Sex Offenders and Victims: Current Trends

This workshop will focus on current developments in the field of sex offenders, specifically with regard to deception and denial, assessment and treatment as well as a focus on victim interviews. Day one will begin with a discussion of the new Good Lives Model, its strengths and weaknesses and its status in relapse prevention as the treatment of choice for sexual offenders. The literature on treatment components will be addressed including which treatments appear to reduce offending and which do not. The role of pornography will be described along with a discussion of child pornography and its relationship to sexual offending. Many sexual offenders are antisocial and a section of the workshop will address the treatment of antisocial attitudes and beliefs in both adolescents and adults. Female sex offenders are increasingly seen and this workshop will examine the types of female sex offenders, their characteristics, their similarities and differences from male sex offenders and the implications for treatment. Estimates suggest that juvenile sex offenders commit between 1/3 and ½ of all child molestations. The types of juvenile offenders will be discussed along with current methods of assessing their risk. 

Day 2 will look at reliable methods of detecting deception. Most methods suggested by conventional wisdom are not accurate, and those that are more accurate are lesser known. The state of actuarial assessment of sex offenders, including the current controversy over aging will be addressed. Finally, the general literature on suggestibility is often used in court to discount the reports of children. This section will look at which research is applicable to child sexual abuse cases and which cannot be fairly applied. The second half of Day 2 will also describe ways of interviewing victims of child sexual abuse without using suggestive interviewing as well as ways of analyzing whether or not an interview was unduly suggestive.

Sex Offenders and Victims: Current Issues, Assessment, Treatment and Special Populations

This workshop will focus on current issues related to sex offender assessment and treatment as well as a focus on the impact of sexual abuse on victims. The main areas covered will be deception, special populations, assessment, treatment and impact on victims. Deception will focus on positive illusions which skew assessment and treatment of sex offenders. Offender assessment will look at new research on actuarial assessment. Treatment will cover attitude change and persuasion techniques from the social sciences, new research on relapse prevention, techniques for addressing criminal thinking and a section on whether some cognitive distortions might prevent relapse. Finally, special populations will cover female sex offenders, incest offenders, psychopaths and adolescent sex offenders.

Sex Offenders: New Methods of Evaluation and Treatment 

The 1990's saw the steady development of new methods of assessing and treating sex offenders. A series of new static actuarial instruments have been created for assessing risk as well as dynamic instruments for measuring progress in sex offenders in treatment. Most recently, instruments applicable to offenders on probation have been added to the steadily increasing number of actuarial instruments for incarcerated offenders. On the treatment side, changes in the concept of relapse prevention have broadened our understanding of offenders who are positively attracted to reoffending in addition to those who are trying to avoid it. Efforts have been underway to develop new treatment programs for psychopaths, as previous efforts have shown little positive impact from treatment, and in fact, have sometimes increased recidivism rates after treatment for psychopathic offenders. This workshop will focus on the most recent advances in the evaluation and treatment of sex offenders, including child molesters, rapists, psychopaths and sadists. It will address, in addition, the question of staff predators: offenders who seduce and manipulate staff in treatment programs and describe techniques used for manipulating staff.

Assessing and Treating Sexual Offenders

This workshop will focus on current research and issues related to sex offender assessment and treatment. Risk assessment, in particular, has changed in the last two years. Revisions to Static99 introduced in the fall of 2009 have highlighted the issue of risk in older offenders. This workshop will discuss these changes along with a discussion of the exceptions to the general trend of reduced offending in older offenders, i.e., cases in which older offenders have reoffended recently. The role of pornography will be described along with a discussion of child pornography and its relationship to sexual offending. Of particular concern is whether those who use child pornography typically have hands-on victims or not. The content on treatment will begin with a discussion of the new Good Lives Model, its strengths and weaknesses and its status in relapse prevention as the treatment of choice for sexual offenders. The literature on treatment components will be addressed including which treatments appear to reduce offending and which do not. This program is designed for any individual doing assessment and treatment with sexual offenders or wanting a better understanding of the state of the science.