This study compared adolescent sex offenders with non-sex offenders and compared sex offenders without any nonsexual offenses in their histories and those with nonsexual offenses in their histories. The nonsexual offenses were seen as a reliable and objective indicator of antisociality. Different groups of court-referred juveniles were compared on their past and current behavioral adjustment, their antisocial attitudes and beliefs, and their risk for future delinquency. The study consisted of 114 male adolescent offenders consecutively referred to a Family Court Clinic in Toronto, Canada for mental health assessment between 1994 and 1997. Results indicated that sex offenders were similar to non-sex offenders in their early childhood conduct problems, current behavioral adjustment, and pro-criminal attitudes and beliefs. However, they had a lower expected risk for future delinquency. There were also consistent differences between adolescent sex offenders without a history of nonsexual offenses and those with a history. Sex-only offenders had fewer current behavior problems, more prosocial attitudes and beliefs, and a lower expected risk for future delinquency than did sex-plus offenders. In addition, the sex-only offender group had fewer-childhood conduct problems than the sex-plus group that became evident by primary school. Minimal significance was given to comparisons between sex-only and sex-plus offenders on sexual offense characteristics. Regardless, sex-plus offenders had victimized significantly more unrelated victims than sex-only offenders which was consistent with previous research. References