of the offense. To this, 254 lawsuits were analyzed, between 2013 and 2016, in Federal District, involving 285 offenders and 291 victims. From the information collected, a descriptive table was elaborated, whose analysis was carried out in a contextualized manner and with reference to other important studies in the area. The results pointed to the diversity of adolescent sexual offenders, but information about families were scarce in the lawsuits. Most of them committed the offense with 16/17 years old (41.4%) and were in Middle School equivalent — 6th to 8th grade (29.5%). A significant number of adolescents had previous involvement with the courts (24.2%). The abuses were primarily extrafamilial (48.5%), with female victims (67.7%), between 10 and 14 years old (40.5%) and known to the offender (92.2%). The complexity of the cases is highlighted, making standardized interventions impossible, as well as the importance of knowing the social context of adolescents and their family relationships to more assertive interventions.