Topic

Assessment and Treatment of Sexual Offenders

Instructions

1 What are the primary challenges of sex offender treatment programs? How can these challenged be overcome?

2 Describe the key research findings (p. 272-273). What seems to work? What seems to be promising? What doesn’t?

Part 3 In the Media (everyone watch all 3 videos)

Watch these stories (unwanted touching and harassment):

10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman (Links to an external site.)
Touching Strangers Hands on Escalator in New York City (Links to an external site.)

What happens when you touch a stranger on the escalator? (Links to an external site.)

Briefly summarize what happened. What 2 questions do you have? What do we know? What do we not know? What are your reactions? I want you to look for feelings in the video and multiple viewpoints (women touching men and men touching men, etc.).

Part 4 In the News

Read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sex-offender-santa-petco_us_5850b80be4b0e411bfd457d3

to answer: Briefly summarize what happened. What 2 questions do you have about that case? How should this case be handled? What is frotteurism? Could this have

Answer Preview

While there are variations in findings of treatment approaches that are effective, there are general conclusions that have been made through research relating to possibilities of the sexual offender committing the offence again. People who commit the offence within the family, rape older women or have no record of treatment have positive treatment outcome compared to those who are unemployed, had multiple victims and failed to admit to the offence. High-risk factors for recidivism are substance abuse, disruptive behaviour, non-contact offenders and unemployment. The treatment, therefore, seems to work for offenders with low risk of recidivism and not promising for those with a high risk of committing offences.

Word Count: 1000