Summary
Response to Cherly Marie Webster and others in this issue p. 79 - Canada
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Extract
Reply to Webster, Gartner, and Doob.
Cheryl Webster, Rosemary Gartner, and Anthony Doob have criticized as "fatally flawed" our study "Lifetime Sex Offender Recidivism: A 25-Year Follow-Up Study," which appeared in this journal in October 2004. Their conclusions, however, are based on major omissions of facts, both from our study and from the world literature; careless and inappropriate comparisons of data; and what appears to be an unfamiliarity with the practice of forensic psychiatry and psychology as it applies to sex offenders. Following are some of the problems with the critique that led to their conclusions.
Sexual offending as a temporary problem Webster et al. (2006) seem unaware of current pessimism among treatment providers of sex offenders and open their critique as follows: "Despite the persistent notion that sex offenders have a lasting--perhaps even incurable--propensity to commit further sexual offences, this belief has not been borne out by empirical studies," and quote a number of short-term follow-up studies to suggest that reoffending rates are generally low for sex offenders (80). Interestingly, they quote work by R. Karl Hanson, Ian Broom, and Marylee Stephenson (2004) later in their critique but do not mention here that these authors reported a difference of l...See the full content of this document
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