Sex Offender Treatment: Two Promising Approaches?

It is with great pleasure that I share the following editorial, “Sex Offender Treatment: Two Promising Approaches” published in the inaugural issue of Sociology and Criminology. This innovative open access journal promises to appeal to a wide range of audiences interested incriminology and criminal justice. The OMICS Group Special features of the journal ensure rapid dissemination of high quality studies in the discipline.

This commentary focuses on an important and controversial public policy issue in our field–sex offender treatment. It argues that in conjunction with punishment, treatment efforts should also be considered for sex offender management in the U.S. The pronounced attention to sex offending in the U.S. is striking. To illustrate, the population of registered sex offenders nationally comprises nearly 740,000 individuals. Given the expansion of registry laws, this number is on track to increase significantly in future years.