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This edition first published 2010
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Assessment and treatment of sexual offenders with intellectual disabilities : a handbook / edited by Leam A. Craig, William R. Lindsay and Kevin D. Browne.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-05838-1 (cloth) – ISBN 978-0-470-05839-8 (pbk.) 1. Sex offenders-Rehabilitation. 2. Offenders with mental disabilities-Rehabilitation. 3. Sex offenders-Psychology. 4. Sex offenders-Mental health services.
I. Craig, Leam. II. Lindsay, William R. III. Browne, Kevin D. (Kevin Dominic)
HV6556.A774 2010
364.3′8–dc22
2009052110
ISBN: 978-0-470-05838-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
About the Editors
Leam A. Craig, BA (Hons), MSc, PhD, CSci, AFBPsS, EuroPsy, C.Psychol (Forensic) is a consultant forensic psychologist and partner at Forensic Psychology Practice Ltd. He is a chartered psychologist, a chartered scientist and holder of the European Certificate in Psychology. His current practice includes direct services to forensic National Health Service Adult Mental Health Trusts and consultancy to Prison and Probation Services. He acts as an expert witness to civil and criminal courts in the assessment of sexual and violent offenders. He coordinates community-based treatment programmes for sexual offenders with intellectual disabilities in National Health Service, community forensic units and probation settings. He has published numerous chapters and research articles in a range of research and professional journals. He has recently completed an authored book with Professors Kevin Browne and Anthony Beech entitled Assessing Risk in Sex Offenders: A Practitioners Guide (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), and an edited book entitled Assessment and Treatment of Sex Offenders: A Handbook (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). He is currently working on Assessments in Forensic Practice: A Handbook (Wiley-Blackwell) with Kevin Browne and Anthony Beech. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Forensic and Criminological Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK.
Forensic Psychology Practice Ltd, The Willows Clinic, Boldmere, Sutton Coldfield, UK. Email: LeamCraig@forensicpsychology.co.uk
William R. Lindsay, PhD, C.Psychol, FBPsS is Consultant Forensic Clinical Psychologist and Lead Clinician in Scotland for Castlebeck Care. He was previously Head of Psychology (LD) in National Health Service Tayside and a consultant with the State Hospital, Carstairs. He is Professor of Learning Disabilities and Forensic Psychology at the University of Abertay, Dundee and Visiting Professor at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle. He has published over 200 research articles and book chapters and given many presentations and workshops on cognitive therapy and the assessment and treatment of offenders with intellectual disabilities. His recent publications include a workbook entitled The Treatment of Sex Offenders with Developmental Disabilities: A Practice Workbook (2009) and an edited book entitled Offenders with Developmental Disabilities (Lindsay, Taylor & Sturmey, 2004) both by Wiley.
Lead Clinician in Scotland and Head of Research for Castlebeck Care, Darlington, UK. Email: BillLindsay@castlebeck.com
Kevin D. Browne, BSc, MSc, MEd, PhD, MI.Biol, AFBPsS, C.Psychol (Forensic) is both a chartered biologist and chartered psychologist employed by the University of Nottingham as Chair of Forensic Psychology and Child Health. In 2008 re-established the Centre of Forensic and Family Psychology within the Institute of Work, Health and Organisation at Nottingham, after he originally set it up at the University of Birmingham in 1998. He has been researching family violence and child maltreatment for 30 years and has published extensively on the prevention of violence to children. After 12 years as an executive councillor of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN), he is currently Consultant to the European Commission, UNICEF and heads the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Child Care and Protection based in the UK. His research interests are concerned with the development of aggression, antisocial and criminal behaviour in children and teenagers, in particular the role of family violence, child abuse and neglect. Nationally, he is involved in the professional training of applied psychologists and he has developed the first professional doctorates in forensic psychology at the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham.
His most recent books are A Community Health Approach to the Assessment of Infants and their Parents: the CARE Programme (Browne, Douglas, Hamilton-Giachritsis & Hegarty, 2006) and Assessing Risk in Sex Offenders (Craig, Browne & Beech, 2008), both published by Wiley.
