Benoit Leclerc

• PhD Criminology
• Griffith University

Purpose. Based on the crime script approach, the main objective of this study was to identify steps involved in firearms trafficking in the Province of Quebec, Canada. Our analysis focused on actions performed by actors, facilitating conditions, obstacles and errors for each step of the firearms trafficking process. Method. A deductive thematic an...

The rise of the internet or, more specifically, of services offered and conducted online has led to a dramatic rise in frauds and scams. This study is a systematic review of the literature on the use of crime script analysis in the field of fraud facilitated by the internet to identify stages of the crime commission process across different forms o...

This study uses script analysis in criminology to identify steps and actions performed by police officers during their encounters with individuals in crisis to obtain their cooperation peacefully. Data were collected from 130 police reports. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were respectively used to identify the main steps of police int...

This study used the interpersonal circumplex (IPC) – a probabilistic model of human behavior during social interactions – to conceptualize victim behavior during physically assaultive crime (domestic violence, physical assault, and sexual assault). Using data from the Australian Database of Victimisation Experiences, 101 victim behaviors were ident...

Résumé exécutif Peu études ont été menées sur les modes d’acquisition des armes à feu par les délinquants au Québec. Le peu d’études empêchent de bâtir des politiques publiques ou des stratégies de prévention basées sur des données probantes et spécifiques à la situation québécoise. Le présent projet a pour objectif général de décrire et comprendr...

Objectives: The current study aims to generate insights from sexual offenders on noncompleted sexual offences, that is, on offences that were stopped or discouraged. Methods: Using a sample of sexual offenders who initiated a sexual offence but were stopped or discouraged in action, which we refer to as noncompleted offences, we first examine which...

The development of online technologies in recent decades has led to the proliferation of the distribution, consumption, and sale of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. This trend has arguably also contributed to the sexual abuse of children offline. In this context, many organizations, including financial institutions and police agencies, ha...

The development of online technologies in recent decades has facilitated the distribution and consumption of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) over the internet, which also led to the emergence of CSAM on the darknet-the segment of the internet hidden from the general public. Using data obtained from interviews with online investigators, this stud...

The development of online technologies in recent decades has facilitated the distribution and consumption of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) over the internet, which also led to the emergence of CSAM on the darknet—the segment of the internet hidden from the general public. Using data obtained from interviews with online investigators, this stud...

This review synthesises empirical studies from the past decade investigating child sexual abuse material (CSAM) production and distribution to gain insight into crime commission processes involved in these crimes. The findings highlight overlaps in risk factors for child sexual abuse and CSAM production and distribution, and possible unique risk fa...

The study aims to generate insights from sexual offenders on the influence of internal states and how they perceive risks of apprehension and difficulties in the context of noncompleted sexual offenses, that is when offenders initiated the offense but were stopped or discouraged either before or during sexual contact. Adult males incarcerated for s...

The current study explores the way guardianship is perceived by offenders and the extent to which it affects the likelihood of disruption in sexual offences against adult females. Specifically, we compare the micro-situational contexts in which sexual offences against adult females are disrupted to those in which these offences are completed. Data...

Technology has dramatically simplified the process of engaging in a variety of crimes, particularly the distribution of child exploitation materials, or CEM. The ability to share photos and video across the globe through high speed Internet connections and mobile devices has made it easy to access CEM. At the same time, technology has complicated t...

This study examined the perceived effectiveness of situational crime prevention (SCP) in sexual assault as rated by 140 offenders convicted for sex offenses against women in Australia. Participants were presented with three scenarios and asked to rate the perceived effectiveness of SCP techniques relating to guardianship, victim self-protective beh...

L’information provenant des criminels est une des meilleures sources afin de comprendre la commission des crimes ainsi que leur prévention. Utilisant des données auto-reportées obtenus auprès de délinquants sexuels incarcérés, cette étude présente l’approche innovatrice de scripts pour analyser et comparer à chaque étape du processus de commission...

The internet has launched the world into an era into which enormous amounts of data are generated every day through technologies with both positive and negative consequences. This often refers to big data. This book explores big data in organisations operating in the criminology and criminal justice fields. Big data entails a major disruption in...

