NCJ Number
223368
Journal
Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: 2008 Pages: 89-94
Date Published
2008
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article discusses professional specialization in the evaluation and therapy of sexual offenders.
Abstract
This article disagrees with the position that professional specialization in the evaluation and therapy of sexual offenders is justified, and opines that an explanation of the current interest in specialization would demonstrate the interest to be primarily of an economic nature. The article purports that recent efforts have been such to define evaluation and treatment of sexual offenders as a specialty within psychology. Some of the traditional approaches to determining the presence of a specialty were examined and the findings concluded that sexual offender treatment and evaluation do not presently meet those standards. The economic perspective of supply and demand is discussed, and specialization, along with citing the knowledge required for a specialty is defined. The article concludes that the efforts to obtain specialization through legislation, or the administrative process from a State board, merited scrutiny as related to sexual offenders. The opinion was that by seeking unjustified specialty status, practitioners were seemingly seeking to reduce the provider pool and increase personal remuneration. References