Perpetrators of Trauma

Who Perpetrates Trauma against Others?

Individuals who perpetrate trauma against others defy simple categorization. There is no single factor that motivates persons to harm others. Perpetrators vary in social background, trauma history, mental disorders, ability to recognize the damage they cause (i.e., denial), and many other factors. Research on perpetrators of violence and sexual violence has identified several factors that increase the risk that a person with a history of perpetration against others will commit a violent or sexual offense in the future. Risk factors in this research typically fall into two categories: static risk factors and dynamic risk factors. Static risk factors are those that are fixed and not easily changeable, whereas dynamic risk factors are those that are amenable to intervention and thus can decrease or increase a given person's risk of offense.

An important caveat is that the presence of any of these factors for a given individual does not mean that she or he will perpetrate trauma against others. However, the more of these factors that an individual with a known history of violent or sexual perpetration has, the more likely that person will engage in perpetration in the future.

Risk Factors

Common static risk factors include young age at their first act of perpetration, history of violence or sexual abuse or assault against others, employment instability, relationship instability, alcohol or drug abuse, mental disorder, psychopathy, early maladjustment at home or school, personality disorder, and prior release or detention failure (e.g., escape from a mental institution, violating parole). For sexual offending, sexual deviance (paraphilia) is a strong static predictor. Although many of these factors have been conceptualized as static risk factors by some authors, some of these factors are changeable.

Dynamic risk factors include a variety of factors related to perpetration of trauma against others. The following is not an exhaustive list, and the presence of these factors does not mean that a person will be violent. Examples of these factors include significant social influences (negative influences are those that increase risk, such as friends who condone violent behavior, whereas positive influences are those that decrease risk), capacity for relationship stability, attitudes toward women, social rejection or loneliness, negative emotion or hostility, emotional identification with children (for child molesters), lack of concern for others, impulsive acts, problem-solving deficits, preoccupation with sex (sex offenders), using sex as coping (sex offenders), active substance abuse, negative mood, and anger.

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