councilor.org
| Source | Yoshie Furuhashi |
| Date | 03/09/23/01:07 |
| ***** Sex Offenders: Does Treatment Work?
by Eric Lotke . . . How Much do Sex Offenders Reoffend? Contrary to popular belief, convicted sex offenders have relatively low rates of recidivism compared to other offenders. On average, untreated sex offenders sentenced to prison have a recidivism rate of 18.5%. In comparison, recidivism rates range around 25% for drug offenses and 30% for violent offenses. 6 Thus, people convicted of sex crimes tend to reoffend less than people convicted of many other types of crime. . . . Does Treatment Reduce Recidivism? A popular misconception is that nothing can cure a sex offender. This myth can be traced largely to a paper published by Lita Furby in 1989. Furby's paper, however, focused on the lack of sophisticated, reliable data with which to evaluate treatment regimes. It concluded only that evidence of the effectiveness of psychological treatment was inconclusive. Politicians and the mass media picked up this judgment, often converting it to the claim: "Nothing Works!" That conclusion, however, is against the general weight of the evidence. Most research shows that sex offenders do indeed respond positively to treatment. A comprehensive analysis by Margaret Alexander of the Oshkosh Correctional Institution found far more studies reporting positive results than otherwise. Alexander found that recidivism rates after treatment drop to an average of 10.9%. Thus, a picture has begun to emerge in which treated sex offenders reoffend less than untreated sex offenders. Many sex offenders appreciate the wrongness of their conduct and intensely desire to reform themselves. Treatment helps them to achieve this end. Moreover, treatment has become more effective as more attention has been devoted to the problem. When Alexander classified the studies by date, she found recidivism rates in recent surveys to be 8.4%. The conclusion that treatment reduces recidivism can be refined further by distinguishing between different kinds of sex offenders. Treatment cuts the recidivism rate among exhibitionists and child molesters by more than half, yet cuts recidivism among rapists by just a few percent. Juveniles respond very positively to treatment, indicating that treating sex offenders as soon as they are identified can prevent an escalation of their pathology. The state of Vermont reports offense rates after treatment as: 19% for rapists, 7% for pedophiles, 3% for incest, and 3% for "hands-off" crimes such as exhibitionism. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho