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Journal of Sexual Aggression
An international, interdisciplinary forum for research, theory and practice
Volume 16, 2010 - Issue 3
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Debate: Sex offender treatment – Punishment or therapy?

Sex offender programmes: New technology coping with old ethics

Pages 261-274 | Published online: 07 Jun 2010
 

Abstract

Sex offender treatment programmes offer new technologies for dealing with a serious social problem but demand the sacrifice of many traditional principles of mental health ethics, such as the therapist's obligation to give primacy to the client's interest and the therapist's duties to maintain confidentiality, use non-coercive treatment and offer a choice of therapies in all but exceptional circumstances. Recognizing that such programmes are, in fact, a form of punishment enables the formulation of more consistent and practical ethical guidelines for therapists attempting interventions with sex offenders. An example of how such guidelines could be developed uses a consequentialist justification for punishment which targets the protection of human rights, rather than crime prevention, as its goal.

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