Institute of Work, Health & Organisations (I-WHO), University of Nottingham, International House, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham, NG8 1BB. Email: Kevin.browne@nottingham.ac.uk
Contributors
Douglas P. Boer, BSc, MSc, PhD, R.Clin.Psych (Canada and New Zealand) is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand and an adjunct professor of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Prior to going to New Zealand in 2006, he worked for 15 years in the Correctional Service of Canada in a variety of roles, including sex offender programme therapist, sex offender programme director and supervising/regional psychologist. He currently is the Director of the Clinical Psychology Programme at The University of Waikato, New Zealand. He also provides community-based treatment programmes for sexual offenders with intellectual disabilities and acts as an expert witness for criminal courts in Canada and the USA in the assessment of violent and sexual offenders. He has authored or co-authored a number of publications in the field of forensic correctional psychology including the Sexual Violence Risk – 20.
Eleanor Brewster, MD is a specialist registrar training in the Psychiatry of Learning Disabilities and General Adult Psychiatry. She has a particular interest in the treatment of severe mental illness affecting people with learning disabilities, and learning disability in the forensic population. Research interests include improving patient assessment tools and the interface between psychiatry and the legal system.
Kevin D. Browne, BSc., MSc., PhD., M.Ed., C. Biol., C.Psychol (Forensic) is Chair of Forensic Psychology and Child Health at the University of Nottingham and Director of the Centre of Forensic and Family Psychology within the Institute of Work, Health and Organisation, Nottingham. He also heads the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Child Care and Protection based in the UK. See ‘About the Editors’ section for more information about this author/editor.
Leam A. Craig, BA (Hons), MSc, PhD, CSci, AFBPsS, EuroPsy, C.Psychol (Forensic) is a consultant forensic psychologist and Partner at Forensic Psychology Practice Ltd. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Forensic and Criminological Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK. See ‘About the Editors’ section for more information about this author/editor.
Lynne Eccleston, BA, BA (Hons), PhD is a consultant forensic psychologist, and Director of Myndscape Consulting. She was formerly Director of the Forensic Psychology Program, the University of Melbourne. She is currently a guest lecturer and Fellow of the University of Melbourne. She has experience in the assessment, treatment and rehabilitation of male and female offenders, specialising in sexual and violent offenders including intellectually disabled offenders. She has designed and implemented programmes that address offenders' behaviours and psychopathology, and focus on rehabilitation and reducing criminogenic needs. Lynne's research interests and publications include the prediction of risk and dangerous behaviour in violent and sexual offenders and the assessment, treatment and rehabilitation of offenders.
J. Paul Fedoroff, MD is Vice Chair of the Royal Ottawa Research Ethics Committee, Director of the Integrated Forensic Program Sexual Behaviours Clinic, and Director of the Forensic Research Unit at the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research. He is also Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Dr Fedoroff's primary clinical and research interests are in the assessment and treatment of men and women with problematic sexual behaviours, especially those with intellectual disabilities. He has published extensively in these areas and provided consultation internationally. His publications support the proposition that, with modern methods, many criminal sexual problems can not only be treated but also prevented.
Hannah Ford, BSc (Hons), MPhil, ClinPsyD is a clinical psychologist working in the West Midlands with young people in care, including those who are involved in offending. Before moving to this role, Hannah worked for the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, contributing to the assessment and treatment of perpetrators of sexual offences against children and completing a Home Office commissioned evaluation of national need for residential treatment provision for sex offenders (with Anthony Beech). She has a particular interest in women who commit sexual offences and has written a book about this topic, published in 2006 by Wiley, entitled Women Who Sexually Abuse Children. She also has an interest in sex offenders with intellectual disabilities and completed her doctoral research in this area.
Matthew Frize is a registered psychologist in New South Wales (NSW), Australia and a member of the Australian Psychological Society. He works as a Senior Clinical Consultant in NSW's Department of Ageing Disability & Home Care's Criminal Justice Program -the state's community forensic disability service. In this role he provides assessment and intervention to people with an intellectual disability with a history of serious offending behaviours across NSW. He holds a Master's in Developmental and Educational Psychology and is currently completing a doctorate in Clinical Psychology.
