Desistance from Sex Offending Alternatives to Throwing Away the Keys

This book offers a fresh perspective on treating a population that is often demonized by policymakers, the public, and even clinicians. The authors argue that most sex offenders are people like us, with the potential to lead meaningful, law-abiding lives—if given a chance and appropriate support. They describe an empirically and theoretically grounded rehabilitation approach, the Good Lives Model, which can be integrated with the assessment and intervention approaches that clinicians already use. Drawing on the latest knowledge about factors promoting desistance from crime, the book discusses how encouraging naturally occurring desistance processes, and directly addressing barriers to community reintegration, can make treatment more effective and long lasting.

_x000D_I. General Issues_x000D_1. Introduction_x000D_II. The Criminological Perspective_x000D_2. Defining and Measuring Desistance_x000D_3. The Age–Crime Curve: A Brief Overview_x000D_4. Theoretical Perspectives on Desistance_x000D_5. Factors Influencing Desistance _x000D_6. Two Major Theories of Desistance _x000D_III. The Forensic Psychological Perspective_x000D_7. Do Sex Offenders Desist?_x000D_8. Sex Offender Treatment and Desistance _x000D_IV. Reentry and Reintegration_x000D_9. Barriers to Reentry and Reintegration_x000D_10. Overcoming Barriers to Reentry and Reintegration _x000D_V. Recruitment_x000D_11. The Unknown Sex Offenders: Bringing Them in from the Cold_x000D_12. Blending Theory and Practice: ACriminological Perspective_x000D_VI. Desistance-Focused Intervention_x000D_13. The Good Lives Model of Offender Rehabilitation: Basic Assumptions, Etiological Commitments, and Practice Implications _x000D_14. The Good Lives Model and Desistance Theory and Research: Points of Convergence_x000D_15. The Good Lives–Desistance Model: Assessment and Treatment_x000D_VII. Where to from Here?_x000D_16. Dignity, Punishment, and Human Rights: The Ethics of Desistance_x000D_17. Moral Strangers or One of Us?: Concluding Thoughts_x000D_

D. Richard Laws, PhD, until his death in 2020, was Director of Pacific Behavioural Assessment in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He was a past president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. He held adjunct faculty positions at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and at the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, and was Honourary Professor at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Dr. Laws was known in the field of sexual deviation as a developer of assessment procedures and behavior therapies.Tony Ward, PhD, is Head of School and Professor of Clinical Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research interests include cognition in offenders, rehabilitation and reintegration processes, and ethical issues in forensic psychology. He has published extensively in these areas and has over 280 academic publications.