Sex offender treatment is not punishment

Abstract

The treatment of sexual offenders can be fraught with ethical dilemmas. Practitioners must balance the therapeutic needs of sex offender clients alongside the risks they might pose to others. These ethical challenges include balancing community safety with the rights of the offender, the privileged therapeutic relationship and the potential for coerced treatment. In this paper, we respond to Glaser's argument that treatment is punishment and that sex offender treatment providers breach ethical codes by violating confidentiality, engaging in coercion, and ultimately causing harm to clients. We first consider whether sex offender treatment is indeed punishment. We argue that it is not, and that mandated treatment can and should be conducted in a fashion consistent with professional codes of ethics familiar to mental health providers. We then discuss the human rights model, which we agree is an essential lens through which to view the psychological treatment of sexual offenders. We attempt, as have other scholars, to illustrate the ways in which human rights principles intersect with traditional mental health codes of ethics particularly in the case of sex offender treatment. We conclude that sex offender treatment can be conducted ethically, that treatment differs from punishment in clear and distinct ways, and that ethical treatment conforms to a human rights perspective.     

Book reviews

Stuart M. Kaye. International Fisheries Management. Kluwer Law International, The Hague, Netherlands, 2001. 606 pp. (hard cover). $172.00

Rosalee Love. Reefscape, Joseph Henry Press, Washington D.C., 2001. 264 pp. (hard cover). $24.95

Olav Schram Stokke (ed.), Governing High Seas Fisheries: The Interplay of Global and Regional Regimes, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001. 365 pp. (hard cover). $95.00

Norman J. Vig and Michael E. Kraft (eds.). Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty‐First Century. 4th ed. Congressional Quarterly Press, Washington D.C., 2000. 416 pp. (paperback). $39.95

Joseph Franke and Teresa M. Telecky. Reptiles as Pets: An Examination of the Trade in Live Reptiles in the United States. The Humane Society of the United States, Washington D.C. 2001. 146 pp. (paperback). $10     

‘I'm still a hustler’: entrepreneurial responses to precarity by participants in phase I clinical trials

Abstract

This paper questions the implications of entrepreneurial responses to conditions of employment precarity by ‘healthy volunteers’ in phase I clinical trials in the United States. Such individuals are typically serial participants who often identify as professional volunteers and seek out drug studies as their primary source of income. Drawing on extensive qualitative research, this paper illustrates how healthy volunteers selectively import the identity of ‘hustler’ from the street environment and reposition it as connoting a set of valuable creative skills that give them a competitive edge over other participants. An entrepreneurial ethos allows them to view personal sacrifice and exposure to potentially dangerous drugs as smart investments leading to financially stable futures. These discursive moves normalize extractive, and at times dehumanizing, labour relations that offload expenses and risks to workers.     

Intellectual Property Rights and the Potential for Universal Access to Treatment: trips,acta and hiv/aids medicine

Where hiv/aids is concerned, the twin goals of ‘zero new infections’ and an ‘aids-free generation’ are now, due to advances in treatment (and treatment as prevention), a realistic possibility. However, these goals can only be achieved through the scaling-up of treatment to the point of universal access. It is inevitable that the success of any scaling-up will be predicated on cost, particularly of hiv/aids medicines. This article argues that recent changes in the global intellectual property landscape—effected by way of bilaterally- and plurilaterally-negotiated trade agreements initiated by developed countries—jeopardise the target of universal access. Enhanced protection of international intellectual property rights increasingly poses a threat to the development of, and international trade in, generic medicines. Unless developing countries move to reinvigorate moribund multilateral institutions, particularly the wto, they will lose control of the intellectual property agenda, and thus the ability to impose an alternative vision regarding universal access.     

Responding to terrorism across the technological spectrum

The ‘revolution in military affairs’ arguably heralds a new era of warfare dominated by the American military's mastery of the conventional battlefield. This ‘revolution’, however, will have little if any impact on American military capabilities so far as countering terrorism, insurgency, or guerrilla warfare are concerned. With regard to terrorism specifically, a combination of the resurgence of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative and the implications that it has to trigger acts future of mass, indiscriminate violence; the proliferation of ‘amateur’ terrorist groups which may contribute to the loosening of previous self‐imposed constraints on operations and lethality, and the growing sophistication of established, more ‘professional’ groups is likely to lead to higher levels of lethality and destruction than in the past.     

The Joint Effects of Gender and Race/Ethnicity on Sentencing Outcomes in Federal Courts

Using data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the present study examines the interaction effects of gender and race/ethnicity on sentencing outcomes of male and female offenders in federal courts. Findings indicate that female offenders in all racial/ethnic categories receive less severe sentence outcomes than male offenders in the same categories, even after legal, extralegal, and contextual factors are controlled. In addition, racial/ethnic differences are found within gender groups, such that Hispanic males are more likely to be incarcerated and Black males receive longer sentence terms compared to White male offenders. However, contrary to expectations, the analysis indicates that White females are more likely to be incarcerated than Black and Hispanic females and receive longer sentence terms than Hispanic females. Gender and racial/ethnic interactions are also explored across offense type (drug vs. non-drug) and type of sentencing departure (no departure, downward, or substantial assistance). Implications for future research are also discussed.     

Using Cost Analysis to Examine Variability in Replications of an Efficacious Child Neglect Prevention Program

This article reports on a program- and case-level cost analysis of five replication sites of an efficacious child neglect prevention program. Approximately one-third of all sites' total labor hours were expended on direct family services and casework support for a specific family, with the remainder spent on indirect implementation support and program administration activities. Including non-personnel costs, the all-site mean total cost per family was $6,276, ranging across sites from $2,245 to $10,260. Costs varied greatly among individual families within sites. More research is needed to understand factors associated with differences in cost.     

Predicting Short-Term Institutional Aggression in Forensic Patients: A Multi-Trait Method for Understanding Subtypes of Aggression

Accurately predicting inpatient aggression is an important endeavor. The current study investigated inpatient aggression over a six-month time period in a sample of 152 male forensic patients. We assessed constructs of psychopathy, anger, and active symptoms of mental illness and tested their ability to predict reactive and instrumental aggression. Across all levels of analyses, anger and active symptoms of mental illness predicted reactive aggression. Traits of psychopathy, which demonstrated no relationship to reactive aggression, were a robust predictor of instrumental aggression. This study (a) reestablishes psychopathy as a clinically useful construct in predicting inpatient instrumental aggression, (b) provides some validation for the reactive/instrumental aggression paradigm in forensic inpatients, and (c) makes recommendations for integrating risk assessment results into treatment interventions.

Female Sex Offenders: A Controlled Comparison of Offender and Victim/Crime Characteristics

The current study was a chart review of 31 female sex offenders (FSO), 31 male sex offenders (MSO), 31 female violent offenders (FO), and 31 male violent offenders (MO) using a 2 (female or male) by 2 (sex or violent offender) design. This is the first known study to employ three control groups when researching female sex offenders. Multiple variables appeared related to gender and crime. However, some variables emerged as FSO specific. They reported the least alcohol abuse history and had fewer admissions of guilt to the crime than the two violent offender samples. More FSOs knew their victim and were biologically related to their victim than MSOs. Lastly, the FSO sample was the least discriminating as to their victim’s gender and had the highest overall rate of sexual victimization.