Dorothy Griffiths is the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, a professor in the Child and Youth Studies Department and the Centre for Applied Disabilities Studies and the Co-Director of the International Dual Diagnosis Certificate Programme. Dr Griffiths has worked in the area of sexuality and behaviour challenges with persons with intellectual disabilities for more than 30 years. Among her many books, chapters and articles is the groundbreaking book Changing Sexually Inappropriate Behaviour (1989, Brookes Publishing) and the revised Socio-Sexual Knowledge and Attitude Assessment Tool (2003, Stoelting Company).
Fabian Haut is a consultant psychiatrist with responsibility for the Tayside forensic learning disability (LD) service. Additionally, he has Responsible Clinician responsibility for a generic LD community team. He holds a CCST for general adult psychiatry and learning disability and has an interest in dual diagnosis. His research interests lie in the area of dual diagnosis, particularly diagnostic criteria and their applicability to people with learning disability and forensic learning disability issues.
Susan Hayes, AO, PhD, FIASSID is Professor of Behavioural Science in Medicine and Head of the Centre for Behavioural Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney, Australia, where she teaches in the USyd Medical Program. She has been practising as clinical forensic psychologist with victims and offenders with intellectual disabilities for over 20 years, as well as undertaking research. A current research project is examining the prevalence of people with the dual diagnoses of intellectual disability and psychiatric disorder, presenting before NSW Magistrates Courts. In 2006 she was appointed as Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor at the Norah Fry Research Centre at the University of Bristol, UK. She has previously acted as a consultant to the Australian and NSW Law Reform Commissions in the area of the person with intellectual disability and the law. She was a member of the NSW Guardianship Tribunal. In 2004 she was made a Fellow of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disability (IASSID). She has published extensively in the field of rights of people with intellectual disabilities. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability and was recently guest editor for a special edition of the British Journal of Learning Disability, focussing on offenders with learning (intellectual) disabilities. In 2007, she was appointed to the post of Academic Advisor and Consultant for the Secure Specialised Commissioning Team for North West National Health Service (UK), to interact with various academic establishments in the UK and take the lead role in the formulation of research specifications and contracts, as well as monitoring the quality of commissioned research and advising about new research areas.
Frank Lambrick, D Psych (Forensic) is a registered psychologist with over 20 years experience working within the forensic disability field. He currently works as a practice leader with the Office of the Senior Practitioner, in the Victorian Department of Human Services, Australia. He also conducts lectures on forensic disability issues at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include assessment and treatment approaches for offenders with intellectual disability, including risk assessment and management.
Peter Langdon, BSc, D.Clin.Psy, C.Psychol, AFBPsS is a chartered clinical and forensic psychologist who is employed as a clinical lecturer within the School of Medicine, Health Policy and Practice, University of East Anglia (UEA). He has been involved in clinical psychology training for a number of years, and is part of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology course team at UEA. His clinical sessions take place the Broadland Clinic, Hertfordshire Partnership National Health Service Foundation Trust in Norwich, which is a National Health Service medium secure unit for offenders with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Among other areas, his research and clinical interests involve sexual offenders and other offenders with intellectual disabilities. He is a founder member of SOTSEC-ID, and has been involved in running sex offender treatment programmes for men with ID for a number of years.
William R. Lindsay, PhD, C.Psychol, FBPsS is Consultant Psychologist and Lead Clinician in Scotland for Castlebeck Care. He is Professor of Learning Disabilities and Forensic Psychology at the University of Abertay, Dundee and Visiting Professor at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle. See ‘About the Editors’ section for more information about this author/editor.
Michelle McManus, MSc completed her MSc in Investigative and Forensic Psychology, at the University of Liverpool in 2009 and is now completing her PhD at the Centre of Forensic and Family Psychology within the Institute of Work, Health and Organisation, University of Nottingham on Juvenile offenders and the court system.
Ruth E. Mann, PhD, C.Psychol is a chartered forensic psychologist and works for the National Offender Management Service, England and Wales, where she has overall responsibility for the national Sex Offender Treatment Programme, cognitive skills programmes and interventions research. She has been involved with the treatment of imprisoned sexual offenders for over 20 years.
Amanda M. Michie, PhD is Head of Clinical Psychology Services in Lothian NHS Learning Disability Service. She has completed research in the assessment and treatment of social and community living skills and in the last 10 years has worked with offenders with learning disabilities. Her clinical and research interests include sex offenders, anger management and cognitive behavioural therapy.
