Sex Offender Programs

Effective Correctional Interventions

In their seminal volume The Psychology of Criminal Conduct, Don Andrews and Jim Bonta [Page 892](2003) present a list of “dos and don'ts” for treatment providers. While the entire list is beyond the scope of this entry, the authors distill much of it down to a few simple rules that, when followed, substantially increase the likelihood that an intervention will succeed. These rules are encapsulated in the principles of risk, need, responsivity, and professional discretion. Effective programs are those that match treatment intensity to offender risk and needs while attending to the characteristics of the population to be treated (e.g., cognitive abilities, mental health issues, personality, and learning styles). Last, programs must be managed by well-trained and experienced providers who are able to make sensible adjustments to curricula or other aspects of treatment and supervision as needed.

Assessment

Like other groups of offenders, sexual offenders are best assessed using a variety of methods. Their needs should be evaluated as early as possible in their sentences, to devise a comprehensive treatment plan. Assessments typically include a semi-structured clinical interview, accompanied by various psychometric indices (e.g., sex history questionnaires, personality scales, measures of deception/malingering, and other tools designed to identify areas in need of remedial programming), actuarial risk assessment tools, and psychophysiological evaluation of sexual preferences and interests. Such tests enable clinicians and correctional workers to estimate an individual's risk and treatment needs. In turn, these factors are used to determine the program assignment that will be most effective. For example, if an offender is placed in a high-intensity program, the intent is to eventually place him at a lower-intensity level or to arrange follow-up treatment depending on his ability to manage his risk. Most sex offenders require some degree of maintenance programming, which can be initiated in an institutional setting but is best carried into the community on conditional release.

The measurement of sexual interests and preferences was first introduced to sex offender assessment in the early 1960s, when Czech sexologist Kurt Freund adapted his phallometric test to the evaluation of pedophilia. This test, originally designed to identify homosexuals for exclusion from military service, measures penile physiology while the subject attends to various audiovisual stimuli. The intent is to establish the individual's sexual likes and dislikes by comparing responses to “normal” stimuli with responses to “deviant” stimuli. Although the test suffers from a lack of universal standardization and academic disputes over methodology, most in the field acknowledge its utility in identifying sexual deviance.

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