Samenvatting

People who have possessed child abuse material (CSAM) constitute a specific group of sex offenders, who can be distinguished from both those who have committed child abuse and the ‘mixed’ group, who are known to have committed both crimes. This specific group is in itself a heterogeneous group. Much research on this group relates to people who have already come into contact with the justice system and little is known about people who come forward voluntarily. The current study does include the latter group and investigates possible differences in sexual problems between those who were arrested for looking at CSAM (the judicial group) and those who sought help themselves without judicial intervention (the self-reporting group). Pedophilic or hebephilic interests, other paraphilic interests, sexual preoccupation and sexual coping were compared between the two groups by means of the VSP and HBI019 self-report questionnaires. The results showed that the self-reporting group experienced more problems on all measured dimensions than the judicial group. The results are relevant to the treatment of these groups.