Table Of ContentD. Richard Laws · William O'Donohue
Editors
Treatment
of Sex
Off enders
Strengths and Weaknesses in
Assessment and Intervention
Treatment of Sex Offenders
D. Richard Laws • William O’Donohue
Editors
Treatment of Sex Offenders
Strengths and Weaknesses
in Assessment and Intervention
Editors
D. Richard Laws William O’Donohue
Pacifi c Behavioural Assessment Department of Psychology
Victoria , BC , Canada University of Nevada
Reno , NV , USA
ISBN 978-3-319-25866-9 ISBN 978-3-319-25868-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-25868-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016932375
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Pref ace
It can be wise for a fi eld to take stock from time to time. What do we, as a fi eld,
know? What do we not know? What are our challenges? What is controversial and
what is not controversial in the fi eld? To what extent are we meeting our stakehold-
ers’ expectations (and indeed what exactly are these)? How effective are our treat-
ments? How well do we understand the etiology of the problems we treat? How
accurate are our clinical predictions? How valid are our assessment devices? Are
our diagnostic criteria clear and accurate? Do we have the right balance between
prevention, treatment, and a public health perspective? Are the laws and policies
involved in our fi eld reasonable or do these need improvement? These sorts of ques-
tions can guide critically important decisions regarding funding priorities, research
priorities, the reactions of others to our fi eld, as well as public policy. Of course any
fi eld has problems but a key issue are these problems clearly recognized and is
progress being made on these? All these questions deserve honest, direct, and
detailed responses.
The fi eld of the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders is certainly an
important one. A number of diverse stakeholders are deeply concerned that this
work is done well. Our failures can have devastating personal consequences. There
can be a lot of emotions around these phenomena—one can see this around civil
commitment, relapse rates in treatment, and even in the defi nition and diagnosis of
a paraphilia. Practitioners and researchers work in a diffi cult context. There are a
number of value issues that can generate considerable heat. And it is fair to say that
what we want to accomplish, i.e., to prevent sexual offending, to measure a number
of important dimensions regarding sexuality, to treat it with 100 % effectiveness,
etc. has proven to be diffi cult tasks.
C learly the fi eld has made progress. For example, Laws (2 016) provided a brief
description of current best practice interventions:
While there are some minor variations in the specifi cs of treatment programs across the
world, any credible program will typically have the following structure, orientation, and
elements. Following a comprehensive assessment period where static and dynamic risk fac-
tors are assessed and overall level of risk determined, offenders are allocated into a treat-
ment stream. The default ecological assumption appears to be that sexual offending is a
v
vi Preface
product of faulty social learning and individuals commit sexual offenses because they have
a number of skill defi cits that make it diffi cult for them to seek reinforcement in socially
acceptable ways. Thus the primary mechanisms underpinning sexual offending are thought
to be social and psychological…. Furthermore, treatment is typically based around an anal-
ysis of individuals’ offending patterns and takes a cognitive-behavioral/relapse prevention
perspective. The major goal is to teach sex offenders the skills to change the way they think,
feel, and act and to use this knowledge to avoid or escape from future high-risk situations.
There are usually discrete treatment modules devoted to the following problem areas: cog-
nitive distortions, deviant sexual interests, social skill defi cits, impaired problem solving,
empathy defi cits, intimacy defi cits, emotional regulation diffi culties, lifestyle imbalance,
and post-offense adjustment or relapse prevention…. (T)he length of treatment programs
vary but for a medium-risk or higher offender will likely be at least 9 months in duration
and frequently quite a bit longer. A treatment program that follows the model described is
likely to produce results with moderately motivated offenders who actively participate in
the program modules. Numerous meta-analyses attest to treatment success producing mod-
est rates of recidivism (cited in Laws, 2016, in press).
T his edited book was designed to explicate and discuss the state of the fi eld. It
will examine what we see as the key challenges. It is designed to have experts in
important specialties give honest evaluations of the strengths and challenges of key
dimensions of the fi eld of sexual offending. In addition, these experts were encour-
aged to give their recommendations for the agenda for the future including research
priorities, policy priorities, and funding priorities. It is relevant to understanding
current views on best practices and thus ought to be informative to the practitioner.
