Sexual Deviance

Noting that the "assessment and intervention phases of clinical reasoning are shot through with normative commitments and judgments," Ward (forensic psychology, U. of Melbourne, Australia), Laws, (formerly of Adult Forensic Psychiatric Services, Canada) and Hudson (formerly Director of Clinical Psychology, U. of Canterbury, New Zealand) present 19 contributions that are about equally divided between discussions of conceptual issues of forensic psychology and examinations of therapeutic responses to sexual deviance (in a criminal sense). Among the topics: child sexual abuse, evolutionary explanations of rape, behavioral economic approaches to assessment and treatment, developmental antecedents to sexual offending, pharmacological treatments, sexual offending as a public health problem, and risk-need models of offender rehabilitation. Annotation c. Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR

Stephen M Hudson, PhD, DipClinPsyc, was Director of Clinical Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He was instrumental in the establishment of New Zealand's first specialized treatment unit for child molesters at Rolleston Prison, Kia Marama, in 1989. His research work was grouped into three major areas: intimacy and attachment style, cognitive distortions, and offence pathways/relapse prevention models. The results of these research projects were published in more than 80 books, book chapters and scholarly articles. He co edited a number of important books in the sexual offending area, including Remaking relapse prevention, Sage, (with D.R Laws and T. Ward, 2000), the Sourcebook of treatment programs for sexual offenders, Plenum (with W. L. Marshall, Y. A. Fernandez, and S. M. Hudson, 1998), and The juvenile sex offender, Guilford (with H. E. Barbaree, and W. L. Marshall). Dr Hudson died after a short battle with cancer on 1 November 2001. 

D.Richard Laws, PhD, was the director of the Sexual Behavior Laboratory at Atascadero State Hospital in California from 1970-1985; project director at the Florida Mental Health Institute, Tampa, from 1985-1989; manager of forensic psychology at Alberta Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta from 1989-1994; and most recently a psychologist with Adult Forensic Psychiatric Services in Victoria, British Columbia from 1994 until his retirement in 1999. Dr. Laws is known in the field of sexual deviation as a developer of assessment procedures and in program development and evaluation. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters in this area and serveson the editorial board of several journals. He is the editor of Relapse Prevention with Sex Offenders (1989), co-editor with W.L. Marshall and H.E. Barbaree of Handbook of Sexual Assault (1990), co-editor with W.T. O'Donohue of Sexual Deviance (1997), and co-editor with S.M. Hudson and T. Ward of Remaking Relapse Prevention with Sex Offenders (2000). He is past president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. He is adjunct faculty at the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and is Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham (UK) and Cardiff University (UK). 

Tony Ward, PhD, DipClinPsyc, is the Director of the Forensic Psychology Programme at the University of Melbourne. He was previously director of the Kia Marama Programme for sexual offenders at Rolleston Prison, Christchurch, New Zealand. His research interests include the offense process in offenders, cognitive distortions and models of rehabilitation. He has published over 110 research articles, chapters and books. These include Remaking relapse prevention, Sage, (with D.R Laws and S. M. Hudson, 2000) and the Sourcebook of treatment programs for sexual offenders, Plenum (with W. L. Marshall, Y. A. Fernandez, and S. M. Hudson, 1998). He is currently working on a book on theories of sexual offending and rehabilitation (Wiley).