STUDY GUIDE
Unit 7—Helping Victims and Rehabilitating Offenders
Overview
In this unit, we look at both sides of sex crime: the victim and offender. The victim can be of any age or gender, but some groups are more at risk of victimization. The impact on primary victims has been studied, and it is understood that some types of treatments can offer ways of reducing the symptoms of anxiety and fear in victims. However, the impact of an assault—even one that only lasts a few minutes—may be long lasting, even in a muted form. Social support from those around the victim is a powerful means of help, but it cannot be implemented if the victim does not reveal to others that the assault occurred. Victims fail to report sexual assaults because of stigmatization and because of a sense of guilt that they may have provoked the crime. Fear and misunderstanding of the justice system also play a role.
Secondary victims are often forgotten in the analysis of crime. Secondary victims are the spouses, friends, children, and parents of the victim, and they, too, are impacted by the assault. Each of these groups suffers, but help is often not provided to them. Domestic disintegration is, therefore, a common outcome of sexual crimes. Support groups for victims of sexual assault exist in most urban centres and provide a broad array of assistance.
On the other side of the equation is the perpetrator of sex crimes. What is society to do with them? In Canada, the Criminal Code (section 718) sets out the fundamental objectives of sentencing to a) denounce unlawful conduct; b) deter the offender and other persons from committing offences; c) separate offenders from society, where necessary; d) assist in rehabilitating offenders; e) provide reparations for harm done to victims or the community; and f) promote a sense of responsibility in offenders, and acknowledgment of the harm done to victims and to the community (Canadian Criminal Sentencing/Principles of Sentencing 2011).
While these objectives cannot be achieved in every case, the men and women who provide rehabilitation services aspire to them. Success has been shown in psychological interventions with sex offenders, but it is not global. Some offenders do much better than others, and research on these findings helps target those who can most use treatment. There are many obstacles to providing treatment to this group of people, but most forensic psychologists do not see any alternative but to provide the best possible interventions that our science can provide, both for the protection of society and the welfare of the offender.
STUDY GUIDE
Unit 7—Helping Victims and Rehabilitating Offenders
Reading Assignment
- T. Holmes and R. M. Holmes, Sex crimes: Patterns and behavior(3rd ed.), Chapters 13 and 14
Unit 7—Helping Victims and Rehabilitating Offenders
Key Terms and Concepts
- Primary victim
- Secondary victim
- Sexual victimization
- Date rape
- Stages of victim response
- Victims’ rights groups
- Castration
- Rehabilitation
- Habilitation
- Meta-analysis
- Incapacitation
- Retribution
- Behaviour therapy
- Cognitive therapy
- Medical treatment
- Depo-Provera
