Working with Sex Offenders: Guidelines for Therapist Selection

Sex offenders pose a unique set of problems within the criminal justice system. What forms of treatment are available? What qualifications should potential therapists have? What risks are involved with outpatient treatment? From therapist selection through outpatient treatment, this practical volume presents the most informed overview to date on problems associated with sex offender treatment. Topics covered include considering therapist qualifications, treatment issues and methods, sex offender evaluations, and community concerns surrounding outpatient treatment. In addition, the authors clearly describe how persons working within the criminal justice system can use a therapist's evaluation to determine the level of risk in returning a sex offender back into a community. Working With Sex Offenders offers information vital to professionals, and students in the fields of criminology, family studies, victimology, mental health, social work, psychology, and to judges, probation officers, and prosecutors. "Provides a basis for treating the sex offender. The authors' research considers not only the offenders, but the victims as well, the therapists and their qualifications, and treatment issues that will serve as a guide for improving the overall approach to this serious problem. . . . I recommend this book to treatment providers for use in choosing an adequate program for referral of sexual offenders." --Family Violence Bulletin "Outline[s] a process by which community supervision agents, judges, prosecuting attorneys, probation and parole officers, and others can decide which therapists should be selected to treat sex offenders. Also discusses what should take place in the evaluation process and during the course of treatment for sexual deviancy." --Contemporary Psychology "A practical discussion put together by authors who are practitioners in the fields of offender therapy, community corrections, and prosecution-monitoring of sex offenders. . . . Long overdue in a field where the clinicians are given so much responsibility, and so little accountability by the community in general. . . much needed in the abuse field." --Violence Update Newsletter "A model of clarity and focus . . . the book gives excellent guidelines for therapist selection, assessing the adequacy of therapist evaluations, and monitoring the course of treatment. Therapists should find this book valuable in deciding whether to undertake this demanding and very different type of work." --Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health "The expressed aim of Working with Sex Offenders, is to help community supervision agents make intelligent judgments regarding which therapists to select in order to treat sex offenders, and by what criteria they should make their selection. The book fulfills its aim exceedingly well. . . . This book is an important one, and the authors have addressed a pressing problem. In doing so they have made a significant contribution to the growing literature on sex offenders. I would suggest that the book be recommended reading for all community supervision agents, as well as for those mental health people who are interested in working with sex offenders." --Criminal and Civil Confinement "This is an important book and should be of help to judges, prosecuting attorneys, child and protection caseworkers, probation and parole officers, and therapists who are considering working with sex offenders. . . . I like this book and recommend it for clinicians as well as those who work within the criminal justice system. It is concisely written and really focuses on the major issues in working with sex offenders on an outpatient basis. The authors show particular sensitivity to victim issues and also stress the importance of the therapist recognizing that the community is also a client." --Journal of Sex Education and TherapyO'Connell, Michael A. is the author of 'Working with Sex Offenders: Guidelines for Therapist Selection', published 1990 under ISBN 9780803937543 and ISBN 0803937547.