The effect of socio-demographic and professional characteristics on the attitudes of forensic workers towards crime and criminals within the scope of sexual crimes

Due to the fact that sexual crimes are one of the most punitive and negative types of crimes, the legislation on sexual offenders can be affected by public pressure, the prevalence of sexual offenders is assumed to be higher than reported, it can include many crimes such as physical and verbal violence and the traumas it causes can continue intergenerationally, researchers focus on the effective risk factors, profiling and classification of sexual crimes, as well as the attitudes of the public and various samples towards sexual offenders in their studies. In this context, the main purpose of this research is to determine how various socio-demographic variables and professional characteristics play a role on the attitudes of judges, prosecutors, police officers and specialists working in the Ministry of Justice (psychologists, pedagogues, social workers), who are in contact with sexual offenders by virtue of their profession, towards offenders convicted of sexual offenses and towards the treatment of these offenders, and to understand how the attitudes of these professionals differ. A total of 252 people, 108 (43.1%) women and 144 men (56.9%), aged between 23 and 63 years, participated in the thesis study. Of the participants, 100 (39.5%) were police officers, 121 (48.2%) were experts working in the Ministry of Justice and 31 (12.3%) were judges and prosecutors. Personal Information Form, Attitude Scale Towards Crime and Criminals, Political Orientation Scale and Attitudes Toward the Treatment of Sex Offenders Scale were used as data collection tools. According to the statistical results, the attitudes of police officers towards sexual offenders and their treatment were found to be more negative than the attitudes of psychologists, pedagogues and social workers employed in the Ministry of Justice, while no significant difference was found between the attitudes of judges and prosecutors and the attitudes of police officers and social workers. The attitudes towards sexual offenders and treatment of sexual offenders were found to be more negative among professionals who stated their religious beliefs more than those who did not, among professionals with a conservative political orientation than those with a liberal political orientation, among professionals who had children than those who did not have children, among professionals who were more experienced than those who were less experienced. In addition, age and gender variables were found to play a significant role only on attitudes towards treatment of sexual offenders; older professionals had more negative attitudes towards the treatment of sexual offenders compared to younger professionals and male professionals had more negative attitudes towards the treatment of sexual offenders compared to female professionals. In terms of the frequency of working with sexual offenders and the training received, it was found that the attitudes towards sexual offenders and the treatment of sexual offenders were more positive among professionals who worked more frequently with victims and perpetrators of sexual offenses compared to professionals who worked less frequently; similarly, the attitudes towards sexual offenders were more positive among professionals who received undergraduate education on offenders compared to professionals who received in-service education. Finally, it was found that the status of being a victim of crime in the past, the status of relatives being victims of crime, the types of crimes their relatives were victimized, the types of crimes committed by their relatives and the types of crimes committed by their relatives did not have a significant effect on attitudes towards sexual offenders and the treatment of sexual offenders.