Sexual Offending: The Intrepid Professional-Adventurer and The Dejected Revenger-Victim

The Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE) is a framework developed within Investigative Psychology, which combines the emotions and narrative roles experienced by the offender during the commission of their offence, to understand their personal experience of crime (Ioannou, 2001). Previous research proposes four distinct themes within CNE; The Elated Hero, The Calm Professional, The Distressed Revenger and The Depressed Victim (Ioannou, Canter and Youngs, 2017), however little attention has yet been paid to the potential differences in themes across various offence types. The current study explored the CNE model within a sample of sexual offenders. Results found evidence of two CNE themes; The Intrepid Professional-Adventurer and The Dejected Revenger-Victim, this has implications stretching further than theorical, and are particularly poignant for therapists and treatment managers, who may be providing intervention to groups of sexual offenders at any one time.