This study identifies the first crime script for unsolved stranger sexual offenses against women. The purpose is to better understand the crime-commission process of solved and unsolved stranger sexual offenses and identify potential points of intervention for prevention purposes. Crime script analysis was performed on 542 solved ( n = 265) and uns...

Drawing from perspectives emphasizing environmental crime event components, this study identifies the predictors and contexts of unsolved and solved sexual offenses against women by strangers. Police data were obtained from 542 cases in Queensland. Hierarchical logistical regression was adopted to analyze variables relating to situational, contextu...

This study examined the role of the reaction of the victim, the nature of the physical setting, and the proximity of third parties in deterring offenders from completing an act of child sexual abuse (CSA). A self-report study was conducted with 238 adult males serving a custodial sentence for CSA, of whom 82 identified an occasion in which they had...

This article applies script analysis to police interventions among emotionally disturbed people (EDP) in order to identify factors associated with the use of force. Data were extracted from 130 police reports. The script is divided into five steps: (1) answering the call and dispatching police officers; (2) arriving on the scene; (3) assessing the...

The collective knowledge of offenders is one of the richest ways to advance understandings of crime commission and effective crime prevention. Drawing on self-report data from 53 incarcerated offenders in three Australian states and territories, the current article presents an innovative method which, through a crime script framework, allows for a...

Objectives The current study focused on the role of affective states in adult sexual offending. We look at the prevalence of a range of affective states throughout sexual crime events. We break down the crime event into three stages—immediately before, during, and after the offense. We examine transitions of affective states—stage by stage—but also...

The empirical evidence indicating that sexual offenders against children manipulate their victims to participate in sexual activities dominates the literature on sex offenders and their modus operandi. However, recent evidence suggests that a high proportion of these offenders do not try to persuade their victims for sexual contact in the first pla...

A number of empirical studies in criminology have been conducted to highlight the benefits of offender scripting for situational prevention purposes. However, surprisingly, scripts have never been adopted to examine the decision-making and behavioural processes of agents directly involved in crime control and crime prevention. In this paper, we com...

Until recently, crime script analysis was virtually unknown to criminologists working outside the circle of environmental criminologists and situational prevention theorists. Over the years, crime scripts became more popular as researchers in crime prevention more broadly have started to look for more effective ways of addressing crime problems and...

Although sexual offenses by acquaintances account for the majority of sexual offenses against women, there is currently little evidence of systematic knowledge regarding the crime-commission process involved. To our knowledge, no empirical crime script has been identified for this particular offense. The purpose of this study is to better understan...

Over the years, a number of innovative approaches to learn about crime patterns for guiding and supporting crime prevention initiatives have been developed. In this collection we cover seven approaches: (1) offender-based research; (2) crime script analysis; (3) crime mapping and spatial analysis; (4) social network analysis; (5) agent-based modell...

This volume brings together a series of original contributions made by international experts dedicated to guiding efforts in preventing crime. The collection is divided into seven sections that cover cutting edge approaches to crime prevention: The offenders� perspective on crime prevention crime script analysis crime mapping and spatial analysis s...

Sexual violence against women is a serious problem worldwide. In this study, we organize and critically review previous empirical studies on sexual offenses against women through the lens of environmental criminology. For this purpose, we use the questions asked by environmental criminologists/crime analysts in the study of crime events; that is th...

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between child abuse, depression, and patterns of Intimate Partner Violence victimization among female university students in Australia and New Zealand. Data were based on the Australia/New Zealand portion of the International Dating Violence Study (2001–2005) (n=293). Using Latent Class Analysis...

We investigated the role of situational precipitators in sexual offenses in relation to the use of physical force by offenders, penetration of the victim, and physical injuries to the victim. We used self-report data obtained from a Canadian sample of 553 incarcerated adult male sexual offenders. All data used in this study were gathered through a...

How to prevent child sexual abuse in youth-oriented organisations is a concern in our society for a number of reasons. One of these is that evidence indicates that sexual offenders, once they are recruited by a youth-oriented organisation, have the opportunity to abuse children for years before being detected and/or arrested. This phenomenon is als...

Policy development to tackle the issue and promote prevention of sexual abuse seems to be driven by the assumption that sexual offenders are characterized by some pathology, which prevents them from controlling their sexual urges and renders them more likely to reoffend if they live close to places where children congregate. The chapter examines wh...

