There has been a historical societal tension between the punishment and the treatment of sex offenders. When engaging in such a debate, it is helpful to make distinctions between punishment, prevention, and protection in order to determine how to best deal with sex offenders within the criminal justice system. Once a sex offender has entered the criminal justice system, both legal and psychological practitioners are concerned with changing the behavior of the sex offender. The legal theory of therapeutic jurisprudence serves to intersect law and psychology to maximize the therapeutic effects of the law while minimizing the deleterious consequences of the law. Therapeutic jurisprudence can thus provide a framework for assessing, treating, and managing sex offenders that combine legal and psychological processes. The result is a criminal justice process that balances prevention and protection. The therapeutic jurisprudence approach also has the potential to serve as a framework for post-release supervision, bringing together legal and psychological practitioners to meet the therapeutic needs of the offender and the protection needs of society. Table, references