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Our Minds Are Made Up--Don't Confuse Us With the Facts: Commentary on Policies Concerning Children With Sexual Behavior Problems and Juvenile Sex Offenders

NCJ Number
222827
Journal
Child Maltreatment Volume: 13 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2008 Pages: 110-121
Author(s)
Mark Chaffin
Date Published
May 2008
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article examines four common policy-relevant perceptions of teen and preteen sex offenders: high-risk, specialness, homogeneity, and intransigence.
Abstract
Public policies for these youth have been fundamentally driven by misperceptions, resulting in a set of well-intentioned but ultimately flawed policies and practices that are unlikely to deliver youth child protection or juvenile justice benefits. Juvenile-on-juvenile sex crimes are a prevalent problem requiring serious policy consideration. Given some sort of credible intervention, long-term risk is generally low and not unusually different from that of many other common and far larger juvenile groups. Recidivism hazard rates decline quickly, suggesting that there is no need to take a long-term risk focus with the vast majority of these youth. Risk often can be managed by teaching caregivers basic parenting and monitoring skills and does not require a complete mental health overhaul. For the overwhelming majority of youth, the problem is in no way commensurate with the stereotypic image of pedophilic adult child molesters for sexual predators, let alone child sex murders. Evidence-based models and practice elements that work for other juvenile behavior problems tend to work for many other youth as well. Subspecialty expertise in esoteric treatments is not invariably needed in order to be effective. When fairly straightforward, practical, and low-burden services that include common evidence-based elements are delivered the problem tends to change promptly and the benefits are durable in the long run. Child protection and management concerns should be refocused on a very small number of high-risk individuals and these risk determinations reconsidered at fairly close intervals because they are likely to decrease. References