Sexual offender treatment efficacy revisited

Several authors have recently addressed current views of sexual offender treatment efficacy. Some maintain that offenders can gain from treatment while others argue that the vast majority cannot. Some researchers say that the field of sexual offender treatment is too new to be able to determine whether or not treatment works. This latter group notes that most studies in this field have not yet reached the point at which meta-analytic techniques can be applied; for this reason no definitive statements can be made about the utility of treatment. The present analysis examines the issues from a slightly different perspective. Data from a large group of studies are combined to identify patterns which can be examined later in more detail. More specifically, 79 sexual offender treatment outcome studies are reviewed, encompassing 10,988 subjects. Recidivism rates for treated versus untreated offenders are investigated according to age of offender, age of victim, offense type, type of treatment, location of treatment, decade of treatment, and length of follow-up. Each study is used as the unit of analysis, and studies are combined according to the number of treated versus untreated subjects who reoffended in each category. Clinical implications are drawn from these results.