FSSH researcher co-edits book on sexual offender treatment

Dr. Leigh Harkins, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, has co-edited a book that offers insights into the treatment of sexual offenders.

Sex offender treatment: A case study approach to issues and interventions offers direct access to the practical insights and experience of experts in the field. It describes case formulations, assessment processes and treatment undertaken with specific sexual offender types.

“Case studies are able to bring these offenders to life in a way that simply reading about offender characteristics or treatment approaches cannot,” Dr. Harkins said. “It makes them human, which means you learn more about them than just the offense they committed.”

The book goes beyond theory and provides psychologists, social workers and other practitioners with valuable lessons about treatment implementation, based on the successes and challenges encountered by therapists trying to implement these approaches in the real world.

This distinctive approach helps trainee and novice workers recognize key treatment issues, and plan and implement courses of therapeutic engagement and intervention to improve offender self-control.

The book is organized by key offender populations, including:

• bipolar offenders
• child sexual abusers
• female offenders
• Internet offenders
• personality disordered offenders
• psychopathic offenders

Dr. Harkins has experience working in treatment groups for sexual offenders, completing psychological assessments in prisons and community criminal justice settings in Canada and the United Kingdom. Her published research focuses on sexual aggression, offender rehabilitation and offenses committed by multiple perpetrators.