NCJ Number
230798
Date Published
2010
Length
18 pages
Annotation
After examining what is meant by the term "high-risk offender" and whether it should be applied to sex offenders, this chapter discusses the management of high-risk sex offenders and the challenges faced by offender management organizations, with a focus on law and policy in England and Wales.
Abstract
In examining the justification for labeling sex offenders as a "high risk" category for reoffending, this chapter concludes that sex offenders on the whole are relatively unlikely to be reconvicted of another sexual offense; low-risk offenders are apparently no more likely to reoffend than an unconvicted man in the general population; however, there is a subgroup of sex offenders who are more likely to cause severe harm to their victims and thus warrant a more intense response over and above normal supervision. In examining some of the major policy and legislative developments in England and Wales, this chapter examines restrictive interventions and rehabilitative responses. The discussion of restrictive intervention focuses on the United Kingdom's 1997 Sex Offender Act, which was the first legislation to require certain sex offenders to register their names and addresses with the police. This often precipitated police entering into partnership with local probation services in managing these individuals. It has proven difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of such laws, both in the United Kingdom and in the United States, because of the difficulty of establishing control groups. Given this lack of evidence of effectiveness, some critics have focused on such legislation's undue restriction on offenders' human rights. Rehabilitative responses have been based on a presumed understanding of the etiology of sexual offending and an identification of the psychological (but potentially changeable) features associated with reoffending. 31 references