This study examines how super controllers, actors responsible for creating incentives for controllers (handlers, place managers and guardians), prevent maritime piracy. Using a segmented regression model, we estimate the impact of three major anti-pirate initiatives (increased place management, increased handling and increased guardianship) using n...

Currently, minimal research has been conducted worldwide on the phenomenon of child sexual abuse in youth-oriented institutions, despite increasing number of accounts that are coming to the attention of authorities and the wider public on these sex crimes. Addressing the lack of research on these offenders and how they offend is critical in develop...

There is significant interest in the issue of child sexual abuse committed in institutional settings. This study uses information collected from a sample of 23 convicted Canadian sex offenders to examine key elements of the offending. Issues explored include the nature of the offender’s involvement with institutions, their own prior sexual victimis...

The under-reporting of child sexual abuse by victims is a serious problem that may prolong the suffering of victims and leave perpetrators free to continue offending. Yet empirical evidence indicates that victim disclosure rates are low. In this study, we perform regression analysis with a sample of 369 adult child sexual offenders to examine poten...

Most criminal justice responses to address sexual violence and abuse against children are aimed at identifying and incarcerating offenders or at best, trying to prevent them from reoffending. This policy situation, primarily characterized by tertiary intervention strategies, is exacerbated by a lack of evidence-based knowledge about the circumstanc...

Adolescent abuse of younger children has long been recognized, but empirical research on the circumstances of this phenomenon is rare. This article examines how adolescent offenders find and gain access to victims, work out time alone with them, and set up or exploit settings for sexual contact. Prior researchers learned that adult sex offenders us...

The aim of the current study was to address a largely overlooked aspect of the lives of sexual offenders, that is, their non-criminal sexual lifestyles. Traditionally, clinical research on these men has had a strong focus on their development of deviant sexuality and its causes and relationship with sexual offending. Beyond this specific developmen...

This chapter applies script analysis to crime controllers. It is argued that examining scripts from the perspective of crime controllers (i.e., handler, capable guardian and place manager) could proved beneficial for preventing complex forms of crime such as organized crimes. Indeed the sequence of actions of handlers, capable guardians and place m...

The main aim of this study was to examine the effect of a potential guardian on the severity of child sexual abuse. Using data obtained on crime events from adult child sexual offenders incarcerated in Queensland (Australia), mixed-effects logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the effect of potential guardianship on the severity of...

Maritime piracy is now recognised as a critical security problem that attracts news coverage worldwide. The International Maritime Organisation recommends a series of ship protection measures to be used by vessels travelling at sea to prevent and disrupt pirate attacks. However, limited research exists on the effectiveness of these situational meas...

Weapon use in the commission of crimes and its associated outcomes has received much attention in criminology. However, the empirical literature on the relationship between weapon use and specific sexual abuse outcomes in sexual offenses against women is less abundant and characterized by substantial limitations. Drawing on the rational choice appr...

Based on a rational choice approach, this study compares the decision making involved in the crime commission process of rapists (n = 30), child molesters (n = 17), and victim-crossover sex offenders (n = 22). Using a mixed-methods framework and following Clarke and Cornish’s decision-making model, the authors organized offenders’ narratives collec...

Scholars have studied developmental factors relevant to adult sex offenders. These factors, however, have not been of interest so far in the area of adolescent sexual offenders. Given the paucity of research in this area, this study examines developmental factors that may be relevant in understanding why some offenders become persistent throughout...

The aim of the study was to identify the factors associated with age of onset of sexual aggression, and variety and desistance of criminal activity, among adolescent sexual aggressors. The sample consisted of 351 adolescents (M age = 15.8 years, SD = 1.8) who were assessed in an outpatient psychiatric clinic between 1992 and 2002. Recidivism data w...

This study examines the efficacy, as experienced by offenders with their victim, of self-protection strategies used in child sexual abuse cases. It also investigates whether the efficacy of self-protection varies according to victim characteristics. The sample consists of 94 adult offenders who sexually abused a single child and who agreed to provi...

The current study describes and examines the crime-commission process followed in child sex offending. There are two major aims in this study. The first aim is to propose a script model in child sex offending. The second aim is to show the relevance of completing crime scripts to identify situational crime prevention measures. One of the weaknesses...

