Department of Criminology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA, USA
Criminal Justice Department, Mercyhurst University, Erie, PA, USA.
Trauma Violence Abuse. 2016 Jan;17(1):105-17. doi: 10.1177/1524838014566719. Epub 2015 Jan 8.
The effectiveness of sex offender treatment programs continues to generate misinformation and disagreement. Some literature reviews conclude that treatment does not reduce recidivism while others suggest that specific types of treatment may warrant optimism. The principal purpose of this study is to update the most recent meta-analyses of sex offender treatments and to compare the findings with an earlier study that reviewed the meta-analytic studies published from 1995 to 2002. More importantly, this study examines effect sizes across different age populations and effect sizes across various sex offender treatments. Results of this review of meta-analyses suggest that sex offender treatments can be considered as "proven" or at least "promising," while age of participants and intervention type may influence the success of treatment for sex offenders. The implications of these findings include achieving a broader understanding of intervention moderators, applying such interventions to juvenile and adult offenders, and outlining future areas of research.
性犯罪者治疗项目的效果仍然存在信息错误和争议。一些文献综述得出结论认为，治疗并不能降低累犯率，而另一些则认为特定类型的治疗可能值得乐观。本研究的主要目的是更新最近的性犯罪者治疗元分析，并将研究结果与较早的一项研究进行比较，该研究回顾了 1995 年至 2002 年发表的元分析研究。更重要的是，本研究考察了不同年龄群体的效应大小和不同性犯罪者治疗的效应大小。这些元分析的综述结果表明，性犯罪者的治疗可以被认为是“已证实”或至少是“有前途的”，而参与者的年龄和干预类型可能会影响性犯罪者治疗的效果。这些发现的意义包括更广泛地了解干预调节因素，将这些干预措施应用于青少年和成年罪犯，并概述未来的研究领域。