We can all agree that the fi eld of sexual offending is both challenging and vitally
important to accomplish its tasks in the most effective way possible.
Victoria, BC, Canada D. R ichard Laws
Reno, NV, USA William O’Donohue
Reference
Laws, D. R. (2016). S ocial control of sex offenders: A cultural history. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Contents
1 Problems in the Classification and Diagnosis of the Paraphilias:
What Is the Evidence That the DSM Warrants Use? .......................... 1
William O’Donohue
2 A Brief History of Sexual Offender Risk Assessment .......................... 19
Leam A. Craig and Martin Rettenberger
3 Strengths of Actuarial Risk Assessment ............................................... 45
Robert J. B. Lehmann , Yolanda Fernandez ,
and Leslie-Maaike Helmus
4 Risk Formulation: The New Frontier in Risk Assessment
and Management ..................................................................................... 83
Caroline Logan
5 Measurement of Male Sexual Arousal and Interest
Using Penile Plethysmography and Viewing Time .............................. 107
Robin J. Wilson and Michael H. Miner
6 Polygraph Testing of Sex Offenders ...................................................... 133
Don Grubin
7 The Strengths of Treatment for Sexual Offending ............................... 157
Adam J. Carter and Ruth E. Mann
8 Responsivity Dynamic Risk Factors and Offender
Rehabilitation: A Comparison of the Good Lives Model
and the Risk-Need Model ....................................................................... 175
Tony Ward and Gwenda M. Willis
9 Early Detection and Intervention for Adolescents
at Risk for Engaging in Abusive Sexual Behavior:
A Case for Prevention ............................................................................. 191
Daniel Rothman
vii
viii Contents
10 Community Control of Sex Offenders .................................................. 223
Jill S. Levenson
11 The Best Intentions: Flaws in Sexually Violent Predator Laws ......... 243
Kresta N. Daly
12 The Shortcomings of Sexual Offender Treatment:
Are We Doing Something Wrong? ........................................................ 261
Pamela M. Yates and Drew A. Kingston
13 Desistance from Crime: Toward an Integrated
Conceptualization for Intervention ....................................................... 281
Patrick Lussier
14 Changing Course: From a Victim/Offender Duality
to a Public Health Perspective ............................................................... 323
Joan Tabachnick , Kieran McCartan , and Ryan Panaro
Index ................................................................................................................. 343
Contributors
Adam J. Carter , Ph.D. National Offender Management Service , London , UK
Leam A. Craig Forensic Psychology Practice Ltd. , Sutton , Coldfi eld , UK
Centre for Forensic and Criminological Psychology , University of Birmingham ,
Edgbaston Birmingham , UK
School of Social Sciences , Birmingham City University , Birmingham , UK
Kresta N. Daly Barth Daly LLP. , Sacramento , CA , USA
Yolanda Fernandez , C.Psych. Correctional Service Canada|Service Correctionnel
Canada, Regional Headquarters (Ont)|Bureau Régional (Ont), K ingston, O N,
Canada
Don Grubin , M.D., F.R.C.Psych. Institute of Neuroscience , Newcastle University,
Gosforth , Newcastle upon Tyne , UK
Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust , St Nicholas Hospital , Gosforth,
Newcastle upon Tyne , UK
Leslie-Maaike Helmus Forensic Assessment Group , Nepean , ON , Canada
Drew A. Kingston , Ph.D., C.Psych. Brockville , ON , Canada
Robert J. B. Lehmann Institute of Forensic Psychiatry , Charité University
Medicine Berlin , Berlin , Germany
Jill S. Levenson , Ph.D., L.C.S.W. Barry University , Miami Shores , FL , USA
Caroline Logan G reater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust,
Prestwich Hospital , Prestwich , Manchester , UK
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Patrick Lussier , Ph.D. School of Social Work (Criminology program) , Université
Laval , Pavillon Charles-De Koninck, Quebec City , QC , Canada
ix
