Abstract: Empirical Evidence of Positive Treatment Approaches in Sexual Offenders

A key theoretical challenge for researchers and practitioners in the sexual offending area is to understand the relationship between dynamic risk factors, protective factors, and strength based treatment approaches. The problem is that the field has been recently dominated by psychometric approaches to the explanation of risk and offending and has paid little attention to causal models of the problems associated with sexual offending. In this paper I present a new model of dynamic risk factors and protective factors and explain how this can account for the utility of positive approaches to treatment. In the course of my analysis I discuss the evidence for positive treatment and intervention programs.

Tony Ward, PhD, DipClinPsyc, is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Clinical Director at Victoria University of Wellington., New Zealand. He was director of the Kia Marama treatment center for sex in Christchurch, New Zealand and has taught clinical and forensic psychology at the Universities of Canterbury, Victoria, Melbourne, and Deakin. Professor Ward’s current research interests include offender rehabilitation and desistance, conceputal issues in risk assessment and management, restorative justice and ethical issues in forensic psychology, theoretical psychopathology, and cognition in offenders. He is the creator of the Good Lives Model of Offender rehabilitation and gives numerous workshop, keynote addresses, andconsultations around the world on this model. He has published over 360 academic articles and is an adjunct professor at the Universities of Birmingham and Kent.