Treatment of Sex Offenders

13 Desistance from Crime: Toward an Integrated Conceptualization for Intervention
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aggravation throughout adolescence into adulthood. These individuals are most likely
to be multi-problem youth characterized by neuropsychological deficits in conjunction
with a criminogenic familial environment. According to her model, it is not so
much the neuropsychological deficits or the criminogenic familial environment that
are conducive to long-term persistence of offending, but a developmental process by
which a vulnerable children with executive function deficits repeatedly interacts with
a familial environment that is ill prepared to act and react to the child’s difficult and
disruptive behavior and such negative reactions can further entrench the child’s
behavioral and emotional problems. The adolescent-limited group presents a delinquency
that is short-lived, transitory, and circumspect to the period of adolescence.
Contrary to their life-course persistent counterpart, these youth do not present an
early onset of antisocial behavior in spite of their adolescent-limited involved in crime
and delinquency. Contrary to Sampson and Laub ( 2005 ) assertions, Moffitt ( 1993 )
contends that access to adult roles are not independent from individuals’ developmental
history. On the one hand, the theory asserts that life- course persisters suffer from
the cumulative disadvantages or their early and persistent antisocial behavior which
can disrupt their school performance, which in turn will impact their educational
achievement, and consequently their access to fulfilling, rewarding, and stable jobs.
On the other hand, late-onset adolescent-limited antisocial behavior only emerges
after youth have accumulated the individual and interpersonal skills and stronger
attachments necessary to access adult roles conducive to desistance from crime. In
other words, these adolescent-limited offenders did not experience the early-onset of
behavioral problems during the formative years that can disrupt the development and
create long-last cumulative deficits. Moffitt’s theory recognizes that some youth presenting
all the characteristics of an adolescent-limited antisocial behavior may be
ensnared into adult criminal activities due to the negative consequence of their implications
in juvenile delinquency (e.g., teen pregnancy, drug abuse, arrest/conviction).
More recently, Stouthamer- Loeber, Wei, Loeber, and Masten ( 2004 ) examined the
data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study on the development of delinquency and found
that youth involved in serious delinquency with gang ties who endorsed an antisocial
lifestyle and use hard drugs were more likely to persist offending into adulthood.
While Moffitt’s original developmental model has received empirical validation (e.g.,
Piquero & Moffitt, 2005 ), results suggest that there are additional developmental patterns
not accounted by the developmental model.
Common Explanations of Desistance and Sexual Offending
The scientific literature on the theoretical, clinical and empirical factors linked to
desistance from sexual offending is in its infancy (Laws & Ward, 2011 ). Currently,
there is little theoretical or empirical work suggesting that factors supporting desistance
from sexual offending are distinct or different than those from general offending.
It could be reasonably assumed that the same factors responsible for desistance
from general offending also by extension favor desistance from sexual offending.