NCJ Number
194926
Journal
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Dated: 2001 Pages: 1-21
Date Published
2001
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This longitudinal study examined the effectiveness of a 1 1/2-year-long Ohio residential treatment program for 26 boys aged 11-15 with histories of sexually aggressive behavior.
Abstract
The program involved one session of individual therapy and two group therapy sessions per week. Family therapy was impractical because of frequent family noninvolvement and geographical distance. Therapy focused on sex offending and also on general mental health and behavioral and developmental issues. The treatment approach was based on cognitive-behavioral techniques applied to the problem of sexual aggression and the goal of relapse prevention. Both individual and group therapy included the following components: breaking through denial of responsibility for the abusive behavior; correcting dysfunctional beliefs about abuse; recognizing the abuse cycle; increasing empathy for victims; providing education about human sexuality; increasing personal awareness of feelings; training in social skills; training in anger control; relapse prevention; working through abuse histories; and working through the mental health issues particular to each youth. The first 12 months consisted of highly structured, intensive treatment, with close supervision, followed by 6 months of supportive treatment in a less structured setting, so as to provide a gradual transition to community life. Following discharge, monitoring continued for 1 year. The evaluation assessed the clients through self-report and staff-report measures at the beginning and end of treatment and at several time points in between. Aggressive acts were recorded during a 1-year follow-up. There was evidence of improved functioning on 10 of 12 measures. During the follow-up, 27 percent of the sample committed an aggressive act, and 8 percent committed a sexually aggressive act. On most of the measures, improvement occurred gradually over the course of treatment; on some measures, most of the improvement occurred late in the program. If only adjudicated offenses are considered, the sample had a recidivism rate of zero percent. Given that the clients generally had extensive histories of sexually aggressive behavior prior to placement, and given that sex offending is often persistent in the absence of effective treatment, it is likely that treatment helped to prevent recurrence in 24 of 26 clients, for whom there was no evidence of offending during the 1-year follow-up. 6 tables and 37 references