An Investigation Into the Effect of Respondent Gender, Victim Age, and Perpetrator Treatment on Public Attitudes Towards Sex Offenders, Sex Offender Treatment, and Sex Offender Rehabilitation

2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 511-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rogers ◽  
Lindsay Hirst ◽  
Michelle Davies
Sexual Abuse ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 659-675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Kerr ◽  
Ruth J. Tully ◽  
Birgit Völlm

The general public has been shown to hold negative attitudes toward sexual offenders, sex offender treatment, and the rehabilitation of sexual offenders. It appears pertinent to the success of sex offender management strategies that utilise volunteers that selected volunteers do not share these attitudes. Here, volunteers for Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA), a community-based initiative supporting the reintegration of sex offenders, completed three validated psychometric measures assessing attitudes toward sex offenders in general and toward their treatment and rehabilitation. Responses were compared with a U.K. general public sample. The results showed that volunteers held more positive attitudes toward sex offenders, sex offender treatment, and sex offender rehabilitation than the U.K. general public sample. The significance of these findings is discussed alongside directions for future research.


Sexual Abuse ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Watson ◽  
Michael Daffern ◽  
Stuart Thomas

Therapist and treatment process variables affect the effectiveness of offender rehabilitation programs. This study examined the influence of therapists’ and offenders’ interpersonal styles (IPSs) and interpersonal complementarity on therapeutic alliance (TA). Seventy-five sex offenders and their therapists evaluated each other’s IPSs and the TA after 3 weeks of treatment. Offenders evaluated the TA more positively than therapists. Regarding the impact of IPS, therapist affiliation was positively correlated and therapist control was negatively correlated with offenders’ ratings of the TA; in other words, offenders evaluated the TA more strongly when therapists were perceived as affiliative, and weaker when therapists were viewed as controlling. Offender affiliation was positively correlated with therapists’ ratings of TA; in other words, therapists evaluated the TA more strongly when offenders were viewed as more affiliative; perceptions of offender control were unrelated to offenders’ ratings of TA. Complementarity in IPS between offenders and therapists did not affect TA.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dany Lacombe

How does the Parole Board decide a sex offender is rehabilitated and can be released into the community? This case study of a parole hearing reveals the significance the Parole Board gives to a sex offender’s management of his arousal as a clear sign of his rehabilitation. To explain the Board’s preoccupation with a sex offender’s sexual fantasies and arousal, I draw on a prison ethnography of a sex offender treatment program. Rehabilitation as risk management relies on the development of a crime cycle and relapse prevention plan designed to grasp the connection between fantasies, arousal and offending. I argue the parole hearing and treatment program exist in a symbiotic relationship that fabricates the sex offender into a species larger than life, one at risk of offending all the time. Key words: rehabilitation, sex offenders, parole, sexual fantasies, ethnography, prison.


1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Harris

Throughout the 1980s sex offender treatment programs proliferated in state prisons in the wake of repealed sexual psychopath legislation, driven by much favorable publicity over novel cognitive and behavioral treatment methods. This article examines the scope and likely impact of the new generation of sex offender treatment programs and concludes that heightened optimism may be premature. The new programs embody the same defects that the repeal of psychopath legislation was intended to correct. The enterprise of sex offender treatment would benefit from participation of social scientists outside of the treatment field in research on sex offenders.


2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Schaffer ◽  
Elizabeth L. Jeglic ◽  
Aviva Moster ◽  
Dorota Wnuk

In this article, current methods of conceptualizing and treating adult sexual offending are reviewed. First, the Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) approach to sex offender management is presented and critiqued. Then, the newer Good Lives Model is discussed and contrasted with the aforementioned RNR approach. The discussion of these approaches to sex offender management and rehabilitation is followed by a review of those cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques used to treat risk factors associated with sex offending, as such techniques are employed in both paradigms. Finally, research regarding the efficacy of using CBT techniques to treat sex offending behavior is presented, and future directions for sex offender treatment and management are discussed.


1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 261-263
Author(s):  
C. Jones

In 1991 the Prison Service began to develop a programme of treatment for sex offenders in custody. HMP Risley was the first establishment to successfully establish and run the ‘Core Treatment Programme’. This paper examines some of the issues involved in setting up such a programme, which was designed to be implemented by relatively inexperienced staff.


2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen M. Zgoba ◽  
Wayne R. Sager ◽  
Philip H. Witt

This study examined 10-year sexual and non-sexual offense recidivism for sex offenders released from New Jersey's general prison system and from the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center (ADTC), New Jersey's correctional facility and treatment center for repetitive-compulsive sexual offenders. The study found that sexual offenders released from the ADTC had significantly lower rates of committing both non-sexual offenses and any offense, compared with the general prison population of sex offenders. For both groups, the 10-year sexual offense reconviction rates were relatively low, 8.6% for the ADTC offenders and 12.7% for the general prison sexual offenders, while reoffense rates for non-sexual offenses were 25.8% and 44.1% for ADTC and general prison sex offenders, respectively.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Lasher ◽  
Robert J. McGrath

Most sex offenders appear to desist from sexual and other violent offending; however, research on this population has historically focused more on the characteristics of individuals who persist offending versus those who desist from offending. The present study examined change patterns of 563 child sexual abusers’ scores on the Sex Offender Treatment Intervention and Progress Scale, a dynamic risk measure, at three points of time over 2 years. Individuals who did versus did not commit a new serious offense, defined as a new sexual or other violent offense, at 5-year follow-up were contrasted. Desisters demonstrated most changes during their first year in treatment, whereas change among persisters more often occurred during their second year in treatment. All classes of offenders made gains in addressing dynamic risk related to sexually specific needs, whereas desisters made significantly greater gains in social stability needs. Findings are discussed in light of treatment dose allocation and community reentry needs.


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