NCJ Number
125290
Editor(s)
W L Marshall,
D R Laws,
H E Barbaree
Date Published
1990
Length
421 pages
Annotation
This book covers important features involved in assessing and treating sexual aggressors, as well as theories concerning the development and maintenance of sexual offending.
Abstract
Knowledge and understanding of sexual offenders are quite limited, although the fact that almost all apprehended sexual offenders are male should provide a focus for investigation. Factors influencing sexual assault include a mix of etiological and maintaining processes. Offender attitudes and beliefs are important components of psychological processes leading to sexual assault and of the man's apparent inability or unwillingness to refrain from repeated offending. Changing attitudes and beliefs which foster an assaultive disposition is a necessary but not sufficient treatment step. The book covers the nature and extent of sexual assault, sexual offender classification models, sexual assault theories, and sexual offender treatment. Specific factors influencing sexual assault include pornography, androgenic hormones, sexual anomalies and the brain, stimulus control of sexual arousal, social and cultural factors, and cognition. Treatment issues focus on the modification of sexual preferences, antiandrogen and hormonal treatment, enhancement of social skills, modification of cognitive distortions, relapse prevention, and comprehensive cognitive-behavioral treatment. The editors conclude that effective ways of managing and treating sexual offenders are available if governments and funding agencies can be persuaded to offer greater support for treatment and research efforts. In the long term, however, sexual offender treatment should emphasize prevention over treatment. References, tables, figures.