Where Should We Intervene?

Effective intervention with sexual offenders requires the targeting of appropriate risk factors. In this study, information on dynamic (changeable) risk factors was collected through interviews with community supervision officers and file reviews of 208 sexual offense recidivists and 201 nonrecidivists. The recidivists were generally considered to have poor social supports, attitudes tolerant of sexual assault, antisocial lifestyles, poor self-management strategies, and difficulties cooperating with supervision. The overall mood of the recidivists and nonrecidivists was similar, but the recidivists showed increased anger and subjective distress just before reoffending. The dynamic risk factors reported by the officers continued to be strongly associated with recidivism, even after controlling for preexisting differences in static risk factors. The factors identified in the interview data were reflected (to a lesser extent) in the officers' contemporaneous case notes, which suggests that the interview findings cannot be completely attributed to retrospective recall bias.

[1]  D. Laws.  Relapse prevention with sex offenders , 1989 .

[2]  Differential Processing of Abnormal Sex Offenders: Utilization of California's Mentally Disordered Sex Offender Program , 1976 .

[3]  R. Cattell.  The Scree Test For The Number Of Factors. , 1966, Multivariate behavioral research.

[4]  V. Quinsey,et al.  Proximal Antecedents of Eloping and Reoffending Among Supervised Mentally Disordered Offenders , 1997 .

[5]  G. Launay.  The phallometric assessment of sex offenders: Some professional and research issues. , 1994 .

[6]  R Borum,et al.  Improving the clinical practice of violence risk assessment. Technology, guidelines, and training. , 1996, The American psychologist.

[7]  Ralph C. Serin,et al.  Violent recidivism in criminal psychopaths , 1996 .

[8]  R. Steffy,et al.  A Comparison of Child Molesters and Nonsexual Criminals: Risk Predictors and Long-Term Recidivism , 1995 .

[9]  Vernon L. Quinsey,et al.  Violent Recidivism of Mentally Disordered Offenders , 1993 .

[10]  R. K. Hanson.  What do we know about sex offender risk assessment , 1998 .

[11]  L. Johnston,et al.  Social cognition and sexual offending: A theoretical framework , 1996 .

[12]  G. Harris,et al.  Cross-Validation and Extension of the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide for Child Molesters and Rapists , 1997, Law and human behavior.

[13]  W. Marshall,et al.  Handbook of sexual assault: Issues, theories, and treatment of the offender. , 1990 .

[14]  Vernon L. Quinsey,et al.  The Criminal Recidivism Process , 1997 .

[15]  William O'Donohue,et al.  Sexual deviance : theory, assessment, and treatment , 1997 .

[16]  J. Fedoroff,et al.  Medroxy-progesterone acetate in the treatment of paraphilic sexual disorders: Rate of relapse in paraphilic men treated in long-term group psychotherapy with or without medroxy-progesterone acetate. , 1992 .

[17]  K. Heilbrun.  Violent offenders: Appraising and managing risk. , 1998 .

[18]  E. Pedhazur.  Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research: Explanation and Prediction , 1982 .

[19]  H. Cleckley,et al.  The mask of sanity. , 1942, Postgraduate medicine.

[20]  Antonio Andrés Pueyo,et al.  THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIMINAL CONDUCT , 2008 .

[21]  James Bonta,et al.  The prediction of recidivism among federally sentenced offenders: A re-validation of the SIR scale. , 1996 .

[22]  R. Prentky.  Human sexual aggression: current perspectives. , 1988, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[23]  J. Money,et al.  Postadolescent paraphilic sex offenders: Antiandrogenic and counseling therapy follow-up , 1981 .

[24]  P. Gendreau,et al.  A META‐ANALYSIS OF THE PREDICTORS OF ADULT OFFENDER RECIDIVISM: WHAT WORKS!* , 1996 .

[25]  J. Proulx,et al.  Relationships between affective components and sexual behaviors in sexual aggressors , 1996 .

[26]  F. Schmidt.  Statistical Significance Testing and Cumulative Knowledge in Psychology: Implications for Training of Researchers , 1996 .

[27]  John P. Campbell,et al.  Measurement Theory for the Behavioral Sciences. , 1983 .

[28]  J. Proulx,et al.  Relationships between conflict, affect and deviant sexual behaviors in rapists and pedophiles. , 1994, Behaviour research and therapy.

[29]  R. K. Hanson,et al.  Predicting relapse: a meta-analysis of sexual offender recidivism studies. , 1998, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[30]  A. Bandura.  Social learning theory , 1977 .