RCT of a promising vocational/employment program for high-risk juvenile offenders

Juvenile offenders with substance use problems are at high risk for deleterious long-term outcomes. This study evaluated the capacity of a promising vocational and employment training program in the building sector (i.e., Community Restitution Apprenticeship-Focused Training, CRAFT) to mitigate such outcomes through enhanced employment and education. Participants were 97 high-risk juvenile offenders (mean age = 15.8 years) randomized to CRAFT versus education as usual (EAU) intervention conditions. Multi-method procedures measured employment, education, substance use, mental health, and criminal outcomes through a 30-month post-baseline follow-up. CRAFT was significantly more effective than EAU at increasing rates of youth employment and GED attendance. Intervention effects were not observed, however, for months employed, hours worked, or hourly wage. Measures of youth substance use, mental health symptoms, and criminal activity showed no favorable or iatrogenic effects. The potential of CRAFT was modestly supported, and suggestions were made for future research.     

Quasi-Compulsory Treatment of Drug Dependent Offenders: An International Literature Review

This paper reports on a review of the literature on the quasi-compulsory treatment (QCT) of drug dependent offenders in five languages; English, German, French, Italian and Dutch. The findings of this review on previous reviews and on the availability, process, and outcomes of QCT are summarized. The review found that previous, anglophone reviews have tended to present positive outcomes from QCT, but that there are some problems with this research. QCT is increasingly available internationally, but may be applied at different stages of the criminal justice process, and to different types of offender. Research on the process of QCT is comparatively rare. The available research does suggest problems of system integration between criminal justice and treatment agencies in implementing QCT. The research in languages other than English shows a wider range of outcomes (including negative effects) for QCT than was found in the English literature. We conclude that the international literature shows that QCT does not inevitably produce worse outcome than voluntary treatment, but that we need more multimethod, multisite studies of QCT in order to inform policy and practice, which is currently being made in the absence of reliable evidence in many countries.     

Exploring Anger Among Offenders: The Role of Emotion Dysregulation and Alexithymia

This study tests whether specific dimensions of emotion dysregulation predict maladaptive anger expression among offenders from Italy and Australia. In particular, it examines the unique associations among emotion dysregulation dimensions and different aspects of anger expression and control, in both inmates and offenders on parole. Multiple regression analyses reveal that difficulties controlling impulsive behaviour when distressed are related to state anger, trait anger, and chronic anger expression. On the other hand, alexithymia predicts the maladaptive expression of anger inwardly directed. Finally, lack of emotional awareness and limited access to emotion regulation (ER) strategies are negatively related to anger control, suggesting that they may represent useful treatment targets. Interestingly, incarcerated offenders reported significantly higher levels of state anger and lower levels of anger control out (i.e. seeking support from others) than offenders living on parole in the community, highlighting the importance of contextual influences in the emotional life of offenders.     

Retrospective self-reports of childhood accidents causing unconsciousness in phallometrically diagnosed pedophiles

The present study investigated whether head injuries in childhood might increase the risk of pedophilia in males. The subjects were 1206 patients referred to a clinical sexology service for assessment of their erotic preferences. These were classified, on the basis of phallometric test results, as pedophilic (n = 413) or nonpedophilic (n = 793). Information regarding early head injuries, other signs of possible neurodevelopmental problems, and parental histories of psychiatric treatment were collected with self-administered questionnaires. The results showed that childhood accidents that resulted in unconsciousness were associated with pedophilia and with lower levels of intelligence and education. These associations were statistically significant for accidents that occurred before the age of 6, but not for accidents that occurred between the ages of 6 and 12. These results are compatible with the hypothesis that neurodevelopmental perturbations in early childhood may increase the risk of pedophilia. They are also, however, compatible with the alternative explanation that prior neurodevelopmental problems lead to accident-proneness and head injury, on the one hand, and to pedophilia, on the other, and that head injury has no causal influence on pedophilia. A secondary finding was that the pedophiles were more likely to report that their mothers had undergone psychiatric treatment. This finding suggests that pedophilia may be influenced by genetic factors, which are manifested in women as an increased risk of psychiatric problems, and in their sons, as an increased risk of erotic interest in children.     

少年教养人员心理健康状况及影响因素的研究

目的：探讨少年教养人员这个特殊群体心理健康状况的影响因素，为提出相应的有针对性的干预建议提供依据。方法：采用整群抽样的方法抽取某劳动教养所少教中队的少年教养人员，选用反映综合心理健康状况的量表-症状自评量表(SCL-90)，对其心理健康状况进行综合评估。结果：少年教养人员的心理问题较多，影响因素分析显示：交往能力差等是危险因素，知心朋友多等是保护因素。结论：提高少教的交往能力和应付困难能力，以减少心理问题的发生。     

Community notification: Neither a panacea nor a calamity

Community notification of the release of sex offenders has provoked opposition from offender treatment providers who fear that it does not enhance community safety and is a short-sighted response to the problem of sex offending. Many of the arguments opposing community notification misunderstand its role, are based on speculation and might jeopardize the justifications for treatment alternatives. Sex offender treatment providers take risks when they denigrate or oppose the wishes of the community.     

Handedness in Pedophilia and Hebephilia

A sample of 404 adult men underwent assessment following illegal or clinically significant sexual behaviors or interests. Patients’ assessments included: administration of a modified version of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory; recording of patients’ phallometric (penile) responses to erotic stimuli depicting adults, pubescent children, and prepubescent children of both sexes; and a tabulation of the numbers of patients’ victims, ages 0–11, 12–14, 15–16, and 17 and older, of both sexes. In Study 1, patients’ right-handedness scores correlated negatively with their phallometric responses to stimuli depicting prepubescent children and positively with stimuli depicting adults, replicating the pattern described in a previous report (Cantor et al., 2004). Unlike the previous study, however, patients’ handedness scores did not significantly correlate with their numbers of prepubescent victims. To explore this discrepancy, Study 2 combined the patients from this replication sample with those in the previously reported sample, categorizing them by the sex and age group of greatest erotic interest to them. The odds of non-right-handedness in men offending predominantly against prepubescent children were approximately two-fold higher than that in men offending predominantly against adults and three-fold higher after eliminating those men with intrafamilial (i.e., incest) offenses. Handedness differences between men erotically interested in males versus females were not statistically significant. These results indicate that the rates of non-right-handedness in pedophilia are much larger than previously suggested and are comparable to the rates observed in pervasive developmental disorders, such as autism, suggesting a neurological component to the development of pedophilia and hebephilia.     

Sexual Fantasies of Adolescent Male Sex Offenders in Residential Treatment: A Descriptive Study

An attenuating sample of 87 male adolescent sexual offenders logged sexual fantasies during their entire time in therapy. These patients were attending residential treatment and kept a log recording all normal and deviant sexual fantasies which they experienced. Patients recorded which fantasies were interrupted and which fantasies were accompanied by masturbation. Typically, at the beginning of treatment, the reported rate of normal fantasies was maximal, the occurrence of deviant fantasies was minimal, and there was little effort to interrupt the deviant fantasies. The reported frequency of deviant fantasies increased substantially (about 380%) during the first 5 months of treatment and then steadily declined (approximately 47%) over the remaining months in therapy. Following an initial decline in the early months of treatment, an increase in the rates of normal fantasies was reported. Additionally, over the course of treatment, the frequency of deviant fantasies decreased relative to all fantasies. While deviant fantasies remained predominant to normal sexual fantasies and were more frequently paired with masturbation, patients reported substantial changes in the proportion of deviant fantasies that were interrupted (from about 20% to 70%). Implications of the results for juvenile sex offender treatment are discussed.