Youth sexual offending: Context, good-enough lives, and engaging with a wider prevention agenda.

Abstract

In this article we reflect on developments in our thinking and practice concerning youth sexual offending. We put the case that context is critical to understanding and responding to the problem, and accordingly that a social ecological model provides the most suitable conceptual and practice framework for clinical efforts with this population. We argue that, since the primary goal of clinical forensic intervention is to prevent recidivism, clinical efforts should focus on a limited number of specific individual, situational, and ecological risk and protective factors. Finally, we describe how our clinical fieldwork has led to the discovery of serious endemic problems with youth sexual violence and abuse in two different communities, and outline our approach to designing, implementing and evaluating a suite of locally-tailored preventive interventions to reduce the prevalence and impact of these problems.