The relevance of self-concepts discriminating in long-term incarcerated sex offenders

Abstract Lack of self-esteem and assertiveness have been thought to play an important role in the etiology and maintenance of sex offending behavior and to be significantly related to the number of previous convictions or violence of the assault. We, therefore, analysed self-concepts of 53 long-term incarcerated sex offenders to research the correlation between concepts of self-esteem, assertiveness, feelings towards others and relationships and the degree of violence of the last offense and risk of reoffense. We also investigated the relationship of previous convictions and duration of incarceration with the offenders’ self-concepts and the influence of psychotherapeutic intervention on the offenders’ self-concepts.