NCJ Number
227109
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 53 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2009 Pages: 334-347
Date Published
June 2009
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article examines the development and use of the Attitudes Toward Prostitution Scale (ATPS) assessing the beliefs of men who purchase sex from prostitutes.
Abstract
The Attitude Toward Prostitution Scale (ATPS) possesses good factor validity with three subscales, good content and face validities, and good item reliability for its brief subscales. In work with men who purchase sex, ATPS scores offered particular information about individual men, assisted intervention planning, and documented basic attitude change from psychoeducational programs. This article suggests that men who buy sex are a heterogeneous group with an asymmetrical range of cognitive patterns about sex workers, which warrant targeted psychoeducational and perhaps clinical attention. The ATPS assesses the beliefs of men who purchase sex from prostitutes. One premise in the development of the ATPS was that some men have distorted notions about sex workers and their work. It was hypothesized that some men who buy sex hold realistic, reasonable beliefs whereas others hold distorted, unrealistic beliefs about sex work. Identifying such cognitions can deepen understanding of these men and provide an avenue to guide interventions. This article reports preliminary psychometric properties of the ATPS development and illustrates its potential psychoeducational use. Tables, figure, and references