Catrin Morrissey, PhD, C.Psychol is a chartered forensic psychologist and lead psychologist in the National High Secure Learning Disability service at Rampton Hospital, one of three high secure hospitals in England. She has more than twenty years experience of working with sexual offenders and clinical and research interests in assessment and treatment of personality disorder in intellectual disability.
Shawn Mosher qualified in Canada before beginning his career in the UK with Partnerships in Care at Kneesworth House in Cambridgeshire, working with persons with ID in settings of medium security. He now works at Castlebeck Care in the north east of England. He has developed interests in working with persons with ID and sex offending and other challenging behaviours, as well as with staff, particularly around staff training and how it can affect direct work with this client group. Other interests include risk assessments of sexual and physical violence for both adolescents and adults as well as assessment of parents with ID.
Glynis Murphy, PhD, C. Psychol, FBPsS is a chartered clinical and forensic psychologist, Fellow of the British Psychological Society and President of the International Association of the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities (IASSID). She is is a joint Chair of Clinical Psychology and Learning Disability at the Tizard Centre, University of Kent and at Oxleas National Health Service Trust. She is coeditor of Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities and now works at the Tizard Centre, University of Kent. For many years, she has had research interests in challenging behaviour, abuse, forensic issues and the law in learning disabilities, and she has published widely on these topics. Among other activities, she is currently running a multi-site trial of cognitive-behavioural treatment for people with learning disabilities at risk of sexual offending (the SOTSEC-ID project).
Ruth Pappas is a senior clinical consultant with the NSW Dept of Ageing Disability and Homecare – Statewide Behaviour Intervention Service a specialist service that provides clinical support to those working with individuals with challenging and or offending behaviour. She has worked in the area of intellectual disability for over 25 years. Over the past eight years she has been specifically involved in resource development, training and group work with sex offenders and offenders with an intellectual disability.
Deborah Richards, BA, CHMH is a manager of specialised services for Community Living Welland Pelham as well as a Professor in Disability Studies at Niagara College Canada in Welland, Ontario. She is an author, lecturer, clinician and sex educator. She designs and teaches sexuality and social skills training curriculum for people with intellectual disabilities.
John Rose, PhD is Academic Director of the Clinical Psychology Training Course at The University of Birmingham and Divisional Psychologist in the Learning Disability Service for Dudley Primary Care Trust. Prior to this he worked on the Cardiff Clinical Psychology Training Course and as a clinical psychologist in a number of different services. He has written over 80 articles in academic and professional journals on issues related to cognitive therapy, service design, offenders with learning disabilities and staff and organisational issues in intellectual disability services. He continues to work clinically and apply his academic interests in practice.
John L. Taylor, BSc (Hons), MPhil, DPsychol, CPsychol, CSci, AFBPsS is a chartered clinical and forensic psychologist, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Psychological Services Professional Lead with Northumberland, Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust, UK. Since qualifying as a clinical psychologist from Edinburgh University he has worked mainly in intellectual disability and forensic services in high and medium secure hospitals, prison and community settings in the UK. He has published widely on the assessment and treatment of offending and mental health problems associated with intellectual disabilities. He is currently President of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) and Chair of the British Psychological Society's Mental Health Act Working Party.
Marleen Verhoeven completed her training in the Netherlands and moved to New Zealand 17 years ago. She is a consultant clinical psychologist at the Dual Disability Service (DDS), Auckland. DDS is a tertiary mental health service specialising in treating people with an intellectual disability and complex needs. Marleen has an interest in working with people with severe behavioural challenges and personality disorder and has worked extensively in both intellectual disability and in general mental health and is a guest lecturer on issues related to DBT and intellectual disability at Massey, Auckland and Waikato Universities. She has published on Asperger's Syndrome and psychological assessment and interventions for people with an intellectual disability.
