Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Access Criminology and Criminal Justice journals now

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hennessy, M.
Right arrow Articles by Vess, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hennessy, M.
Right arrow Articles by Vess, J.
Right arrowPubmed/NCBI databases
Medline Plus Health Information
*Child Sexual Abuse
*Rape
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

An Evaluation of the Empat as a Measure of Victim Empathy With Civilly Committed Sexual Offenders

Matt Hennessy

California Department of Mental Health, Atascadero State Hospital, California

Joni S. Walter

California Department of Mental Health, Atascadero State Hospital, California

James Vess

California Department of Mental Health, Atascadero State Hospital, California

Enhancement of victim empathy is a common component in the treatment of sexual offenders. However, consensus about the definition of empathy and the best instrument to measure empathy in sexual offenders is lacking. This paper evaluates the Empat as a measure of empathy with patients civilly committed under California's Sexually Violent Predator law Rapists and child molesters in the current sample scored significantly higher in victim empathy than any of the original sex offender groups, with rapists scoring higher than the control group cited by M. McGrath, S. Cann, and R. Konopasky (1998). Clinicians have found the Empat to be too face valid and easily manipulated by patients within this population. The construct of empathy as applied to sex offenders is reviewed and the properties of a more adequate measure of this construct are suggested.

Key Words: victim empathy • sexual offenders • assessment • civil commitment • inpatient.

Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, Vol. 14, No. 3, 241-251 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/107906320201400304
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?