Sex Offender Policy Is Hard

Really nice article on sex offender treatment in WA and the difficulties associated with dealing with hard core offenders. Makes the point that we aren’t putting the resources needed into solid new research to help and that the treatments are basically unchanged in 2-3 decades. And this, in the state that has the gold standard state policy evaluation institute in the nation. If we were serious, we’d get the WA people and Kim English and her crew in CO and a few others together, put them in a room, and not let them out until they came up with something that was nuanced for the range of offenders and tailored and effective for offenders at all levels, even if that meant lifetime commitment for a substantial proportion. Don’t worry about them suffering in that room very long—it probably wouldn’t take them a whole day. Which makes why we don’t even sillier. (h/t CrimProf Blog)