Phallometry (or penile plethysmography) is a technique for measuring penile erection in response to a variety of stimuli, used with many procedural varia~ tions in different sex offender assessment centres . Recent research suggests that penile plethysmography, in spite of its many unresolved methodological problems, is both valid and reliable. The technique is ideaUy suited to challenge sex offenders' denials, assess their treatment needs and to evaluate treatment, although it can not be relied upon, on its own, to establish guilt or predict future deviant sexual behav~ iour. An examination of current practice suggests a number of areas where research is needed: to design and standardise stimulus material; to provide more reliability data; to develop and test procedures to discourage faking; and to carry out validation studies with forensic and non~forensic populations (which include a detailed analysis of the subjects' sexual history, motivation and fantasies). Finally, professional guide~ lines are needed to control conduction and interpretation of assessments, use of stim~ uli and counselling of clients.
Eighty‐nine prison officers were asked to rate the importance of 25 potential sources of stress in their work. They were also administered a twelve‐item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) as a measure of occupational stress. General Health (GH) was not related to age. It was related to rank, with senior officers reporting lower levels of stress than basic grade officers. The relationship between GH and length of service was curvilinear, with officers who had worked an intermediate number of years in the prison service reporting more stress. The factor analysis of the 25 sources of stress suggested that stress originated from two main sources, inmates and management, the weight given to these two factors being unrelated to the age, rank or experience of the officers. It was however related to the officers' reported stress on the GHQ. In particular, stressed officers were more likely to report inmates to be a source of stress than non‐stressed officers. Implications and plans for future research are discussed.
INTRODUCTION: Relapse prevention (RP) is now applied to sex offending. It has been questioned as to whether RP is worthwhile. This paper aims to evaluate this technique. THE ROCHESTER RP PROGRAMME: The purpose of the Rochester RP programme is to refine and strengthen skills gained in the prison department's sex offender treatment programme. The objective of the programme is to teach prisoners to recognize the chain of events leading up to their current offences and to practise strategies to interrupt this chain. THEORETICAL BASIS FOR RP: Stopping an undesired behaviour and maintaining abstinence are two different problems. RP aims to address the maintenance problems. At the centre of RP theory is a study of the conditions that can turn lapse into relapse. Yet RP has been criticized as a lot of jargon saying very little. Ward and Hudson criticize RP constructs and their interaction. Such debates have few implications for clinical work and most of the criticism flies in the face of clinical experience. RESEARCH BASIS FOR RP: Risk factors for sex offenders are being identified. Local evaluation of the Rochester programme suggests that prisoners do learn to identify risk factors and to develop coping strategies. As yet, however, there is no evidence as to whether RP works or not. DISCUSSION: A way to improve the efficacy of an RP programme may be to augment it with additional modules, e.g. behaviour therapy, drug treatment, continued work with the same prison staff and relaxation training. CONCLUSION: RP theory is sound in essence but suffers from an overlay of cumbersome vocabulary. Reliable research is emerging.
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