Sex Offenders Reoffend In The Future

Findings

The International Business Times article (Smith, 2015) explored measures to assess whether convicted sex offenders would reoffend in the future. Smith (2015) collated data from professionals who are actively working in treatment facilities, stating that treatment programmes specialising in psychosocial aspects have not been established as being effective. Nonetheless, the article reiterates that treatment does reduce recidivism, despite this not being a guaranteed method of prevention for every individual, working with offenders helps to decrease the possibility of offences reoccurring (Smith, 2015).

Secondly, one of my articles from BBC News (Anon., 2011) coincided well with the first source, as the article deliberated when sex offenders

The offenders claimed that the psychosocial intervention they partake in helps them to understand the harm they have caused and how they can identify warning signs for things that may provoke them to reoffend in the future. Furthermore, Whatton’s staff members strive for cohesiveness and emphasise how their negative perception of sex offenders altered based on their positive transformations as their recidivism rate is 6% compared to 50% respectively for the general population (Anon.,

Interestingly, one case study in my documents included an offence against a child; however, I recognised that the majority of individuals in these cases assumed that all sex offenders are paedophiles. Nonetheless, this common misjudgement could potentially explain negative attitudes and societal isolation as in the study males and females indicated that the offender that committed an offence against a 10-year-old was more deviant, isolated, less capable of change and more deserving or imprisonment compared to offences against 15 and 20-year-olds (Rogers, et al., 2011). These attitudes also arise in prison, with child sex offenders being shunned by other sex offenders, resulting in hierarchal differences (Anon., 2015), as reinstated by Wolff et al (2007). Thus, if there is a widespread assumption that they have assaulted a child, which evidently holds an extremely negative stigma, all sex offenders irrespective of what their crime is could receive the same