Theories of Sexual Offending

This comprehensive text provides an up-to-date review and critique of current theorising about sexual offending. It presents the key ideas underpinning each theory in a clear and accessible manner. Theories are rigorously tested and evaluated, and their merits are examined from both a research and a clinical point of view. Importantly, the emphasis is on providing clear links between theory and practice, and the clinical implications of the different theories and perspectives are explicitly discussed. In addition, a number of new ideas about the aetiology of sexual offending are presented. Theories of Sexual Offending is one of the few books to draw all of the disparate strands of theorising together, and is the only one to clearly link theory to practice. It will be a valuable resource for any professional working with sexual offenders, such as clinical and forensic psychologists, psychiatrists, probation officers and social workers. It will also be of interest to students of forensic and clinical psychology.

Tony ward, PhD, DipClinPsyc, is a clinical psychologist by training and has been working in the clinical and forensic field since 1987. He was formerly Director of the Kia Marama Sexual Offenders' Unit at Rolleston Prison in New Zealand, and has taught both clinical and forensic psychology at Victoria, Canterbury, and Melbourne Universities. He is currently the Director of Clinical Training at Victoria University of Wellington. Professor Ward's research interests fall into five main areas: rehabilitation models and issues; cognition and sex offenders; the problem behavior process in offenders; the implications of naturalism for theory construction and clinical practice; and assessment and case formulation in clinical construction and clinical practice; and assessment and case formulation in clinical psychology. He has published over 110 research articles, chapters and books. These include Remaking Relapse Prevention, with D.R. Laws and S.M. Hudson (Sage, 2000) and the Source book of Treatment Programs for Sexual Offenders, with W. l. Marshall, Y.A. Fernandez, and S.M. Hudson (Plenum, 1998). Email: Tony. Ward@vuw.ac.nz Devon Polaschek, PhD, DipClinPsyc, is a senior lecturer in criminal justice psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and former Director of Clinical tr5aining. her research interests include (a) offence processes of rapists and violent offenders, (b) cognition in and cognitive-experimental research with violent and sexual offenders, and (c) offender rehabilitation theory and evolution. She is also a research Consultant to the Violence Prevention Unit at Rimutaka Prison, near Wellington. Email: Devon.Polaschek@vuw.ac.nz. Anthony Beech, DPhil, BSc, is professor in criminological psychology in the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Over the last 10 years he has been the lead researcher of the STEP (Sex Offender Treatment Evaluation Project) team. Here he has been involved in treatment evaluation and the development of systems to look at treatment need and treatment change in sex offenders. this work is regarded as having a major influence on assessment and treatment in the UK. he has written widely on the topi8cs of assessment and treatment of sexual offenders, and other related subjects. Email: a.r.beech@bham.ac.uk.