Sex Offender Treatment Program in Prison and Rehabilitation

Author(s):  
Gilda Scardaccione

The chapter seeks to demonstrate and describe, from a critical perspective, the most widespread treatment models and programs for sex offenders in prison, opting for integrated approach based on risk assessment and the evaluation of their psychological and social characteristics. Furthermore, specifying factors that can affect the success of the treatment leads to the conclusion that sex offenders require the implementation of differentiated programs focused on their personal characteristics and needs. The reduction of recidivism is indicated as a criterion with which to assess the effectiveness of the programs, although the results achieved in research on the matter do not always agree and do not always confirm a reduction in repeat offenses in the subjects undergoing treatment. The chapter concludes by calling for greater program development and more precise methodological accuracy in verifying the results.

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Throughout the 1980s sex offender treatment programs proliferated in state prisons in the wake of repealed sexual psychopath legislation, driven by much favorable publicity over novel cognitive and behavioral treatment methods.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.


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 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Birgden ◽  
Heather Cucolo

Public policy is necessarily a political process with the law and order issue high on the political agenda. Consequently, working with sex offenders is fraught with legal and ethical minefields, including the mandate that community protection automatically outweighs offender rights. In addressing community protection, contemporary sex offender treatment is based on management rather than rehabilitation. We argue that treatment-as-management violates offender rights because it is ineffective and unethical. The suggested alternative is to deliver treatment-as-rehabilitation underpinned by international human rights law and universal professional ethics. An effective and ethical community–offender balance is more likely when sex offenders are treated with respect and dignity that, as human beings, they have a right to claim.


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