Tony Ward, PhD, MA. (Hons), DipClinPsyc is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Clinical Director at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He was previously director of the Kia Marama Programme for sexual offenders at Rolleston Prison, Christchurch, New Zealand and has taught clinical and forensic psychology at Canterbury and Melbourne Universities. His research interests include the offense process in offenders, cognitive distortions and models of rehabilitation. He has published over 235 research articles, chapters and books. These include Theories of Sexual Offending, Wiley (2006), Rehabilitation: Beyond the Risk Paradigm, Routledge (2007), and Morals, Rights and Practice in the Human Services, Jessica Kingsley (2008). School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. Email:
Barry Watermam, Bach. Appl. Sci. (Hon), Dpsych (Forensic) is the currently Manager of the Disability Pathways Program, Corrections Victoria, Australia. He is also an honorary fellow of Deakin University. His research and clinical work has been in the assessment of offenders with a cognitive impairment and the development and implementation of offence specific treatment programs, particularly for violence and sex offenders with an intellectual disability.
Fiona Williams is responsible for the Adapted Sex Offender Treatment Programme in Prisons in England and Wales. She has lead on the treatment of ID sexual offenders since work on the ASOTP first started in 1995. She is currently developing a revised version of the ASOTP to enable seamless treatment options for intellectually disabled sexual offenders in custody and in the community.
Foreword
Historically, the sexual behavior of individuals with intellectual disabilities has been viewed as reflective of their underlying mental health issues, criminality, sexual dangerousness and lack of common moral standards. In fact, studies, conducted by Hubert Goddard (Goddard, 1912) in the United States, following the turn of the century, led him to conclude that intellectual delay was the cause for persons becoming prostitutes, criminals, perverts and whorehouse madams. As a result, he proposed a systematic solution of separating these individuals from society and barring them from reproduction. These ‘scientific’ conclusions, and others like them, led to sterilisation laws and a movement to institutionalise individuals with intellectual disabilities that persisted into the late 1970s and early 1980s within the United States and beyond. Institutionalisation allowed for complacency and an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude in addressing their sexually challenging behaviours. At the same time, reproductive laws were viewed as making the world safer for future generations. It was not until the ‘deinstitutionalisation’ movement of the 1960s that attention was finally directed to the rights and needs of intellectually disabled individuals. While the steps were small and going was slow, this marked the beginning of a recognition that intellectually disabled individuals' sexuality could be supported in a positive manner with a combination of social skills training, behavioral interventions and sexual education. Winifred Kempton, a therapist, said that by the 1970,s without precedents to follow, resources to use, research or experts to consult, we had to try to convince the public that persons with intellectual disabilities were sexual human beings with rights and, also, that we had to address sexually challenging behaviors of this population (Griffiths, Quinsey & Hingsburger, 1989). Still, in the early 1980s there were no theoretical models to give direction to the treatment of intellectually disabled sex offenders. It was not until the 1990s that there was a significant emphasis on developing sexual offender treatment programming for persons with intellectual disabilities that was tailored to their unique characteristics, rather than ‘simplified’ versions of adult offender treatment strategies.
Despite the phenomenal increase in attention focused on sex offender assessment and treatment since the 1980s, relatively little effort has gone into developing parallel programming for intellectually disabled sex offenders. A variety of barriers have limited work in this area. Initially professionals in the field were limited by their own isolation, which slowed the development of theories and tailored strategies for working with disabled sex offenders. Further, professionals had serious concerns that focusing attention on sexual offending behavior with this population would further label them as dangerous and increase their rejection by members of the wider community. A central and significant barrier to addressing sexual offending was the reluctance associated with viewing intellectually disabled individuals as ‘sexual beings’. It was not uncommon, even among professionals, for there to be considerable apprehension and discomfort in advocating for intellectually disabled individuals' rights to sexual expression. This matter was complicated by our longstanding historical propensity to treat these individuals as perpetual children who are asexual or, conversely, are sex crazed, lacking any ability to control themselves. These barriers have contributed to societal and professional norms that have made it easy to put the needs of this population on the ‘back burner’.
The success of the deinstitutionalisation movement created its own set of challenges.
