Denial of the facts can take different forms. First, offenders may deny that they committed the offence at all, claiming that they never had sexual relations with the victim. They may rationalize the fact that they have been convicted in a court of law by saying that they were framed, that the victims or the police were out to get them.

Second, they may claim that although they did have sexual relations with the victims, it was not an offence because they consented or did not resist, or because the victims somehow received some emotional benefit from the sexual experience or because the offenders were tricked into believing that the victims were older.

Finally, offenders will admit to the act they are alleged to have committed but deny that the interaction was sexual in nature. For example, they may claim that they were touching the victims for some legitimate reason (e.g., applying skin medication to a child) or that the assault was non-sexual.

Minimization can take three basic forms. Offenders will minimize the harm done to their victims, the extent of their previous offensive behaviour and the extent of their responsibility for the offences.

In minimizing victim harm, offenders will argue that the victim will recover and not suffer any long-term effects, that the victim had so many previous partners that the offence was of no consequence or that the benefits the victim received from the experience outweigh the harm.

In minimizing the extent of their previous offensive behaviour, offenders may underestimate the numbers of their past victims, the frequency of their past offences, the degree of force they have used and the intrusiveness of the offensive behaviour they have committed.

Offenders minimize their own responsibility for their offences in three ways: attributing blame to the victim, making external attributions and making irresponsible internal attributions. Offenders may absolve themselves of any blame by attributing their behaviour to external or situational factors, such as alcohol intoxication, stressful circumstances, social pressure or provocation. Offenders will absolve themselves of blame by pointing to non-sexual personal problems which led to the offence, such as their past victimization, their deprived childhood, their hormones or sex drive. In this category, some offenders will make religious references involving the devil or Satan.

Perhaps the most important way in which offenders absolve themselves is by blaming the victim. Offenders will claim that the victim was sexually provocative or that the victims made them angry and therefore deserved their fate.

Based on the above typology of denial and minimization, we have developed the Denial and Minimization Checklist for use in the Warkworth Sexual Behaviour Clinic. The checklist, designed for use with both child molesters and rapists, is completed by group therapists after each disclosure of offences made by men in the therapy program. On the checklist, the therapist indicates whether or not the offender denies the offence. If so, the therapist indicates the appropriate subcategory of denial. If the offender accepts that he has committed a sexual offence but minimizes it, the therapist indicates how the offender does this by checking the appropriate subcategories.

According to our use of the checklist, there is only one kind of denial checked for each man, but there can be several forms of minimization for each offender.

Table 1 presents the frequency of each type of denial and minimization in a group of child molesters and rapists. Between 50% and 60% of the offenders in these groups deny that they are sexual offenders. The vast majority of the remainder minimize their offences in some way. Very few describe their offences in a way that accepts responsibility for the offence and its consequences.