The assessment of female sexual offenders
| dc.contributor.author | Cortoni, F., & Gannon, T. A. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-03-08T19:50:50Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2021-03-08T19:50:50Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2016 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Just like with male sexual offenders, the assessment of women who have committed sexual offences is predominantly driven by the need to establish the likelihood of future sexual offending behaviour, identify problematic issues related to their offending, and outline interventions that would reduce their risk of recidivism. Women are also subjected to the same sanctions as males in the criminal justice system, including social control policies (e.g., Sexually Violent Predator laws in the U.S.). As such, it is crucial that their assessment of risk and treatment needs be based on empirically validated approaches. Due to the dearth of information on female sexual offenders’ risk of sexual recidivism and related treatment needs, the assessment of these women has traditionally been conducted using male-based risk assessment procedures. Basically, the idea was that (1) crime is neutral, and (2) male-based tools are better than nothing. In more recent years, however, these two premises have been refuted. First, research has now established that gender matters in criminal behaviour. In other words, there exist gender-specific issues that need to be taken into account when assessing women. Second, research shows that female sexual offenders differ greatly from their male counterparts in terms of recidivism rates. Hence, risk assessment tools validated for males would over-evaluate risk of recidivism in females. Because of these issues, the assessment of risk and treatment needs of female sexual offenders remains a difficult endeavour. The low prevalence of female sexual offending, and their low rates of recidivism, renders difficult the development of women-specific empiricallyvalidated risk assessment tools and practices. Despite these difficulties, there is now a growing empirical foundation from which evaluators can draw to improve the validity of their assessment of female sexual offenders. This chapter reviews this empirical foundation and provides guidelines for the evaluation of female sexual offenders’ risk and treatment needs. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Cortoni, F., & Gannon, T. A. (2016). The assessment of female sexual offenders. The Wiley handbook on the theories, assessment and treatment of sexual offending, 1017-1036. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://kar.kent.ac.uk/53594/1/Cortoni&GannoninpressAssessmentFSOs.pdf | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11212/5002 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Wiley | en_US |
| dc.subject | recidivism | en_US |
| dc.subject | female offenders | en_US |
| dc.subject | research | en_US |
| dc.subject | evaluation | en_US |
| dc.subject | treatment | en_US |
| dc.title | The assessment of female sexual offenders | en_US |
| dc.type | Book chapter | en_US |