posted 01-06-2013 08:55 AM            

The link to the abstract is below the excerpt I quoted:

"The polygraph has a tangled history with sexuality, as we describe in the context of homosexuality in the 1960s. We describe how sexual management strategies target the offender as malleable in regard to his sexual performance and provide him with technologies to channel his desire. However, through notions of risk and surveillance, the discourse essentialises his identity as fundamentally incurable and thus permanently risky. As such, these combined practices create a paradox that reveals a certain anxiety about the relationship between abnormal and normal sexual identity in contemporary discourse. Ultimately, the paper argues that the sex offender represents the contemporary ‘monster’, whose denial of his crimes proves crucial to the treatment strategy that contains him outside normality."

posted 01-08-2013 08:44 AM            

It may be a bit difficult for us, as the article does not simply bang the drum of community safety and risk, but questions our assumptions. Anytime you hear a psychological thinker mention Foucault it is a signal to get ready to be turned upside down. But strange and difficult as he was, Foucault will be regarded in the future as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. He is already, and they whole system of psychology and social work, including policing (the ultimate form of social work) and judicial policy is already influenced by him whether it satisfies our rationalist tendencies or not.

Aside from all that the article seems to not say much, other than to repeat some erroneously simplistic criticism of the polygraph, confuse the polygraph and plethysmograph, question our use of categorical discussions of paraphilias and deviancy (note that not all paraphilias are deviant, abusive or unlawful), and challenge the assumptions surrounding our need to categorize sex offenders as non-normal monsters.

The important thing - the thing not to neglect - is that there are more and more of these scholarly articles that question and undermine current foundational assumptions of sex offender treatment and sex offender management.

Pay careful attention and you will notice a decisive shift away from confrontational treatment strategies, addiction paradigms, no-cure models, and even relapse-prevention. What we'll notice is more and more discussion about a "good-lives" model, in which therapists return to doing therapy as a practice of empowerment with the goal of teaching offenders the skills they need to not reoffend.

The real risk is that we neglect to consider the impact on victims, who often say the thing they want most is to know that the offender will never do it to another person.

The challenge for us is to learn to understand and integrate our work and our accountability-base value system into the changing clinical dialogue in sex offender treatment programs.

.02

r

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