Sex Offending and the Transition From Adolescence to Adulthood: A Cross-Lagged Analysis of General Offending and Sexual Assault in College Males.

The purpose of this study was to determine the direction of the general offending-sexual assault relationship in young males transitioning from late adolescence to early adulthood. It was predicted that the path leading from general offending to sexual assault would be significant and the path leading from sexual assault to general offending would be non-significant. This hypothesis was tested in a convenience sample of 851 male college students using three waves of data. Four cross-lagged correlations were compared after controlling for race, relationship status, blame attributions, and precursors for each predicted variable. Consistent with the hypothesis, both general offending leading to sexual assault pathways were statistically significant and both sexual assault leading to general offending pathways were not non-significant. Supplemental analyses revealed that more than half the specific non-sexual offenses contributing to the general offending score were capable of predicting general offending, indicating that the non-significant sexual assault pathways were not simply a function of the more limited size or scope of the sexual assault measure. The fact that general offending predicted sexual assault but not vice versa suggests that adult-onset sexual assault may be an extension of prior non-sexual offending.