Adolescent perpetrators of sexual abuse -long term outcome of treatment

Abstract

Abstract Introduction In the Northern Ireland Child Sexual Abuse Study (Kennedy et al 1990) 36% of all cases of abuse involved juvenile perpetrators. In the last few years attempts to treat these young perpetrators have been made in the form of individual and group treatment programmes alongside family work. Similar programmes have been in place in other parts of the world, especially the United States, for many years. There is some evidence from follow up studies conducted in the USA (Kahn and Chambers 1991, Schram et al 1991) that sexual re-offending after adolescent programmes involving individual group and family work had low rates of sexual recidivism (12%). Rates for non-sexual offending were higher (48%). These studies have not indicated any recidivism rates for untreated perpetrators, but one study of the long term outcome of a behavioural treatment programme for adult perpetrators (Marshall and Barbaree 1988) showed recidivism rates for treated heterosexual paedophiles at 18% versus 43% untreated...