The and Relapse of Correctional-Based and Intervention

The uneven history of sex offender treatment reflects the premise of this book: the relative absence of a rigorous scientific approach aimed at identifying the root cause of sexual offending and the factors responsible for its maintenance. In the absence of evidence-based information about the factors responsible for sexual offending, treatment providers have been more or less working in the blind. Indeed, in North America, the evolution of sex offender treatment has not been based on a theory of rehabilitation or reflective of scientific advancement with respect to the causes of sexual offenses. Rather, we posit that the evolution of treatment guidelines and practices reflect the confluence of a series of factors including the predominant social movement and predominant, untested, general psychological theory of human behavior of the time. The development of these rehabilitation models has been based on untested and unproven assumptions about the causes of sexual offending. This approach has fueled the pessimistic stance that sex offender treatment does not work and favored a shift toward increased community protection and repressive measures. Rather than learning from past experiences, we posit that tenets of the rehabilitation ideal have moved to yet other unproven and untested approaches.