Despite the growing problem of clandestine drug laboratories, there is currently little evidence of systematic knowledge regarding the crime-commission process involved in this criminal enterprise. In addition, as mentioned by Levi and Maguire, strategic measures utilized in law enforcement interventions that extend beyond immediate operational goa...

In the present study, geographic mobility exhibited by child sex offenders was examined. Geographic mobility was defined as the use of multiple locations to obtain repetitive sexual contact with the same victim. The sample consisted of 77 adult offenders convicted for having committed a sexual offence against a child, and who agreed to provide conf...

The use of self-protection strategies and related situation in rape has been studied by several scholars. The circumstances in which children are more likely to resist sexual victimization have, however, not been studied. This study examines the association between offence-related factors-specifically, the preoffence situation, the modus operandi s...

Criminological research has shown the relevance of examining offender–victim interaction and related factors to understand crime event outcomes. In sexual offenses against children, an obvious lack of knowledge exists regarding this issue. From a criminological perspective, we seek to improve our understanding of the offender–victim interaction in...

The purpose of this article is to review the theoretical, empirical, and practical implications related to the modus operandi of sexual offenders against children. First, the rational choice perspective in criminology is presented. Second, descriptive studies aimed specifically at providing information on modus operandi of sexual offenders against...

The relationship between situational factors and the modus operandi of 103 adolescents involved in sexual offenses against children (12 years old or younger) is analyzed. Situational factors taken into account in this study are the location of the crime, the offender-victim relationship, and the presence of deviant sexual fantasies involving the vi...

Yes Yes

The study investigated the behavioral antecedents of deviance in sexual aggressors and how they relate to sexual offending. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 553 convicted sexual aggressors to gather data on developmental history. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the behavioral antecedents. Results indicated the pres...

Although the study of both offense processes and implicit theories provides in-depth knowledge about the decision-making of sex offenders, these studies focus solely on the internal psychological processes of the offender leading to the commission of a sexual assault. These studies neglect to look specifically at the offender's decision-making duri...

This study identified hunting process scripts in a sample of 361 serial sex crimes committed by 72 serial sex offenders, using multiple correspondence analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis. Three hunting process scripts that take into account both behavioral and geographic aspects of crime were identified. These three scripts included differen...

In this paper, the modus operandi of 103 adolescents involved in sexual offenses against children (12 year old or less) is analyzed. Modus operandi strategies were measured by the participants' responses to the Modus Operandi Questionnaire. Findings indicate that the degree of intrusiveness of the sexual behaviors committed by the adolescents is co...

The findings suggest prevention tactics that recognize the importance of structuring children's interaction with adults outside the family, rather than fostering informal or private contacts. The study found that offenders who used persuasion to involve their child victims in sexual activity were more likely to have a prior history of such offendin...

The aim of this study was to provide the first empirical description of the modus operandi of sexual offenders working or doing voluntary work with children and adolescents across all aspects of offender-victim interactions. The modus operandi was studied along the offence continuum, which included strategies used for gaining the victim's trust, ge...

The aim of this study was to provide a description of the modus operandi of sexual offenders working or doing voluntary work with children and adolescents. Two stages of modus operandi were studied, that is, gaining the victim's trust and getting the victim to participate in sexual activity. Twenty-three offenders agreed to participate in this stud...

"Thèse présentée à la Faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de Philosophiae Doctor (Ph.D.) en criminologie" Thèse (Ph. D.)--Université de Montréal, 2006.

In this study, the modus operandi of 103 adolescents involved in sexual offenses against children is analyzed. Modus operandi strategies were measured by the participants' responses to the Modus Operandi Questionnaire. Findings indicate that the degree of intrusiveness of the sexual behaviors committed by the adolescents is contingent on the partic...

In this study, the relationship between situational/developmental factors and the use of violence during sexual offenses is investigated. A sample of 293 adolescent sex offenders in treatment was used for that purpose. Official sources of information were used to collect data (i.e., police records, victim statements, psychological assessments, etc)...

This chapter presents phallometric testing which is a tool to assess sexual deviance with sexual offenders. Literature in this particular field of sexual offending is also updated to illustrate the potential of this instrument to assess sexual offenders but also issues related to its reliability (internal consistency and test-retest reliability) an...