Only 42 percent of the boys were living with both parents at the time of the assessment. There was a high incidence of serious psychiatric disturbances among the parents. Nearly 80 percent of the offenders had chronic learning problems and over 60 percent were socially isolated. Finally, several of the subjects had committed nonsexual offenses. The offenders had committed a combination of hands-off and hands-on sexual offenses; 14 of the participants had committed multiple offenses. While most of the boys admitted to their offenses, only 46 percent expressed remorse. This study examined several factors that may contribute to hands-off offending, including victim provocation, sexual abuse, sexual deviance, homosexual impulses, sexual deviance in the family, anti-social traits, and psychopathology. A minority of male adolescent sexual offenders could be diagnosed as sexual deviants, although they did not meet the DSM-III-R criteria for pedophilia. Antisocial traits, homosexual conflicts, and sexual deviance were found to be most strongly associated with these subjects' offenses. 2 tables and 13 references