Question

Pros/Cons of preventative therapy for sexual offenders?

What do you think are the pros and cons of preventative therapy?

Answer 1

Answer.

Relapse prevention is a prominent behaviour modification approach that has been a cornerstone of efforts to reform sex offenders within the United States.

However, there is little convincing evidence that the approach actually works. Firstly, it is found that even though preventive therapy involves a day long monitoring and training in insight and impulse control to the offenders, it does not completely alleviate the bouts or the temptation towards sexual desire. Many of the sex offenders are thus compelled to resign themselves to a lifelong day-to-day struggle with temptation. Moroever, the proportion population of sex offenders who undergo preventive treatment only include those individuals who are legally bound to undergo such treatment. The majority of offenders who are not identified by the law enforcement machinery remain out of the reach of preventive therapy.

thousands of sex offenders are confined or restricted beyond their prison terms under civil commitment laws. But the civil commitment programs put overbearing cost on the state as they can amount to four times more than the budget for keeping sex offenders in prison. The problem is further exacerbated by the lack of sufficient number of professionals in such facilities as there is no full fledged training programme for preventive treatment in the field of psychotherapy. The research on treating sex offenders was practically nonexistent,  partly because sex offenders present major challenges as research subjects and are suspicious of the processes of research and treatment.