Psychosis and sex offending

Studies on sex offenders have focused mainly on paraphilias, personality disorders, psychopathy and substance abuse but there has been little research into the links between psychosis and sex offending. A Danish study of 358,180 people (everyone born between 1944 and 1947) found that 2.2% of them had been hospitalized with psychosis. These men committed 8.4% of the physically aggressive sexual offences and 9% of the non-physically aggressive sexual offences committed by the men in the study. People with psychosis but not a personality disorder or a drug problem were no more likely to commit a violent sexual offence than other people but were three times more likely to commit a non-violent sexual offence. People who had psychosis and a personality disorder or a drug problem were six times more likely to commit a violent sex offence and three or five times more likely to commit a non-violent sex offence.

Alden, Amanda ... [et al] - Psychotic disorders and sex offending in a Danish birth cohort Archives of General Psychiatry November 2007, 64(11), 1251-1258