As community integration became the norm, we were forced to address the complexities of intervening in sexually challenging behavior perpetrated by intellectually disabled individuals in a broad array of community settings. The greater the integration of these individuals into the community the higher the stakes and the greater the challenge. One might argue that our earlier forays into the treatment of this population were based on a certain degree of naivety and that we were guilty of minimising the potential risks to the community as well as to other individuals with intellectual deficits. In the late 1970s and the 1980s the watch words in working with this population were ‘close supervision’ and ‘containment’. The focus on public safety and the creation of group living environments in the community drove the development of intervention and supervision strategies, which were inextricably linked to the characteristics of these settings. As a result, one of the greatest dilemmas we currently face in working with this population is the unwitting development of ‘institutions’ for housing offenders with intellectual disabilities in the community. The institutional nature of these settings and the tight controls provided by the containment model have reduced community safety concerns. However, they have also obviated the need to develop more effective self-management approaches that can be used by intellectually disabled offenders. In essence, this combination of forces runs the risk of perpetuating a new era of ‘institutionalisation’ for this group of individuals.
As the field has devoted more attention to the sexual offending behavior of persons with intellectual disabilities it has relied heavily on research and intervention strategies based on non-intellectually disabled adult sex offenders. Not surprisingly, there has been considerable debate in the field as to the merits of this approach. Does it make sense to adapt research findings and programmatic materials from non-disabled offenders, or would we be best served by encouraging the separate development of a research foundation specifically related to the characteristics, needs and nuances of the intellectually disabled sex offender? While it has been expedient to borrow from an existing literature, certainly the answer lies in a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics, nature and development of offending by persons with intellectual disabilities. This will likely require patience as we strive to strengthen both the theoretical foundation for our work with this population and the strategies that flow from these conceptualisations. At the same time, the need for strongly grounded, evidence-based approaches to therapeutic interventions with this population offers the promise of more effective treatment programming.
Drs Craig, Lindsay and Browne have created a book that critically considers the progression of work in this field, recognises the complexities of the tasks associated with treating intellectually disabled sex offenders, and incorporates promising research in the development of interventions tailored to the needs and characteristics of this population. This book provides critical information on how we can improve the quality of life for individuals with intellectual disabilities who exhibit sexually challenging behaviors, without compromising community safety. This book offers strategies for increasing the disabled offender's ability to actively participate in their treatment, without losing a victim centered focus. It also encourages the judicious use of containment and supervision strategies where indicated. It does, however, point out that using containment as the primary method to manage sexual offending behavior is costly and does not lend itself to long-term offender change. Similarly, the authors suggest that supervision should be prescriptively used where risk dictates its value. In contrast, by using ‘blanket’ containment approaches as an overall primary management strategy is unnecessary and financially burdening.
The authors have also done an exceptional job of highlighting an exciting movement in the field that embraces the advantages of collaboration. Of particular note are the partnerships that involve experts who have previously published outside of the area of intellectual disability or outside the sex offender assessment and treatment arena. These collaborations brought new ideas to the area and led to an ‘explosion’ of publishing on issues related to the assessment and treatment of sexually disabled sex offenders. The inclusion of these individuals in this book brings with it the incorporation new paradigms and new perspectives. Moreover, it offers the opportunity to consider methods and interventions used previously in other fields and only recently utilised with intellectually disabled sex offenders. As such, work in this area will begin to inform the broader sex offender treatment literature.
Leam Craig, Bill Lindsay and Kevin Browne have done an impressive job of organising and editing this book around the issues most relevant and timely for addressing sexually offending issues with intellectually disabled individuals. They have gathered a ‘who's who’ of experts in the field to create a collection of chapters that covers theory, research and practical intervention approaches designed for the practitioner. This book provides an up-to-date review of the research literature pertaining to theories; prevalence; offender characteristics; sexual offending behavior; and cutting edge assessment and treatment strategies appropriate for use in institutions and community settings. These approaches create a strong foundation for the development of effective interventions that are a better fit for our systems of care, that are cost effective and make sense for the intellectually disabled sex offender population that we serve. This book is destined to become a primary resource for practitioners committed to high quality treatment that promotes greater offender responsibility and autonomy, without compromising community safety.
James Haaven
Portland, United States
November 2009
References
Goddard, H.H. (1912). The Kallikak family. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Griffiths, D., Quinsey, V. & Hingsburger, D. (1989). Changing inappropriate sexual behavior: A community based approach for persons with developmental disabilities. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.