Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Sex Offenders: A Psycho-Legal Approach to Protection

Societal response to sex offenders is marked by uncertainty about whether punishment or treatment should occur. The distinction between punishment, prevention, and protection is useful to determine how best to assess, treat, and manage sex offenders within the criminal justice system. Once convicted, both law and psychology are concerned with sex offenders changing their behavior in order to protect the community. Therapeutic jurisprudence is a legal theory that aims to maximize therapeutic effects of the law and minimize anti-therapeutic consequences of the law. Therapeutic jurisprudence provides a framework to combine legal and psychological processes to balance prevention and protection. Legal and correctional practitioners can work together to address both community protection and offender protection concerns.