Best Practices & Risk Reduction

Best Practices

COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO SEX OFFENDER MANAGEMENT

A comprehensive approach to sex offender management includes five fundamental principles:

1. Collaboration ensures that all the agencies involved in sex offender management are working together.
2. Victim Centeredness means that the best interests and safety of the victim and community are always foremost.
3. Specialized Knowledge And Skills are required to work with sex offenders.
4. Communities are part of the solution to effective sex offender management and need education to ensure their own and their children’s safety.
5. Monitoring And Evaluating the effectiveness and impact of strategies is important for improving sex offender management and reducing victimization.

These fundamental principles should be applied at each point throughout the criminal justice process:

• Investigations, Prosecution, And Disposition must be thorough, professional and consistent; victim needs and impact must be considered.
• Assessments must be comprehensive and drive the development of case management plans.
• Treatment must be sex offender-specific and tailored to the individual offender’s changeable risk factors.
• Supervision must be in non-traditional ways and in non-traditional hours.
• Re-Entry must promote successful reintegration to end the ‘revolving door’ phenomenon and to enhance long-term community safety.
• Registration protocols must be established for collecting and maintaining accurate identification information about known sex offenders.
• Community Notification must educate community members about sexual abuse, known vs. unknown offenders, and the ways citizens can protect themselves and their families from sexual victimization.

*Comprehensive Assessment Protocol for Sex Offenders”, CSOM www.csom.org

Risk Reduction

7 STEPS TO PROTECTING CHILDREN

1. Learn the Facts Realities-not trust- should influence your decisions regarding your child.
• 93% of victims are abused by family members or a person the family trusts

2. Minimize Opportunity Eliminating or reducing one-adult/one-child situations will dramatically lower the risk of sexual abuse
for children.
• Abusers often become friendly with potential victims and families, earning family trust and gaining time with children
• Monitor Internet use, offenders use the Internet to lure children into physical encounters

3. Talk About It Children often keep abuse a secret, but barriers can be broken down by talking.
• Learn why children won’t tell
• Learn how children communicate
• Talk openly with your child

4. Stay Alert Don’t expect obvious signs when a child is being sexually abused.
• Emotional or behavioral signals are the most common signs of abuse; physical signs of sexual abuse are the least common

5. Make A Plan Learn where to go, who to call and how to react.
• Believe the child and make sure s/he knows it
• Encourage the child to talk, but don’t ask questions
• Seek the help of a professional
• Report or take action in all cases of suspected abuse

6. Act On Suspicions The future well-being of a child is at stake.
• Acting on suspicions of child sexual abuse may save countless others because many perpetrators have multiple victims

7. Get Involved Volunteer and financially support organizations that fight the tragedy of child sexual abuse
• Support legislation that protects children
• Demand that the government allocate resources for the fight
against child sexual abuse
• Call and write members of Congress and newspapers

Adapted from Darkness to Light
For more information: www.Darkness2light.org