Working with sex offenders in a climate of public blame and anxiety: How to make defensible decisions for risk

Abstract

Work with sex offenders takes place in a climate of public blame and anxiety. This requires practitioners to adopt the highest standards of practice to ensure that defensible decisions are made. These are decisions that must withstand hindsight scrutiny in the light of a risk management failure. This paper reviews the key practice points that will assist practitioners in making defensible decisions, and the key challenges for practitioners in this challenging area of work.

Keywords:

• Defensible decisions
• risk assessment
• risk management
• best practice

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my colleague Jason Wood with whom I have collaborated on a number of the projects cited in this paper. The views expressed in this article are entirely the author's.